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?!

I wasn't talking about having kids with you when working, I pointed out that someone could be paying for several hours more childcare due to covering the commute.

I'm fully aware people had to do it before Covid, I was one of them paying for expensive childcare for a job I had to be in the office for, which is why I back WFH so strongly as I nearly had a nervous breakdown trying to do my job like that when DDs were younger.

And hence I could only do the job part time when it had to be office based. One of my red lines when I went full time in 2019 in my current job was that I could have two days at home, and over my dead body would my employer change that. Fortunately my boss has a similar sensible approach to me to life balance.

We should be backing each other here against the interests of plutocrat commercial property investors who would have us all working like lab rats if they could, not tearing one another down.

Oh how simply dreadful to have new people living in your village. 🙄

Because I wfh it is far easier for me to be flexible about working time. This is something which benefits my employer. At certain crunch times in the month I can be online at 6am and have the time critical parts of my job done before the 9am starters are in.

It doesn't matter that those time critical tasks were performed by me in my dressing gown.

Also, because I wfh, I am able to join meetings with my US based colleagues late in the evening.

I personally feel it's entirely and utterly unreasonable to demand office attendance for jobs that do not require it.

Allowing full work from home doesn't only help parents, it helps people with health conditions get and keep jobs they otherwise would not. Im sure there's other groups, carers etc.

Employers need to get over themselves and get with the times, and allow home working (unless, of course, the job cannot be sufficiently done remotely). If you come in an office just to sit at a computer, you can do it from home.

They'll have no choice soon anyway, what with the Labour government and it's get disabled people into work push. Employers will be legally obliged to allow fully remote home working to enable this. Thankfully, I'm sure that will be extending to other people it will benefit too.

Can't wait to grab my popcorn for that drama.

Is London weighting really still a thing outside the public sector? I got paid it 15+ years ago when I worked for a fairly old fashioned company. It was £3,600 PA, £2,160 after tax. Barely touched the sides of my commuting costs (around £7k PA) even then.

I have a 'London' job now but WFH full time. I negotiated the salary on the basis that they needed me more than I needed them (niche skillset). 'London weighting' wasn't part of the discussion.

There needs to be a concrete business reason to insist people come into work. Of course many jobs can't be done at all/as effectively from home. We are one of those families who moved out of London during the pandemic, not very far, about 20 miles along M40.
My commute is 40-60 mins, I'm a healthcare professional so have to do it and it would be unreasonable of me to refuse.
My DH job is desk based, it makes absolutely no difference to his employer whether that desk is in our home or their office, and for them to insist he comes in is unreasonable.

are you new to MN? Do you know how this forum works? Why is anyone bothered by anything? Probably the same reason why you bother to comment on their threads.

WFH is a pisstake where most people abuse it and have ruined it for everyone else. This gig was never going to last forever. Just search the threads on MN where people are saying how little they do at home.

No there does not need to be a concrete reason at all. The employer does not need to justify you as to why they actually need to you to attend a workplace. If you want to dictate where you work, then you have the option of being your own employer:

Never in the history of MN has a thread proved OPs point as much as this one does. The entitlement is off the scale. No wonder employers are doubling down on return to office.

This. I’m about to recruit for a specialist role. It will be fully remote because I know I can get the skills I need for a lower salary in places where we don’t have a physical office. I also know that there is a skills shortage in the role I need and fierce competition for talent, and offering fully remote work will get me someone who is less likely to move on for higher pay a year from now.

What an utter pile of nonsense. I think you are probably new to mumsnet, you certainly aren’t an original 15-year plusser anyway.

The Civil Service is insisting on 60% of time in the office from 1 September(up from 40%) The trouble is that they have disposed of many offices so space is limited. I know many of my hybrid colleagues are unhappy . Another friend who used to do 5 days in the office of a large company ,before Covid, is complaining that she is now being asked to go in one day a week. She doesn’t like driving ! X

😆

Ive struggled with this. We hire people who claim they are happy to do 3/week in london. Then it emerges they live in shropshire and never actually planned on coming in that much - they assumed they could turn up one day a week at most.

One of the less palatable truths here is that if this keeps happening to an organisation, the package they're offering doesn't buy enough people who are willing to come into the office. Market forces are doing their thing.

I realise this isn't much consolation if you're the person lumbered with recruitment whilst having bugger all influence on the wage packets, of course.

This. It's all about bargaining power.

There was also that poster on here (and similar ones on Reddit) who applied for multiple remote jobs at a time and then just… didn’t do them. It would usually take about 3-6 months for them to sack her, in which time she had collected a full salary.

