To think IT need to do more to facilitate me WFH?

[NameChangedSpring25]

I have recently returned from maternity leave, to a company where i have worked for 10 years. Since the pandemic, there has been a (non-contractual) hybrid working arrangement where everyone can work from home 2-3 days per week if work allows (i.e. no face to face meetings), with a Wednesday being mandatory in the office.

Since my return, i have found a lot of people do work in the office more than the minimum 2-3 days, and it appears to be frowned upon not to be physically present. I'm finding this difficult, though no one has said anything.

Furthermore, a core part of my role requires a VPN connection (not many people need this but i need to use a software that is only accessible remotely with the connection). There have been issues with this connection, and its intermittent / unreliable. IT's instant fix is 'come into the office'. It doesn't affect enough people for them to care as only 6 people in the whole company need this software, and it works fine in the office.

I just cant do this - i have arranged my childcare around working in office 2 (max 3) days. Nursery only opens 8-6 and i do most all pickups (DH does most drop offs). I can't get from the office to nursery without leaving at 4pm, and if i do this i need to log on after bedtime to pick up the requests I've missed in the last hour or so (and often i cant do them due to no VPN!). its not sustainable. If i switch to drop offs i wouldn't get to the office until 10am and there are often urgent things i should have dealt with so that looks bad too. (unfortunately 9-10am and 4-5pm busiest two periods of the working day for me and my team).

I can do my job remotely very well - i just need the VPN to be working. AIBU to think IT need to do more to fix this instead of just saying 'connect from the office'?

Another option would be choose a daycare near the office so you drop off and pickup on the way to and from the office and your baby comes to/from work with you. Or same with your husband.

Are you working full time and is your child in daycare full time because if I found my staff were attempting to work from home while looking after their child, I would revoke the work from home option.

That rather depends how things are set up. There are ways to make it less so.
But anyway, she can connect to the VPN she just can't rely on the connection being stable so it depends what the software does. If it's something to churn out reports then just setting it going then checking back later is all that is needed.

She didn’t have childcare issues as she planned it in line with her work policy.

God mn really hates wfh doesn’t it?! Yes, IT needs to sort your vpn out - can you get your manager to email IT to escalate it?

our vpn used to drop off lots but they’ve moved me onto “always on” connection so I don’t have that issue anymore, thank god. And no, the issue wasn’t my home fibre it was an update that hadn’t filtered through to my work laptop.

OK wifi link.
Unfortunately intermittency on guest wifi would almost be normal/expected. You'd need to find somewhere at a time where your WiFi connection is solid then show the vpn still drops. Ask IT what time overnight the internal network is 'quiet', make sure the family/tv etc are not thrashing your home network and see if the vpn drops in that window. If it stays up then intermittency is a congestion issue.

The business moving to the cloud is effectively how it's handled DR and the vpn issue. Eminently reasonable they no longer care about vpn.

If the software you are using is business critical it is reasonable to ask the business what is the DR scenario/is there a plan to migrate to a cloud equivalent.

If its not critical then switch it off?

Mn hates wfh and thinks we’re all lazy and should be doing long commutes and suffer because a pleasant work environment that allows you to balance your family is not fair on those who can’t have that.

Yes I’m full time and baby in nursery full time. it wouldn't be possible to WFH if baby was at home!

That means it's at the bottom of my list, behind fixing things that benefit multiple people, things that have no workaround, things that affect outside customers and things that bring money into the company.

No, OP needs to speak to her boss and they will decide what your priorities are.

IT departments are rubbish at deciding what is a business priority.

Intermittent issues that don't have a known trigger so aren't reproducible (which this sounds like) are some of the worst kinds of issues to troubleshoot. It quite often takes far more time than end users expect.

Something with a known workaround that is only intermittently impacting a small number of users will be a low priority ticket. If they knew how to fix it they would have, they can't roll a fix out if they don't know what's causing the problem. If it's been going on this long it's not likely to be an obvious fix.

OP: Go to your boss and ask them to escalate it with IT. If they are busy and snowed under (most companies), something like this will only get the time dedicated to it if it's escalated.

Tell me you have never worked in IT without telling me!!!
Any IT department I have worked in, it's the business that set ITs priorities, of which there are always too many, and never enough budget or resources to do it.
This is why unfortunately someone in IT can just go doing random requests for people like OP.

Most modern laptops don't have ethernet ports. Hard to test an ethernet connection without one.

