to think WFH can completely change one's work life balance?

[LoveWFH]

I worked in an office full time for years and it always felt like my actual life had to be squeezed around work. The commuting, the constant rushing, the feeling of always being behind. I started a new role and now I WFH three days a week and the difference in balance is huge.

The biggest thing is how much more life I have now. I spend so much more time with DC and I am not constantly exhausted and snappy or trying to cram everything into evenings and weekends. I feel more present and calmer and like I am actually on top of things rather than permanently catching up.

Even Christmas was different this year. It is usually really stressful for me but everything was so much easier in terms of food, shopping and presents. I was organised and I did not have that last minute panic. It felt calmer and actually enjoyable.

It has helped my health too. My fitness levels have improved because I can fit exercise in more easily and it does not feel like yet another thing I am failing at. I also eat better now because I have time to cook proper meals rather than grabbing whatever is quickest after getting home late.

I have introduced lots of systems at work to make things run more efficiently, I passed my probation period and I have been offered a permanent contract. So it is not like I am doing less, I am just doing it in a way that leaves me with energy for my family and myself.

I understand that not everyone WFH is having this experience and for some it is really manic, busy and pressured all the time before people start rushing in.

AIBU to think WFH is not just a perk but something that can genuinely change your quality of life?

Completely agree. WFH has changed my life. I go into the office 2 days a month and I barely get any work done on those days. A couple of years ago senior management tried to implement a mandatory 3 day a week return to the office but this was idea was eventually discarded. The office is noisy, I cannot book meeting rooms (I run a lot of customer facing meetings over Teams and need a quiet room to do this as it’s impossible in the open plan space) because there is a lack of desks due to hot desking so people book out meeting rooms for the entire day and work from there. It is all so unproductive. I rarely sit near and collaborate with my colleagues which was one of the reasons we were told we had to come back in.

At home I put my concentration playlist on Spotify, work on the more difficult tasks in the morning which is when I operate best then break for lunch and sometimes the gym. Afternoons I do less intensive work and can wrap up early if I need to pick up DC or run errands. I will never go back to FT in an office if I can help it.

If I could wfh I would go full time tbh.

I wouldn’t want to be fully remote as I enjoy the office environment & my drive is nice for podcasts, just giving some space between home & work.

Totally agree. I have been to my office twice this year. Total waste of time.

I will never work in an office again.

WFH massively helps. I work more hours, it with an hour and a half not commuting, and a lunch break I can do something useful in, my head is in so much of a better place and my balance helps.

Unfortunately the pisstakers will ruin it for us, I feel.

I was on maternity leave when Covid hit so I never experienced what it was like to balance having a small child and working full time in the office - I honestly have no idea how anyone did/does it! I like the flexibility that hybrid working gives me, I’m one of those people who is actually more productive in the office and I think that having informal interactions with colleagues in person is valuable but being able to stay at home when, for example, I have a day full of video calls or if I want to pop out to a special assembly at school, is fantastic.

WFH is here to stay

Plenty of pluses, but it's pretty crap for many young people, working in their bedroom, not socialising with colleagues. And I learned so much from hearing my boss deal with difficult phone calls from clients. Or those watercooler conversations. Online is a poor substitute

And I wonder if people who love WFH will be quite so enthusiastic if their employer decides the work can be done from home by someone in a developing country, at a fraction of the price. Be careful what you wish for

I am a big fan of hybrid working. I work from home one day a week and enjoy an extra hour in bed and being able to put the washing on and be there for parcels etc. my work policy is a minimum of 40% in the office.

I work in an industry where an increasing amount of meetings are now in person and I am struggling with my team to get them to come into the office for the two days a week we are supposed to do. I find that a huge headache and it’s the aspect of hybrid working I hate. The huffing and puffing and complaining from some when they have to come in. They aren’t just coming in to sit at their desks, there is a reason and too often I find more falls on those who come in. We did a big in person stakeholder event recently and three people phoned in sick! I know they just couldn’t be bothered coming in!

This is why people taking the piss with childcare etc when they are supposed to be working is so annoying. WFH/hybrid can be a game changer for parents juggling tight timetables.

It’s even better when you work for yourself. I wfh and am completely in charge of my own time. Some days I don’t work at all, other days I do lots. I never worry about dentist appointments, school assemblies or kids being ill. I have complete and utter freedom. I’ve even been abroad and worked from there.

I also earn twice what I earned when I was employed.

I can categorically say that I will never, ever work for anyone again in my life.

I could get paid £30k a year more easily if I worked in an office, but there's no way I would consider it.

I absolutely agree a few people will ruin it. These things work in cycles.

I have heard a number of big companies and public sector employers are increasing the in office time - in response to people not being contactable during working hours. Some people are taking the view it is their right to never come into the office or attend work events or in person training or conferences.

line managers are often not willing or able to manage this, so compliant falls to such an extent that there is a big response that punishes everyone.

In my view the obsession with work life balance has, in some cases, tipped to far. If everyone was reasonable and responsible then hybrid working would be amazing.

I work from home full time now and the thinking time during my commute I miss a lot and I’m determined to make a change regarding this in 2026.

I’ve decided I’m going to recreate a commute by walking the dog at 8am and 5pm every day for half an hour.

I love WFH every day but it can be quite isolating even though I’m on Teams calls a lot of the day. I also find that my days just roll into each other.

I’m going to make a concerted effort this year to get out of the house to exercise in the middle of the day every day on top of my “commute” dog walks.

I like a blend, WFH full time would not work for me, I'd feel very isolated, I need contact with people daily. Having a short commute can have the same impact, my usual base office is now ten minutes from home. I used to have a commute that on a good day was 45-60 minutes each way, on a bad day it could be 2 hours each way depending on traffic. I love leaving the office and being home ten minutes later.

