To think if you moved out to the countryside during Covid, you can't demand remote working?

[JacquesHarlow]

Before I get piled on, the key word here is demanding remote working based on their lifestyle choices, and therefore going against an employer's setup (mandated hybrid or full 5 day wees).

The number of people I have interacted with in the last year who feel entitled to fully remote and flexible now, never coming in, because they took a gamble five years ago and relocated outside of where the work is....is staggering.

Let me rewind for a minute -

I understand from the ACAS site etc that people are legally allowed to request flexible working. But surely employers are equally allowed to turn it down or request a modified version (you have to come in X days). So why do so many people moan about this, as if they're entitled to fully remote?

I guess the answer lies in the pandemic.

For desk based jobs such as mine and many others, we were able to work remotely in Covid-19 office lockdowns. Many people reported increased productivity. We could work variable hours, walk the dog at lunchtime, pick up the DCs and then jump on Teams calls. No need to pay expensive £6k a year season tickets, less money spend on childminding to cover the commute etc.

However these couple of years also saw all kind of people look at what their flat or house inside the M25 was worth, cash in, and then flee to all points of the compass in the UK, using their strong London pound so to speak to buy up all kinds of acreage in Frome, Weymouth, Cambridgeshire, you name it.

Where I'm struggling is how many people I've seen on here will say "I've applied to a job which is clearly stated 4 days a week in person in the office. Does anyone work here and can say how firm this is, can I demand it be remote? I live 2.5 hours away from London and it'll cost me £70 a day" etc."

Why though? Does an employer have to throw its office policy out the window every time someone who moved away from London wants the same salary and access to the job market, but won't come in on their terms anymore?

Am I being unreasonable to say that people are being unrealistic about this?

Do any of you think that we should be able to request fully remote when applying for a job, no matter what the employer's policy is? And that it is "discrimination" if they don't?

I mean, one person on here was told by a prospective employer that they need to be mindful not to have their toddler crying out too much while they're on Teams calls with clients. The job seeker then got upset in their post and said "I don't think this job is for me"...

Has COVID completely changed people's expectations that they should be able to do it all with a toddler on their lap?

AIBU?!

It depends. I work longer hours on my wfh days as I’m not needing to commute. I’ll sometimes log on in evening or early. Office day I’m tired with commute in bad traffic and have never logged on after.

Not really an opinion- if everything got done and the wheels didn’t fall off the company I’d say that’s a fact!

That said, I agree there are wider issues re culture and training up new staff but so often these aren’t properly addressed in the call to get everyone back into the office or they aren’t achieved properly because it’s done so badly.

I'm a Civil Servant & have been for 42 years - most of which have been office based.

Lock-down threw all the balls in the air. When lockdown was announced there was no facility for WFH as we didn't have the IT necessary.

Those who couldn't come into the office were on 'gardening leave' the rest of us worked our socks off for no overtime until the Union negotiated it about 4 weeks into lockdown. I remember claiming 80 hours overtime in April. We were phoning people who were desperate. They would burst into tears when we phoned to sort their claims out, saying 'Thank God you've called'. They were wondering how they would pay their bills until their claims had been sorted.

It suited my Dept to have me working from home for much of lockdown & beyond.

Since then I have changed job to a role when I don't have face to face contact with the public. I've been required to work in my local office for 40% of my time - this will increase of 70% of my time in September. I have been given 3 month's notice of the change in policy and, if (unless there's a health reason or other reason why I can't attend the office) I don't like it I can resign. Personally I have no problem with it. I rather like going into the office & meeting people who I've worked with for more than 30 years & newer colleagues who I've trained.

The long & short is, if your employer has given you due notice of changing your contract & you decide to give up your job as a result & then claim benefits, you could face being sanctioned - this means no Universal Credit for 91 days.

MN would be a good starting point - there was a thread on here recently with so many posters gleefully sharing how they rigged their laptop to make it look like they were busy working when they weren't.

I feel that a lot of the country went through something traumatic in Covid, it was private to our homes so the government can kind of pretend everyone is over it now. But that’s not necessarily true. Some people were lucky but many weren’t and they had a horrific time and still carry the health and mental health consequences. The country we have all re-emerged to is basically fucked. Food, energy, housing (rent and mortgage) daily running costs just completely out of control, in relation to wages, even before the pandemic but so much more so.