I don't know what sector you work in, but I work in law firms and for all decent law firms a well-functioning and helpful IT department is a priority. I have never been fobbed off by IT because they have other business priorities. It should be a priority to enable their fee earners to do their jobs effectively.

@XelaM
Exactly but unless the business agrees with OP to officially working from home & accessing that application is required from home, then it's not a priority. If the business/OP manager defines that this is required then, absolutely IT should fix it.
Otherwise IT will work on the long list of priorities.

Yeah, definitely this. It's a way of forcing people back in.

If the hybrid working rule hasn't been changed officially, it's a sneaky way to get people in 'voluntarily' without looking like the bad guys changing the rules.

I'd prepare for a rule change to come in at some point and work out your strategy (official contract change with HR or whatever) now for when that happens.

I agree there is an extremely high likelihood that it's your broadband that's the issue, and that is for you to fix not your IT department. VPNs are sensitive to drops. If you run speedtest, what is the performance and what is the jitter? Have it tested it when the VPN is down? Who is your provider?

I'm with you OP. We all have to use the VPN for our work, lots of us are hybrid, it's perfectly possible to sort out. Your IT department sounds poor.

Did you discuss your plans for working with your manager before returning? If you did, and agreed to your in and out of office plans, then speak to your manager. They have a member of staff unable to work effectively. If you didn't agree your work patterns in advance then it appears from what you say that you worked on assumptions about what you would be able to do. The company are entitled to decide they want staff back in the office. Which ever is the case I suggest stop talking to IT and sit down with your manager.

It seems more like the hybrid working was never agreed and formalised.

Do you know anyone in IT?

Persistent intermittent problems affecting only small numbers of people can be a huge time suck and it can be difficult to get them adequately prioritised. However, they are the kind of thing that some network engineers love to get to the bottom of. If you can find the right person and ask them nicely, that might be your best bet. (Obvs depends hugely on the nature of the organisation etc etc).

Also, I agree with the PP who suggested trying an ethernet connection. You can get usb-ethernet adaptors if your laptop doesn't have an ethernet port.

I don't understand your initial post.

Nobody should be working from home without using a VPN (or similar - e.g. zscaler) to connect to your business network.

With regards to vpn reliability, if there was a problem with the service it would impact everybody, so the problem is likely to be your home network or business PC.

Have you tried disabling WiFi on your PC and running a cable from your laptop to the home router to see if that resolves the problem?

For one person?

As @RedSkyDelights said

I work in IT. I have a very long list of things to do. Fixing OP's VPN connection seems to a thing that only benefits her and has a workaround (come into the office). That means it's at the bottom of my list, behind fixing things that benefit multiple people, things that have no workaround, things that affect outside customers and things that bring money into the company.

No. I know, so they're trying to phase it out.

I'm suggesting the OP needs to thinks about how to formalise it.

Ours was never a formal arrangement either, but there have still been comes about changing expectations regarding office presence.

Okay…so most people login from home usually an additional push/pass code to a mobile app which is not required in the office. Then all their usual application (Teams/Office365/Sharepoint/Other Document access and other cloud based software works fine)
the additional software I need to connect to is a database that is not cloud based and needs a VPN to connect

Majority of the time this issue lies with the users home network. Some users seem to think they can demand that IT spend silly amounts of time prioritising their inability to connect despite ruling out all possible business causes, because the user refuses to contact their provider, and then go and cry to their boss about it being IT at fault but this doesn't change the fact that there is nothing further we can do. Sky is particularly problematic with VPNs. We have so much that we have to deliver to the business, meaningful and large scale things which suffer a shortage in our time mostly down to wasting so much of it repeatedly spoon feeding WFH users on the most basic things despite being inducted and help documents being available. Dead batteries in mice, screens not being plugged in, sitting miles away from their router then whining about things being slow, not restarting their machine for days on end, clicking on blatant scams, accountants not being able to get to grips with basic functions of their job in excel, asking for free support with personal equipment. Get in touch with your provider or get into the office it's that simple.

This. I work in IT and we have similar challenges. We are not set up to be able to troubleshoot all the various personal home set up combos. People have different sort of connections, wifi, other devices on the network and it's so so hard. We are not resourced to do this, it takes literally hours and the people say things like "oh I don't want to move my router" or "my DH has a more important job so he gets to sit in the room with the best wifi". What are we supposed to do? I recruit and train people to support entreprise IT not home setup.