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?

Oh yes! and finally, my company is reducing the amount of office space that it needs, which is a huge saving.

Hybrid is the best of both worlds for me. I’m currently 2 days in the office and 3 WFH. My work life balance is massively improved but I wouldn’t want to WFH full time. I really appreciate my office days and spending time face to face with my team. Some things are just easier and better face to face.

I cherish the days I WFH (2/5) I'm much less stressed, I have a nightmare commute, and I generally get more done at home. In the office it's noisy and busy and there's lots of chat, very little of it is work related . I'm looking to change jobs, don't think I can get anything fully remote but going to try for something with less office days. I wish it had been a thing when my kids were small. When I think of the stress of getting them to school, getting me to work day after day it just makes me sigh. I would probably take a pay cut for more WFH days which makes me realise how much better it is for me. It's not everyones cup of tea, I have colleagues who go in every day but for me it's massively beneficial.

I've wfh full time since 2018 and at 57 this year am hoping I'll never have to work in an office again! It came at just the right time for me personally as I suffered a fair bit during peri. It was so much easier to just log on and get stuff done without the stress of the commute, having to talk to people, etc. I have my cats to keep me company 😹 and tbh they're better company than many of my colleagues were!

I can see how its not for everyone. But I love it. I've consistently been the highest performer in my team from the start. I often help out another department alongside my regular work so I know management are more than happy, they tell me often! At the same time I'm not that busy, its quite chilled. I have the added bonus that I can pick my own hours so if I want to go somewhere during the week I can. Sometimes I take a nap! So when I am working it doesn't feel like such a chore.

I know 100% I would have burned out if I'd stayed FT in the office. I was already well on the way to it. I'm so thankful for my job now, hence why I am still motivated to do it well.

Great for those with houses, workspaces and established careers, not so great for those in houseshares who haven't got a clue what they're supposed to be doing and need to be around experienced co-workers who can always have things run past them and be listening in to work telephone conversations!

I WFH full time (with odd office days put in) and I absolutely love it.

I love my hybrid working - two days in the office three at home. I don’t miss the pre Covid days when the DCs were at nursery which opened at 8am, then I had to fit in a 15 min walk in 8 mins to get the 8.08 train to be in the office for 9am. I used to get my mum to meet me in the car at 8 sharp to drive me to the station so I could make the train! She’d collect me from the station too at 5.45 to get me to nursery for 6pm. 5 days a week! I didn’t have some high power city job, just a local government job! DP was worked longer hours further away that were fixed 8.30 to 5.30 so couldn’t pick up the DCs. He once asked if he could shift his hours by 30mins one day a week so he could pick the DCs up and his manager said no.

Nowadays we both work hybrid. The eldest is able to walk himself home from school so just comes in & watches TV while the youngest is at after school club, but only until 5, so at least he gets tea at home & we can take them to cubs/swimming lesson etc - if they were both in after school club until 6pm neither would get as much chance. Just easing the requirement to be in the office full time makes family life so much easier. Beware those that want to punish home workers (I’m looking at you, 30p Lee - although that’s not their worst policy by any stretch)

My oldest DD had to WFH partly, the rest in an office with a long commute. She hated it. Ended up sitting on her bed,in her PJs with her laptop, smoking, not opening the bedroom window. Ended up with mold and depression. She's a people person like me, I was nursing over 40 years, plus some customer facing positions. She left to go and work in a busy restaurant.

I do agree we need to reconsider how we train new staff. Hopefully hybrid working is here to stay. But few people are giving enough thought to how their management approach needs to change to reflect the new office reality.

I know I learnt by listening and observing- overhearing a debate between colleagues, observing body language in meetings, chatting to people in the kitchen. Now people are going to online training and reading their emails at the same time. Some bad practices have crept in - and a new approach is required to make sure we don’t see a skills erosion as a result of hybrid working.

but this takes maturity for people to acknowledge there are some downsides and address them. I would rather address them now than have have something go wrong somewhere, it be blamed on WFH (rightly or wrongly) and the policy be revoked.

Completely agree, I was on the verge of leaving my job in late 2019 due to the ridiculous commute (which was taking 2 hours due to rush hour traffic). Now I WFH as much as I want (I still travel UK wide for off-site business meetings so it breaks up the monotony of being in the house). The work life balance is amazing, I can go to the gym before work, and I'm home when my kids get home from school. On the days I do go I to the office, I don't actually get any work done as people want to chat to me! 🥴

I work from home three days a week and I absolutely love it .
I have time to go to the gym ( which would have been commuting time) . I get time to do little jobs around the house .
I am generally happier which has had a positive effect on the rest of my life .
The irony is that I always get more work done when working from home than going into work

I love having the opportunity to work from home, but I do think it depends on the organisation.

Until the beginning of last year, I worked for a call centre. Initially we were on site and I worked my way up and off the phones into an admin position. Along the way I was able to take advantage of some great opportunities because people could see how I worked and got to know me; it was in a small community so everyone knew everyone else and generally got along well, the work wasn't always great but the people made it.