Employees (and the government) should be encouraging WFH and local hubs to redistribute wealth. London can’t be the be all and end all for wealth generation. Too many areas outside London and the SE don’t generate decently paying jobs. I don’t begrudge anyone living further away and working remotely. I also don’t begrudge people already living outside London and the SE taking London and SE wage jobs now that WFH is a more widespread possibility. It widens the pool of talent.

I find the optics of managers in their 40s-60s who probably have secure housing in cities, telling other employees on lesser wages where to live, is terrible. Workers are being told they either have to either stump up for city centre living again which has become even more exorbitant since the pandemic, or to suffer hours of even more expensive unreliable commuting to come in. It’s a horrible security v precarity powerplay.

Highly complacent as well. Younger employees at our workplace have been able to buy (outside London) whereas they would have been renting for the rest of their lives in London. These people now feel able to start families. This is a good thing. The workplace and the policies of government have to adapt to the financial realities of life. Cheap living and housing and shorter waiting times for NHS treatment are not coming back any time soon.

You can find plenty of threads of people doing nothing in an office and dicking about. Threads on a forum are always going to be the extremes “I do my work properly” isn’t a thrilling thread.

Jealous much

It's on a par with the people who got dogs during Covid, thinking they'd never have to go back to work again! Then suddenly they're summoned back to work and have to arrange dog walkers and child care. It wasn't going to be that good forever and people need to realise that employers want their staff back at work, working! Not doing the school run, going to the gym, pegging out the washing, taking the dog out etc etc. I know it seems harsh but did people really think this was life forever now?!

It’s the wfh bingo.

I’m under no illusion if my employer could find someone cheaper in India than me then they would, but they can’t. The UK is a fairly low wage economy anyway. But that would be the case whether I was in the office or not.

I think yabu OP.

There are two main bases of objections to remote jobs, jealousy and concerns about real estate.

My employer has offloaded most of our office space. If everyone went in it we’d be shoulder to shoulder like a nightclub. But MIL still has a DM-related dig about me not being office based everytime I see her.

Personally I clear FAR more work when WFH than in the office.

But I'm talking about an office where I have many friends/colleagues who I've worked with (some of them for 40+) years. Also I've trained many others over the years.

I can tell my DH to piss off & leave me alone if he disturbs my work I can't do that when a colleague bounces up to my desk for a chat.

Going to the loo at home takes 2 minutes, whereas at work it's at least 10/15 minutes as it's a big building, I have to wait for a lift (I have mobility problems & can't manage the stairs) & then I inevitably bump into someone who wants a chat. At home DH brings me cups of tea to my desk - at work I have to make my way to a tea point, again, meeting someone who wants a chat.

Then there are those who realise I'm in the office & pop up to just asking for 5 minutes about to ask my specialist advice about a difficult case that they have.

Given that the Taxpayer pays me about £30ph I swear all these 'chats' waiting for the lift etc probably take about 45 minutes out of a day I could be at home doing something more constructive.

You're conflating different issues I think. Working from home is one thing, working with a child on your lab completely another. Obviously you should be giving full attention to your job in your contracted hours. But walking the dog or doing the laundry on a lunch break is fine imo. I do think the pandemic showed some jobs can be done very effectively at least partly from home and I for one would have a much worse work-life balance if I had to be in the office 5 days a week (1hr commute into london), and would only accept a job like that if I really had to. I would ask before applying if a hybrid approach would be considered, and negotiate the specifics after a job offer. And finally people request all sorts of flexible working patterns for all sorts of reasons, and I do think businesses should try to accommodate these as long as performance isn't negatively impacted.

Edited to add I don't think businesses should move the goalposts if you're already in a certain job!

Please re-read my message. I’m saying just because you happen to have seen x number of people who seemed to be on work calls while walking their dog, doesn’t mean you can extrapolate that WFH is less efficient than office working as a whole.

Also I am sort of in this category and thought maybe I will move closer to work. However the house prices near my work are too high. The difference is more than I could make In the years I have left to retirement. People are only trying to survive. Yes in an ideal world everyone would be a big happy work family maybe with on site childcare. In reality people can’t afford to live near work often. The whole system is broken. Houses cost too much, commuting costs too much, too difficult, roads are gridlocked, nowhere to park, childcare too much. Employers expect more and more. Wages are stagnant. Everyone is working flat out and trying to juggle home and work life. So what if some people think you should not wfh. If you can why not. Every year wfh with children is a year closer to more flexibility!

