5 days in the office - rant!!!

[DonnyDoris]

My company mandated 5 days in the office a couple of months ago, which in principle I have no issues with. However, my commute is just over an hour on motorways that have long term roadworks, so massively tedious and today I have no meetings so absolutely no reason to be here other than presenteeism. Could have got so much more done and also all my housework if I could've worked from home 😖Just needed to get that off my chest!!!!

Oh no no. I just pulled that out of my arse tbh. It was a lousy attempt to describe the whole face-to-face thing. My job has never been a social thing anyway, I just code all day long.

Logic is completely missing on this thread. My common sense comment doesn’t and cannot apply to people whose job roles can’t wfh. I’m saying wanting the benefits that wfh brings, where you can work from home, is common sense, not entitlement

Stupid answer. That’s like saying the checkout operator at Sainsburys can read a book between customers!

I'm another one that left a 'return to office mandate' company for a remote working job (and got a pay rise). Vote with your feet. It's time these stupid companies realised that we won't accept being corporate drones anymore.

@CautiousLurker01my beneficial comment was prefaced with “where jobs can be done remotely…”. Clearly the role you described cannot be

"People have been ‘going where the work is’ since medieval times."

I think you are living in the past @CautiousLurker01! Since the introduction of the internet, everything has changed, including the world of work. I started a business in 1995, when email was still in its infancy, and when I look back to that time, we did so many things that were so time-consuming and labour-intensive it seems quite laughable now. My sector has moved on and, whereas in 1995, we needed to be working in the same office, we now all work remotely, to such an extent that there is no need for an office of any type now. With email, Teams, Zoom and the rest, most office-based jobs can easily be done remotely and thus it's complete nonsense to expect people to waste their time and energy on punishing and expensive commutes for five days a week. Presenteeism doesn't aid productivity - it hinders it. I'm not surprised that the OP feels pissed off!

Come on people, let's be honest. When you work from home , you do other things than work. It's only since the pandemic that often when I've tried to phone someone to get something done I hear dogs barking, children shouting, people eating, chatting to others...the list goes on. Nobody's doing any work snd it's a bloody joke. No wonder rjoa country is falling so far behind in everything. If there was a global measurement for laziness we'd come top of the leader board.

Tell me you don’t know anything about WFH without telling me 🙄

yep, all my younger colleagues, almost without exception, only wanted to work 4 out of 5 days (so 32 hours instead of 40) and barely a few days a month in the office.

So why has productivity gone down. Government depts who allow wfh take 1 hour plus to answer the phone.

I’m in the office 5 days a week and we still have 40 calls waiting. It’s busy and not enough staff

Was any government department ever efficient, though? They've always been balls slow ime.

You take the cash, you take the trash. Covid is long over and people should be back in the workplace doing a full days work. You chose the job - if it’s too much for you find an easier one.

I go into the office once a week and do next to nothing. Everyone wants a chat and it's noisy. At home I do a bit of work and a bit of housework and guess what, I make the company millions! I'm far more productive at home and by productive I mean that I don't need to be glued to my desk all day!

Sometimes I'll sort stuff on my weekend too and in the evening. I bet I work far more than the 9-5 at their desk brigade.

Work in a way that suits you but please don't criticise those that don't feel chained to their desk due to poor management

You are confusing the law which gives protection to individuals who have disability related absence, in the form of a requirement to offer RA, such as different trigger points, with a (non existent) requirement to ignore disability related sickness altogether, including for business monitoring and planning purposes, which is the reason I had the information I shared.
An employer is at liberty to collect whatever stats they see fit on the presence or absence of their workforce provided they do not use these to unlawfully discriminate against a person with a PC. How else do you suppose we accurately assess business productivity and performance patterns if, as you appear to believe, we have to ignore the number of absences any staff member with a disability has?
I find it odd the efforts you are going to to suggest we are an employer who may be discriminating on the grounds of disability when the whole point of my initial comment was that out support of WFH supports people with disabilities.

I go into the office once a week and do next to nothing. Everyone wants a chat and it's noisy.

Exactly this!

Because they now employ a lot less staff??? I’m public sector (hybrid working) and the less staff we employ, the longer it takes to get anything done. WFH vs office is just geography

Same here! I always enjoy my office days but don’t always get much done

I have had sight of this stat as an exec in every company I’ve worked in. The long term and disability related absences should be removed before the KPi is considered from a productivity pov.

you’re right it has zero to do with the law. It’s about how companies measure productivity. You said your sickness had gone down because you can employ disabled people on terms which make it easier for them. If they are the reason your sickness KPi has dropped, you’re measuring the wrong thing.

I don’t understand how you can be super productive yet also say for 20% of the week you do absolutely nothing.

doesnt your employer notice you do nothing 20% of the time?

On our one office day a week there is very little productive work done. It's a good morale boost of course which I'm sure leads to better work on the other days we're at home

You’re not paid to multi task by doing housework it’s called employment! As PP have said get another job

I think you may be right.

I do feel a lot of the push for office days comes from extroverts. The world is very extroverted anyway. I'm an introvert, my energy is easily sapped, so I'm very selective with who I give my energy to. On office days I find when I get home (I drag myself home), I'm so exhausted, but not in the physical sense. I can stand and cook and clean but my brain is totally fried. This is very much not the case on my WFH days. I can power right through well into the night and then wind down and get good sleep.

It's a very individual thing. What works for one person may not work for someone else.

People who berate others for preferring to work from home on some days are so bizarre. It's like they think their companies are going to see what they wrote and give them a reward for bootlicking.

Also the argument 'pre-Covid this was the norm' is totally irrelevant. Okay, that's true...and what? The world has moved on. Once it was the norm not to wash our hands after going to the toilet!!

The degree to which they argue the toss about how distracting it is to put on a load of laundry is almost trollish.

But you're not being paid to do your housework are you? Multitask yes housework no!
By all means use your commute time to do your housework/school run/life admin but you can't seriously think doing all your housework whilst supposedly wfh is right.