She had a “main” job which she did do, and used that on her CV to get these other jobs (multiple secondary jobs at a time, so drawing 2-3 full time salaries at once). Pretty clearly fraud, but obviously her sector was big enough that word didn’t get about (that would work for about 5 minutes in my sector, we all talk to each other).

You're so predictable aren't you.
I was expecting this comment and bullseye here we are, you're the lucky winner. Congratulations.

Thats not what I meant.
It's the added pressure on services - mainly Doctors and Hospitals that I'm talking about.

People retiring there would certainly do that, less so those of younger working ages. In some areas schools are closing due to not having enough pupils.

Pre-covid, I did a mix of wfh and office, based on what was most sensible. This might mean wfh one week and going into the office f/t several weeks. It might mean 4 days a week in office at other times or wfh or working away with a bunch of people for a couple of months. Blanket rigid policies don’t always work. People going into the office when they’re on headphones all day to people in other offices seems daft. People who want to go into the office more, but can’t as there’s not enough space is also daft. As for productivity, why do so many firms expect and accept wfh once you finish your working day in the office and go home? Plenty of firms will be more flexible once you’re through the door, so I don’t blame those people for asking around, just as they may ask around what the realistic expected hours are or what the culture is like, genuine scope for progression etc.

i personally found those that took the piss in the office took the piss at home too and vice versa.

However, if you’ve agreed to a set number of days in the office/location, then you can’t really complain, even if it seems nonsensical. I can understand employees wishing they had a more progressive employer if they can’t see the benefit and acting on that. Firms that say ‘you may be required to work outside your hours occasionally’ also shouldn’t complain when ‘occasionally’ means ‘always’ and ‘many hours’, but it’s another unwritten expectation that many of us tolerate.

Presenteeism culture also costs alot in productivity, especially when you have a job you can wfh in, but need to fill your quota of inperson days so e.g. feel like you have no option go in when unwell to mess up colleagues productivity too.

We are in yet another covid wave right now. I think people may mean during lockdown, rather than during covid. There are millions with long covid in England now, more and more after each wave. It is on a trajectory to become the number one chronic illness in children here too (it already is in America). How many on here assume they would know if a colleague is struggling with post-infection health issues trying to hold onto their job, hoping that they’ll magically recover? How many are becoming more susceptible to other infections?

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.

See and I think these on the fly chats are important and I consider them work.

For years I managed a team about 250 miles away from my office location and would spend 1 week/mo at that site. It shocked me how different my workday was when I was in that office. It was filled, as you describe, with impromptu chats by the coffee maker, ‘hey can you pop into this meeting’, someone dragging other people into my office to talk about something, and random ‘hey do you have a min?’ chats. I feel like I barely touched my computer those weeks.

It finally dawned on me that if there is even a minimal effort required to contact someone most people won’t do it.

Don’t get me wrong I enjoy working WFH. 90% of my workday is spent in meetings. I like that I’m able to transfer my TEAMS meetings from my computer to my IPad and make a sandwich. It’s way more convenient for meetings with global colleagues at odd hours. I ended up being classed as remote because I don’t ‘work’ with anyone in my local office and I found myself going to the office and spending my day with my door shut in meetings.

• I manage a team spread across 2 countries and 3 US states. My closest team member is a 5 hour drive away.

All that being said if my company told me I was no longer remote and to get back to the office, that’s exactly what I would do.

If a role can be done remotely, and the worker is productive, why do you have an issue? Surely everyone should be pushing for better conditions for everyone? Surely having good roles outside the likes of London is a good thing? I'm happy when someone has a role that fits their lifestyle, making things easier for them. Just because people were once chained to strict working conditions location's and hours doesn't mean it has to be that way forever.

We work remotely. If our contracts were changed, the team would lose its only women workers for a sector where female representation is terrible.

It's the same with me.

I work for a great employer who allows remote work, and I think it'd be hard for me to get the same conditions if I looked for a job at another company.

It is for this very reason that I don't goof off while working from home. I make sure I'm productive and add value, as I want to stay with the company long-term. Why would I risk losing such a good set-up?

2 or 3 people from my work moved away during COVID, but they had it agreed with our employer and had their contracts changed to reflect the fewer visits they would be obliged to make to the office per week or month.

I don’t like going in (2 days a week) but in spite of this, I have done, and my manager is very pleased that I have supported him in running the department by complying with the general rules.

If I was thinking of applying for another job, I wouldn’t have the nerve to argue that I could WFH - the new Employer might not have as successful an infrastructure as my current one, for a start!