Nigel Farage calls for an end to working from home

[sally037]

Nigel Farage has doubled down on his attack on remote and hybrid working, calling it “a load of nonsense” and saying people are only productive when working face-to-face in the office. He argues we need an “attitudinal change to hard work” rather than focusing on work-life balance.

AIBU for thinking this idea is just bonkers and totally at odds with how most of the workforce actually wants to work now?

I can only think it appeals to the "pull the ladder up" generation. Don't give two fucks about anyone else as long as they are comfortable or those that are unable to wfh and want everyone else to be as miserable as them.

It's not mean.

It's not MY job to tell junior staff how to spell, or read their clear instructions and tell them what to do when they should have basic comprehension skills. Or check their emails to make sure they don't come across as rude or inept. Or tell them who they're supposed to invite to a meeting.

They're graduates with professional registrations.

I had an issue last year with a junior member of staff complaining that their part-time role wasn't paying the full-time pay advertised because they didn't know what pro-rata in the job spec meant and hadn't cared to look it up.

Another, complaining because they left after 3 months and thought they were being conned because they couldn't use their total year annual leave allowance they hadn't earned to reduce their notice.

And in my specific role, I'm not actually obliged to supervise or train anyone because there is no-one who is a direct report to me but in the office, I was burdened by that kind of shit constantly because i'm nice and generally know the answer so am one of those people who is held up as 'senior staff who can really help junior with their knowledge and expertise' and it reduced my output because \i was hand-holding inept individuals and massively effected my MH and stress levels.

I've WFH exclusively for a year and had to fight to do so and would never go back.

I’m over 75, have wifi, email, shop online etc. i have family members who WFH, one did long before lockdown, and continues. Others now split their time, mainly WFH, with occasional days in the office. No detriment to the businesses, probably the opposite. It’s been a great step forward IMO.

However, customer service from public sector organisations like councils and the NHS has gone downhill since the increase in WFH. I worked in a front facing public sector service that is no longer there, backed up by phone numbers for various departments. Now there is a generic phone number, calling it means listening first to a recorded message, then there is a selection of numbers to press, to be told you are number 9 in a queue. It can be very difficult to ever get hold of someone who can actually resolve an issue either in person or by phone. Very similar phone system in the NHS. Is WFH in these roles always helpful to the most vulnerable customers?

WFH also means some companies are super strict on this. A friend works for Barclays and says she hates wfh as her every second has to be accounted for. She prefers to go into the office. There must be ways of policing output that aren’t super strict.

This. I don’t like the not putting on cameras it’s rude. I generally have requirement for cameras on for my meetings anyway.

im not sitting away talking to a blank screen

Whenever any supposedly serious news outlet is happy to reheat Farages lukewarm vomit for him, I wonder why he isn't simply dismissed out of hand with a rather pointed reminder of how well that there "Brexit" thingy he wanted has been going of late.

Assuming he actually was around to take such a question (remember you need a serious news outlet here) then the immediate follow up question would be why was something that Farage and a convicted paedophile so keen on such a disaster for the UK ?

Demographically atypical of the UK workforce, for one thing. Frinton on the one hand, Jaywick on the other.

You realise thats bullshit right? Call centre staff are monitored by the minute and questioned if they dont hit call quotas.

You're not able to get through as they cut staff levels, not cause they're working from home.

He is a populist. He will say anything that brings him votes. Who votes for him? It’s not white-collar people who WFH. An average working class person who has a hard, gruelling job often resents people who WFH thinking they’re doing nothing. Do the maths why he’s saying this

Barclays were like that way before covid. I worked there between 2011 to 2014 and even though I weren't in the call centre, I still had to log every single thing I did, toilet, water breaks etc.

I think it was very clear from my post that I know the difference.

That's what the entire post was about.

I don't think wfh should be an either or thing for businesses or individuals. Those who hate it should be able to work in an office space with others. Those for whom it gives a good work life balance (parents, carers those with illnesses etc) should have the flexibility to wfh when the job role allows. Hybrid working should also be an option. This way employers and employees can do what works best and is most productive.
An alternative is to look for jobs that suit your needs. If you hate wfh get a job that involves working out of the home, there are plenty of them out there. The same can't be said for wfh or hybrid roles.

I agree re. Nigel Farage. This is a thinly veiled attack on several areas of society, but as this is Mumsnet the obvious one to mention is women, specifically mothers of young and school aged children.

My exact observation, I’d also add middle aged men who hate spending time with their wife and kids and would do everything to avoid it (yes they exist)

YANBU to complain about Farage.
YABVVU to somehow make it the fault of older people.