I dick about way more in the office. And it’s not as if dicking about in the office is a new concept. There are two hugely successful TV comedies which are entirely about people dicking around in an office - and there’s a reason they struck a chord!

Me too! All my time is logged in six minute units (and it’s checked and scrutinised) so work know it is valid. In the office - I do only about an extra half an hour each day. Wfh days - usually get an extra two hours in. And I get value in which is a bonus for me. So it’s a win for myself and my employer. Most of my colleagues do similar.

I love wfh. But then my employers had already introduced this and set up proper systems for it a couple of years before Covid. My friends at other firms have mainly all been told to return 4-5 days a week so I’ve never been happier to work at my place.

I totally agree with you.

There are many jobs-mine included. I manage 16 staff in a stressful & responsible job. It's not always easy to have a private, confidential discussion over Teams when in an open office where people can hear my side of the conversation & their part of it if they're in an office which sometimes is in an office open to the public.

My staff are spread over 3 counties & are over 250 miles apart in a part of the country that isn't well serviced by public transport. It's not practical for us to meet face to face if they have something confidential or sensitive that they need to discuss. I will often suggest that I we both go home early & we have the discussion from home in order to have these conversations. I don't know how we will manage should we be forced into the office 100% of the time.

I also have staff who care for people, have neuro-divergent conditions & other disabilities who were employed under a WFH contract. post covid (there was previously no option to WFH). However, their contracts specify that the Dept can change it given 3 month's notice. WFH is not set in stone & I fear losing some valuable members of my team who work hard & make a valuable contribution to our work (not to mention the money that the tax payer has spent on their training) should the Govt decide to remove the opportunity for them to WFH.

I need to say that we have a very sympathetic senior manager who allows us to have a Team meeting twice a year where we meet somewhere central(ish) travel expenses paid, we do some work stuff & then we take flexi-leave for the rest of the day, have lunch together & generally have a get together. Last time we had a bit of a 'do' for a colleague who was going on maternity leave - we had cup cakes, a 'guess who's the baby' quiz & a good gossip after we'd done the work stuff.

This has been an issue in my brother's sector, where it seems very doable for many to work from home. It's in health, and they have actually always been encouraged to work for differernt medical sites.

But many during covid got the idea that they should therefore be able to work from whole other parts of the country, where commuting isn't really even possible without overnight accommodations being part of the picture. And people were pissy about it, even though in the contract it states that in emergency situations they can actually be called in to work from the site indefinitely - as in, they don't go home until the emergency is over.

But there are also other issues. One of the reasons they encouraged people working from differernt sites is so their staff would be familiar with them, and also get to know the on-site staff, and also in part to be seen to be working by other parts of the organisation. Plus they spend quite a bit of regular time on differernt kinds of training and upgrading, and mentoring too.

Which isn't always that visible to less perceptive employees, who only seem to see it in terms of how much they get done at home.

What really needs to happen is these kinds of companies need to relocate to a place where they can employ people at a wage that will allow them to buy a home.

But surely employers are equally allowed to turn it down or request a modified version

By law, the company has to provide a valid business reason to reject an application for flexible working. A person can challenge them and take them to tribunal if it isn't a genuine reason.

I personally find the push to force people back into the office disgusting. Years have passed. People who have given literally decades of their lives to our company and now, for personal reasons can't go to the office are facing the sack. It's clearly a brutal and arbitrary way of reducing headcount.

Yeah it’s absolute entitlement gone wild

The company I work for has had to start offering hybrid roles in certain departments since COVID as it was very clear applicants were expecting this. It isn't offered in certain departments (including mine), particularly in operations - in which, to be fair, some of the jobs couldn't actually be done remotely. I pay at least £80 a week travel costs and up to £400 a month for wrap around care. Do I like that? No. Do I enjoy my job? Yes.

For those members of the company that WFH, I find generally that they aren't as up to speed with the rapidly changing situations at work, nor do they necessarily appreciate some of the current pressures. That said, I do understand how helpful flexibility can be. For sectors such as mine though, where hybrid working wasn't previously a thing, it all still feels a bit disjointed now. Maybe it'll settle, but I do feel that face to face interaction is important - both for productivity and mental health reasons. I appreciate that others feel differently though, and that's fine.

Good.

No it's not a good thing for the people in the less populated areas. It's turned into a nightmare.