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!!!!

I get my housework done because i have no commute. Get up in morning walk dogs, dishwasher and washing machine go on. Once my 8.5 hours are done log off both emptied dinner on and hoover before 6pm then walk dogs again. If going into office would be up at half 5 out the door as quick as possible in order to beat traffic, drive 2 hours to work, then so my 8.5 hours drive home hopefully in 2 hours more likely more - in the door around 7 rush to get dinner on and do what ever needs to be done and flop into bed around 9 to do the hamster wheel all over again. WFH has been a huge life saver for me, more healthier more rested and even more productive then was before covid

I never said I did!

I'm measuring what I need to measure for the information I require.
I'm measuring how many work days my teams have contributed against the performance that yields. I need all cause sickness to be reported, as its no good to me to have 75% capacity presented as 90% capacity because we're ignoring disability related absence.
I'm also measuring the impact WFH has had on the number of days my teams have been able to contribute, by comparing sickness absence before its introduction, with sickness absence since.
Some of the improvements in numbers of days worked are due to people with disabilities being able to work on 'bad days' that previously prevented them attending the office.
Some of the improvements are due to staff with illness that prevents travel but not their actual work, or that they can manage while working, if at home, from taking a sick day.
Some of the improvements are due to staff who would be off with contagious illnesses or still within the transmittable period for V&D, though recovered, for example, still being able to work.
I mentioned people with disabilities because I acknowledge that the high proportion of disabled staff we have and the particular support WFH gives to them, is likely to account in part for such a significant improvement.
However my interest lies in the fact there has been such an improvement and the reason for it, which is WFH.

Posters here are acting like people in the office during a lull period aren't making coffee, chatting shit with coworkers, refreshing an empty email inbox, opening a excel spreadsheet, taking fag breaks, on phone in the loo... I'd rather be getting some housework done or petting my cat than any of these time wasting presenteeism activities in the office.

There is no nice way to say this, but I don’t believe you 😂 I think you’re just making this up to fit in with a made up stat that’s been challenged. It doesn’t this makes sense.

The level of detail you have about reasons for employees sick leave then v now, the incredibly massive decline in sick leave, the fact that nothing else impacted it apart from wfh, the fact that you must have an very high number of disabled employees to have this impact.

Also what I did , company reverted to five full days, I got a new job with a fat pay-rise 😊 couldn’t stand to listen all the crap in the office and the politics just not for me anymore , I do one office day and that’s a end of week meeting, some nice food and an early finish 🙃

OP could easily be doing her housework in the time that she's commuting there and back.

Many jobs are project/goal measured rather than time. So if the work is getting done on time then employees can manage their own time/schedule.

It’s different to jobs where people are paid to be present over fixed hours - such as nursing, customer service, retail etc.

If the work is build a website and deliver on the 15th of next month, or bring in 5 new clients a week, it doesn’t matter if you do different amounts of hours on different days.

That’s just rubbish, have you seen how much inane chatting happens at the office? Much more than 5 minutes to put a wash on

It’s staggering the number of posters who don’t realise this.

But surely if they are being paid to do something that they can do in half the time, then they should only be paid half as much because they are effectively being paid to do nothing for 50 % of the time....., which sounds like bad economic/ commercial strategy to me.

Well obviously, but you can’t hide being idle for 20% of the time surely? Particularly with projects, your workload/ timesheets are often dictated by the number of days or hours you have available. Regardless of goal/ strategic measurements (which I agree with entirely) roles are still pretty much structured to fill 40 hours a week and it’s pretty hard to hide consistently doing nothing for 20% of your time. It’s not 3 hours a week, it’s a big portion.

5 days isn't necessary if you've been working effectively from home until now. I'd vote with my feet and find another job.

This is it. The company still work load plan. If your goal is to deliver a new website they don’t just think “yep her goal is to deliver, let’s see when it comes!” They’ll dedicate say 2 years resource to that. If it takes you 20% longer because you don’t do anything 20% of the time that’s pretty hard to hide

In my role I entirely direct my own time, however if I neglected to do anything 1 day a week it would only be a few months before I’d have dropped balls everywhere.

Some days are extremely busy and extend well beyond core hours, some aren’t. It balances out to a decent work load and nobody is being taken advantage of.

I do my housework at lunch. Things like emptying the dishwasher, pegging out the laundry etc can all be done whilst my lunch is cooking. Nothing wrong with that surely?

But if you are meeting the goal deadline or the goal outcome it doesn’t matter if you work one very productive hour on Monday, ten hours with lots of breaks on Tuesday, six hours with no breaks from your desk on Wednesday, a split shift on Thursday with an hour on the treadmill while you mull over tricky problem in your mind.

Friday go into the office and have meetings with the team to check on everyone’s progress and then decide to spend Sunday afternoon gettin through some minor admin issues.

Not all jobs are hourly or tracked with timesheets.

And surely those who have face to face jobs benefit from there being less traffic on their commute and also their pupils/clients/patients being on time because the clients aren't spending so long commuting either. Win win.

Im.not sure, but I think I was responding to someone who suggested they could do their WHOLE job in less time than they were being paid for. I think that is slightly different from.what you are saying.

I get what your saying but in most of the roles where you're not strictly 9-5 it's not 20% less time working.

Let's say you go for a run at 2pm on Thursdays then get home and have a half hour lay down. You may have logged on at 7am and you may be expected to work 2 hours on a Sunday.

Just because you do very little on one day doesn't mean you're not putting in the hours on a wider time frame.

I would love to leave my work at the door but alas some weeks I work 70 hours and others 10.

And not to mention inane work meetings that can be delivered in a short email saving many. many hours of time.

Not all jobs (or many Jobs) are, but many, many projects are resourced managed by timesheet which was the example given.

what you’re suggesting doesn’t mean you are idle for 20% of the week, as per the original post. You’re making up the idle time later, as most people who manage their own time do. You’re working 100% of the week, not 80%.

Why dont you bring your cat to the office. Then everyone can pet it. 😄

I think this is what people mean when they say their time is wasted in the office. That they attend non value add meetings and participate in conversations they don’t think they need to be in.

but if your employer views that as your work, it’s not wasted is it?
It’s not how you want to be spending your time but if the employer is happy, happy to pay you for meetings and happy to judge your performance including the meetings, then it’s not a waste of time in their view.

Also some jobs pay as a ‘40 hour week’ structure but as a convenience to fit in with making payroll easier but don’t need you to actually do something for each of those 40 hours.

I once had a job where I was needed to do a very specialist task three times a day which including prep took about an hour and a half each time. So four and a half hours of activity across a ten hour shift. The other five and a half hours were mine to do what I wanted with - go to the gym, read a book etc.

Just couldn’t leave the building - so not a WFH situation but I was paid for 40 hours a week - four ten hour shifts.