When I was pregnant with my second, covid happened and we were all sent to WFH. Then they basically closed our call centre and farmed everyone out to other campaigns. By the time I returned from mat leave, I was working under people based all over the country, some of whom had never even heard of where I lived, let alone that we had a call centre there. Suddenly we weren't people any more, just numbers on a screen. I kept pushing for better opportunities and to get back off the phones (my old role was long gone with the closure of our site) but we had pretty high turn over of staff, including team leaders. I remember talking to one about an opportunity I was interested in, him saying he'd put my name forward for it, and by the following week he was gone!

When I was pregnant with my third and suffering from HG, there was no compassion and I ended up having to work with a bucket between my feet, putting people on mute to throw up, because my request to move to another team which would suit me better was refused. Their attitude was no, just phone in sick if you're unwell. So I spent a lot of that pregnancy signed off, whereas I think I only had about 4 weeks off total unwell with the previous two pregnancies, which were also both HG!

Last year I reached a point where I couldn't do it any more and it felt like a room in my house had become toxic because that was where my work PC was. It was also the room where I stored my craft stuff, but I avoided it because it meant going in there and if it wasn't a work day, I wanted nothing to do with it. I could feel my mental health slipping and decided I wanted out and actively looked for a job that would take me out the house.

And now I have a hybrid working arrangement. I'm in the office one morning and two afternoons. The two afternoons, I work from home in the morning. It's a pretty recent arrangement (due to space in the office and my 4th HG pregnancy) but it works well for me. I feel like I have to do more work on the mornings I'm at home, to kind of prove that I'm working because at the call centre you always had someone breathing down your neck; here I don't but old habits die hard!

I enjoy my 'commute'. It's a 15 minute walk to and from the office, but it gives me space to go from being Mum to work mode and to unwind at the end of the day as well. I always used to have to go and start my call centre PC up 30-60 minutes before my shift because of the time it took to load all the systems and I definitely needed a bit of time to do that mental switch to be ready to work.

I like that on my mornings when I'm at home, I can get up later, take a shower and still be ready to start for 9am. When I'm a little less sicky, I'll be able to have breakfast with my kids.

Back when we were first WFH during covid, I did love it and it suited my introvert personality. But I do value the time I get to spend with my colleagues now.

Yes I agree as it makes the day shorter. When WFH I can drop off the kids at school and pick up from ASC easily but if I have to travel into the office it's just not possible. We make it work as DH does drop offs and pick ups on those days but one of us being able to WFH most days is really helpful.

It gives me time to clean, do laundry and I save money by eating lunch at home.

Training is always going to vary from company to company, my first proper career job was wfh, great training, really engaged, had the opportunity to shadow meetings, knew exactly who to contact with issues remotely, “met” lots of people who really helped me, I have had friends in office jobs that barely had any training, they didn’t really interact with anyone in the office and also vice versa, I don’t think it’s clear cut of wfh = impossible for young people to train. It’s more likely coming down to ethos of the company vs wfh or in person.

If I couldn’t work from home one day/two days alternate weeks I would have had to give up work due to ill health!!

I am the opposite. I worked from home from March 2020 until January 2025. I now work from a wonderful shared office (I have a lockable office).For me, WFH meant zero boundaries - my home / work balance was a bust. I now work walking distance from home - this has been a huge gamechanger. I am self employed and can WFH if I need to or go in late. So I have the best of both worlds.

I definitely agree that WFH is far better than forced hours in the office with a long commute. 10 hours per week on a commute is just silly - that's a whole day of lost time. Employers who are forcing teams back full time are being really short-sighted ignoring this

Absolutely. My husband worked in a city an hours commute from our house pre-covid. He was out the house from 7am-7pm 5 days a week. He barely saw our children mid week when they were babies/toddlers. But it was just the norm for most of our friends and family.

Now he does 3/4 days work from home and he has breakfast and dinner with me and the children every day, he likes to do the school run before work every morning, is less stressed and gains an extra 2 hours every day that is not spent commuting. He can spend more time with us and his hobbies, so his mental wellbeing is far improved.

It has had such an incredible impact on our family - the kids have such a close relationship with their Dad and our relationship is stronger. We save thousands a year in train fares and I have been able to increase my working hours, due to him doing half of the school runs.

I agree but I guess they are renting huge offices that are half empty!

I agree. I WFH 4/5 days and the one day we are in the office, so little gets done due to the yapping of everyone, including the boss .

I dont really like wfh. No.colaboration.no natural.conversations. just a slog

I love.my home but.i.dont. want to be under house arrest

Love WFH! Will never go back. I have to go into office 2 days a month. I am happier & work life balance as a Mum/home owner is wonderful

How do you get these jobs?

It's probably easiest to look for remote workforce friendly companies and go from there. Whilst I like to be in the office, the company I own has a remote first policy, with office as an option if that is a preference. This is for ALL positions.

Working from home has changed my life too. I’m sad that I was doing an awful commute throughout the years my DD was small. It would have made a massive difference to my life and hers!