My manager is making me come in the office 4days a week

[Lavendar01]

Since beginning of my role (which was coming out of covid), I've been hybrid working 3days in the office and 2days wfh. I had my own office but had to give it up for other staff that were in full time. Manger agreed for me to wfh and come in once a week - worked perfect!

In my recent supervision manager said he wants me in 4days a week "business need" and that there will be a room available to share with a couple of other staff. I've gone in and that room isn't set up, currently its dusty with extra office furniture/ equipment, basically being used storage room for now. I made a point to my manager and said could I continue wfh until the room is sorted, he refused and said to set up in that room somewhere in the corner for now.

AIBU here thinking I am within my right to refuse to be there until I have a proper work station set up, as required for my role? Not to mention sitting in an empty room for 8 hours with no interaction effects my mental wellbeing

I’m assuming at least at home she is in comfortable surroundings and doesn’t have to commute. What the point of travelling to the office to sit by herself. Just my thoughts.

How many of us are WFH since Covid and now miss having an office to go to?

My day-job has about 200 people in the same position. Now, we only get to interact with each other by email or video calls. We used to moan like hell about having to get to work before 8am to get a car park space. But most of us miss that now. Being in the office meant human contact and a social life as well. Little things like having tea breaks or lunch together, in hindsight that meant a lot.

WFH has affected most of us, some people are clearly not suited to being isolated and have got mental health issues now. Sometimes we "joke" about being in solitary confinement five days a week. The colleagues we worry about most are the ones that are sound-only on the calls. It's a delicate subject. Should we joke about it? "Are you still in your pajamas?" Knowing that some people look dreadful.

Most people set up their own work stations to how they like them. Stop being so awkward and get on with it.

'why are people suggesting OP cleans and sorts this room, thats not her job! She needs a DSE compliant workstation which her company should have no issue providing. This is a case of a bad manager asking her to come in with nothing ready.'

Oh how I hate it when people say... that's not my job
Get over yourself. Your workstation. You sort it. In my job the moment I walk in the door and get asked to do something, it's my job.

@LastRoIo I'm interested in what you said about studies showing WFH is less productive - have you got the links to that research? All the info I can find says that working from home at least as part of a hybrid model is more beneficial to both employer and employee.

The only ones I can find that say it lowers productivity were undertaken or reported by organisations that are known to have a bias against WFH and seem to have been undertaken between 2021 and 2023 when there was a real push by the UK and US governments to get people back in the office.

There was some research done by Stanford in 2023 which showed fully remote caused a dip in productivity, but their most recent study in 2024 showed hybrid working with WFH two days a week showed no difference in productivity and made for happier and healthier employees. 2023 CIPD research shows similar.

Genuinely interested in any credible studies which show the opposite.

@Lavendar01 - put a formal flexible working request in for more time working from home - maybe compromise on three days in the office or three one week and two the next. Your boss can only use one of eight statutory reasons to say no:

• The burden of additional costs,
• Detrimental effect on ability to meet customer demand,
• Inability to reorganise work among existing staff,
• Inability to recruit additional staff,
• Detrimental impact on quality,
• Detrimental impact on performance,
• Insufficiency of work during the periods the employee proposes to work
• Planned structural changes.

You could address each of them in your application and if you come across as being sensible and willing to compromise then given how long your current arrangement has been in place, it will be quite difficult to say no!

You can also make a request up to twice a year, so if they do find a way of saying no, keep a record of how being in the office four days is not beneficial - it doesn't have to be negative - you just need to be able to demonstrate that there is no benefit (e.g. 90% of meetings are on teams, x number of days without speaking to anyone else etc, inability to be flexible with early or late calls due to commuting etc) and then re-apply in six months time.

OP- you ARE an adult. You can easily get the room sorted out. You just don’t want to and want to use having to do a bit of housework and maybe send an email to IT to get some screens or whatever it is you need as an excuse to not work in the office again. I get it- change can be scary, but it really could be a sweet set-up as presumably you get first dibs on the best desk.

If you don’t like it you are welcome to find a fully remote job of course. You are not being held captive.

Do you not sit at home in an empty room with no interaction?

whaa.. You are employed, the manager is your manager. You do as they ask.

Yes, you need a compliant workstation under the DSE Regs (desk, adjustable chair, adjustable screen etc) and you also need a clean, ventilated space under the MHSW Regs. All employers responsibility to provide.
However, unless your contract says otherwise, sounds like they are within their rights to ask you to go in 4 days, whether you like it or not.

They are within their rights to tell you to return to the office - is the space offered actually set up as a workstation it's not clear if it is but just with some extra furniture being stored in it.
I really wouldn't use the interacting with your husband as an argument to wfh....

@NavyTurtle Oh how I hate it when people say... that's not my job
Get over yourself. Your workstation. You sort it. In my job the moment I walk in the door and get asked to do something, it's my job.''

Daft.

If you are employed as an office worker and one day your boss asks you to clean the staff toilets and shine his/her shoes you are going to do that? really?

Raise your standards.

Employees are not mindless slaves that have to blindly say yes to every requests.

It is the law as well for employers to provide a decent work environment that complies with the law and to do DES assessments.

Welcome to the real world.

And to add to that, I know many people in these professionals who preferred it when more people worked at home because it left public transport less crowded and the streets less busy for them to travel to their place of work.

Thankfully Not everyone is so petty that they want others out working in the office just because their role isn’t suitable for WFH

hear hear @aylis is spot on 😂

Here we go.

‘Coming to work will affect my mental health’.

The gravy train is well on its way. OP, you sound like a nightmare at work.

My day-job has about 200 people in the same position. Now, we only get to interact with each other by email or video calls. We used to moan like hell about having to get to work before 8am to get a car park space. But most of us miss that now. Being in the office meant human contact and a social life as well. Little things like having tea breaks or lunch together, in hindsight that meant a lot.

But rather than being either completely WFH or completely office-based, most of us are hybrid and therefore get the best of both worlds? A few days of human contact and struggling to park, a few days of teams calls and no commute. Surely we’ve found the sweet-spot there?

Isn't it just so annoying when you are asked to do your job in the office....For goodness sake, just go to work and stop bleating
..lt's what your manager requires, if you don't like it, go elsewhere. Stop trying to find ways to do what you want, atleast you will have one day out of five to do what you like...

How awful an employer expecting someone they are paying to turn up at their place of work! The very audacity!

7our arguement doesnt srack up

It's the same as wfh though if alone in a space, sounds like bliss actually!

You can make it your own personal working area. Xx

This will of course be responded to by those who wfh and squirm at having to go into an office compared to those who don't have a choice and work in the real world of face to face public.

Yes, I am one of those who has to get up, travel, deal with young people all day then get home tired to do the best for my own family.

So, sorry to say, complaining about having your own office space, which is the same as wfh I assume, isn't really a big deal...at all?

It must be upsetting if it's not your choice. But I guess you have to comply, unless your contract says otherwise. Random reasons for not complying won't help you long term. We get called back in where I am if they think you're not working.

Of course it must be, so if you were required to go into the office every day you would be upset. Do you feel entitled to these privileges though, because you have them, or would you accept having to actually go to a workplace is acceptable 🤔?

We hot desk at my work. Following Covid this was to be avoided therefore I was left without a desk, so I would sit wherever there was a space which quite often meant working with my laptop on my knee. It’s only in the last 18months (as we’ve changed work spaces) that I’ve now got my own desk which I still technically hot desk. WFH wasn’t / isn’t an option for my line of work. When we moved workspaces we cleared & cleaned the new space - no one did this for us.

Yawn, another ‘check your privilege’ post …..