I’m 71, retired, never worked from home in my life and never would have due to spending 30 of my years working in schools.

Neither I, nor anybody of my age that I know, begrudges anyone wfh. In fact we mostly admire them because we all admit we’d be too easily diverted.

What Farage says has fuck all to do with ‘old people’. I know more younger adults who are considering Reform - most of us older ones just see him for what he is.

Absolutely fed up of the ageism on here.

"Wah wah wah why do disabled people exist they're so inconvenient to my argument"

There's an assumption that people who work from home aren't actually working. When I go into the office, I start bang on 7:30, take my full 1 hour lunch, leave at 3:30. When I'm at home, I tend to log on earlier, don't take my full lunch and sometimes I'm still working until 6 or 7pm. I've wfh since 2017 and never once have I had my nails done, gone to the gym, picked anyone up, gone shopping etc, any of the things that people state people working from home do.

My husband is a truck driver, he loved covid as the roads were clear. He now sees multiple accidents a day, especially during rush hour, with people rushing to and from work. It's awful on snow days when employers insist on staff making their way into the office. It's all about money, they don't care about their employees.

It’s on the person making the claim to substantiate it.

The problem is this is not good enough for those who think office based is better.

I suggested just this on this thread but was met with “what’s the point if others aren’t it”.

They want to force the rest of us to work in the office alongside them.

WFH allows many businesses to start up with a lot less cost, literally helps job creation. Also allows spread of people throughout the UK, I live in a rural part of the UK where I was brought up, without wfh I would have to leave, theres lots about how to stop younger people leaving, this is one of the huge things that allows me to live here and not leave, where I would leave to where is an interesting question though, as my current company has no UK offices. Farage, like so many of his policies, is stuck in the past.

@Seymour5 - a big part of the issue of declining customer service in the public sector - and I don't disagree with you - is that staff are being shed or leaving and not being replaced. For example, I originally worked in a team of 15 people and we're now down to 8 people - with an increasing workload and we've been told we cannot recruit any more people.

Whereas we used to have an inbox that got cleared every day of customer enquiries, we're now having to leave between 50-60 per day overnight to be dealt with the next day, and the next day and the next day etc. The pressure is immense on my team to get through the enquiries but then there's a knock-on effect of the wider community teams having NO capacity either.

Presumably he's going to apply that rule to himself too...

The ridiculous thing is that I guarantee all the people who moan about wfh ALSO complain about how busy the roads are/overcrowded public transport is, how long it takes to drive everywhere, how hard it is to find somewhere to park, how annoying it is when commuters park near their house, how long they have to queue to buy something at lunchtime or in the post office...etc...etc...without having the braincells to realise that if everyone WFH suddenly had to start commuting again this would be much worse, and would impact them negatively!

Which is a very different issue to us 'dinosaurs' (50's & 60's FFS) dying soon.

Okay...

But as many, many people have said on this thread, that isn't because of WFH staff; who are hugely monitored and just can't be arsing about going to the gym when they're supposed to be working and would be sacked if they were, but because of staffing cuts.

HMRC for instance, an organisation frequently mentioned on this thread have reduced their customer service staff by almost 10% over the last decade because of the transition to digital services.

Similar customer service staffing cuts are in all similar public sector organisations. It's nothing to do with WFH, it's fewer staff because of increasing digital services and the preference of most of the public to use those services and only needing in-person services on the 'phone when there's a problem.

And it doesn't work for people who can't or won't use the digital services but then they have to queue.

While you are all having a lovely time trying to outdo each other on who hates Farage the most, has anyone actually looked into what employers think about working from home? They are the ones paying the wages after all.
Why are Amazon and Boots trying to bring workers back into the office if all is well? Why has Stuart Rose said working from home has spawned a generation of people who are not doing proper work?
I've no doubt going back to the office is a wrench if you are a home worker, but seeing some of the nonsense on here day-in, day-out about family coming first, my children are my priority, unreasonable flexible working requests etc etc, I think (much as I dislike him) Farage (and Rose) may have a point acrually. There are some I have read who give the impression that their work is something they do when there is nothing else going on in their lives. Working from the office may help put an end to this entitlement.
I am not a Reform supporter and have no time for Farage at all, but it would be nice to see a decent, sensible discussion about policies without name calling, insults and projections that have nothing to do with the matter in hand, such as thinly-veiled insults about older people and references to 'old white men', which just make the posters sound a bit ignorant tbh.
The lack of sensible discourse and knee-jerk reactions along with the inevitable insults at anyone who does not toe the 'Reform are awful' line is EXACTLY the reason the party is gathering such traction in the UK.

Yeah. We don't need to consider disabled people in any discussion about us perfect people.

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