You say they are having to come in for meetings though- whereas I would counter why are those meetings not done on Teams or Zoom. I occasionally go into the office for in-person meetings and there is no reason they couldn't be done remotely. So for me the argument that you are coming in for a meeting rather than just to sit at as desk is pretty moot.

Completely agree.
I just finished 23 years of being a teacher and got a new job in September that is hybrid/office/home. I was very worried I wasn’t going to like it.

I actually can’t believe it - it’s like I have been let in to some giant secret that other people knew and I didn’t- that it’s possible to work and have energy at the end of it. My house is always tidy, my washing is done in small batches, I eat regularly because I don’t have to be so organised with batch cooking and I earn money!!

Definitely, I moved jobs after lock down when my trust wouldn’t allow me to continue with one day a week wfh despite all the managers doing it.
now I’m hybrid and do two days a week at home and the balance is great. I love my office days and being in London and I am a bit strange and enjoy my commute but then I cherish the slower starts of wfh days and longer evenings. It’s improved my life no end like exercising and eating better

I totally agree, it made a massive difference to my life and I'd never go back now. I work part time and do two days in the office and two days at home.

My work is all captured by time recording so it would be clear if I wasn't doing as much work. I absolutely am! But being at home for those two days saves me four hours of commuting time a week, and also means that during my lunch hour and other mini breaks I can keep on top of chores and errands, or go to the gym. I can pick up my children instead of hiring someone to do it. I can have a home cooked meal on the table at the same time as I'm walking through the door in my in-office days.

I'm sociable and I like seeing people to catch up on my office days, but 50/50 is the perfect balance for me.

I work for NHSE and we are about to merge with the DHSC where the policy is 60% in office working. I’ve been WFH for 3 years and go into the office once every other week. This one day is usually pointless. It’s a 2 hour commute each way so I’m always late arriving (usually about 10:30). I don’t do any meetings in the car. I don’t like arriving late but it’s unavoidable due to the school run and I make the point that I would have never taken a job where our office base was Leeds as it’s a nightmare to park by the time I’m arriving. Now due to the shift, I’m expected to be in 3 days a week and it’s filling me with dread. I will have to be there for 9am, which means my child now having to walk 4 miles to school. Leaving at 5, 2 hour commute. I’ll get my expenses paid for 2 years.

Whilst I worked in an office full time previously, I only ever applied for local jobs with parking, so to suit my family life. I can’t change jobs as the nhs has a job freeze on and there’s nothing available at my grade. But the biggest gripe is productivity. I go into the office to sit on meetings, often all day. So I won’t be improving my life by talking to people in person, as my role is national and therefore all meetings will still be via teams. Like previous posters, I also get so much more done at home.

Whilst I’ll have to suck up the changes, I don’t understand this push for more in person working. Why fix something that isn’t broken? Everyone I’ve spoken to feels the same, but it seems the NHS wants everyone back in, regardless of productivity and work life balance.

I’m supposed to go in once a fortnight but I avoid it like the plague. I get so much more done at home anyway. I genuinely don’t see the point when most of my colleagues are in the US so are on Teams and when I’m not on Teams, my other colleagues are on calls. I didn’t get a job to work in a call centre (no offence to call centre workers) so there’s barely any opportunity for ‘networking’ which is what office working is supposed to be all about. Over the last year, I’ve attended the office about 4 times.

It’s been utterly life changing for me. It has enabled me to remain career focussed without sacrificing so much of myself for it, as you say I am physically more present for my kids but more importantly more energised. I’m taking better care of myself than I ever have done, we’re eating better. I couldn’t ever go back to office working 5 days a week.

I'm Hybrid, 1-2 days in the office a week.

I will never go full time in the office again. Went fully remote in covid and then got a new job 2 years ago doing hybrid.

So glad it happened when my kids were young ish so I could spend more time with them!

It transformed my life. And I have to say it was largely due to Covid because the company realised that what it said couldn’t be done could, in fact, be done.

Instead of spending around four hours travelling each day, I was able to go to a yoga classes, walk or do other activities in the evening. I was able to have a little more sleep in the morning.

More important I was able to sit down and concentrate on my work without interruption, without people hanging around me in a noisy office and without disturbing people by making phone calls in an open plan office: phone calls a part of my job, but it makes for a noisy office.

I have became so much more productive.

Finally enough, I have more contact with my fellow workers because of messaging on teams and making calls to them in their home where we could discuss cases without disturbing other people.

I suppose every industry is different. Thinking about the meetings I can in for during my last week before Christmas. Three were with clients who had travelled from oversees. It would have been incredibly unprofessional to do these remotely. We went on a site visit and then had a lunch. It absolutely had to be in person- and the chat on in the margins of the meeting was actually where most of the business was done.

one was a stakeholder event - I was presenting. It would have been awful online and again a big part of it was the human connections.

I of course do teams meetings as well. And they are really useful. But in my job I need to also be in person at some meetings. I also travel - less than I did before Covid but in person is still required on occasion.

people get strangely aggressive about this - stating every meeting can and should be online. While some absolutely can, some people seem to be heavily influence by their desire not to leave their house.

i also had a new team member starting. I came into the office to meet him and chat through requirements. He then shadowed me at some meetings and accompanied me to some in person board meetings. In my industry board meetings are all in person. Sub-committees can sometimes be in line but never board meetings.

And the other thing I should add, is it my managers find working from home much easier because we can have confidential discussions with them just by calling each other on a teams call face-to-face.

In the office, they have to get up from their desk and book a room: it’s much more disruptive.