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.

Because otherwise those people are unable to work and end up increasing the benefits budget.

I guess another approach is to get rid of benefits.Then we don't have to worry about the feckless jobless losers out there.

Everyone else can do as they please. I was speaking from my perspective.

If you are not the manager, then it's not up to you what adjustments need to be made and what you need to do to accommodate them. You are free to make your case to your manager, just as the person who has requested wfh has done. Managers should make the decision based on what is best for their workplace.

You don't get to decide what's best for every workplace and, to be frank, if your moaning about it, it's clear you don't rank high enough to make decisions about your own workplace either.

Reform's campaign slogan: "you can't claim benefits if you've starved to death!"

Perhaps you need to overhaul your recruitment process if the calibre of your staff is so poor?

I've known a few business owners who whine incessantly that they can' fill a vacancy that pays fuck all with an OxBridge doctorate toting family-free person with 20 years experience.

They would all agree "Britain is broken"

I was going to vote YANBU until I read “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.”

I am a couple of years older than Farage and I’m unclear if I’m being asked to agree that I’m selfish and don’t give two fucks about others or if I’m being asked to agree that WFH is preferable for many people for good reason.

Farage is imv a chancer. Many people of differing ages are thinking of voting for him.

What a wally. I’ve been working from home for 20 years. 😂 Dh is self-employed and doesn’t have an office, only on site at commercial premises once a week because he’d otherwise be in their way hovering around instead of in his home office.

Sounds like silly advice from some numpty who probably works a lot from home, but like being against immigration but having an immigrant partner. 🙄 Always an exception for himself because he’s not one of the peasants.

What on earth would you know about running a business?
Do you own your own business ?
IO guess you are WFH now as you are on a sm site but cannot see the contradiction LOL
My staff are actually wonderful
Most have been with us 5 years plus and are paid well above the norm
They are happy to work in the office as they are not lazy or entitled and are well looked after with 7%company pension contribution
Private health
Fully paid for gym membership

Qui bono. Who benefits. Landlords of office buildings and energy/water/essentials-for-profit companies (literally “keeping the lights on”). This is 100% based on what Farage’s paying customers (“sponsors”) want as Reform UK is a business after all - workers in the office so they can make more money off their backs.

Worked on phones in the office yesterday - so was everyone around me - unless they were going in/out of meeting rooms. It is distracting and I work at this job much better at home and it is better for the customers - it’s even easier to ask a quick question on teams than look around, wonder if someone is too busy, try catch their eye, whisper a query etc. And don’t worry my call times, toilet times, wrap times are monitored in and out of the office. I actually feel more able to move away from the phone in the office as at least people can see I’m ‘at work’ - as per ‘presenteeism’.
Previously in a public authority role certain HR stuff could only really be done at home as chances of finding an empty room were next to zero and some laptop work was difficult as in always having to hide the screen if people came up to you. Equally, some was better in the office to have 1:1s, training, just get the lay of the working land - hybrid worked well for me there. But there’s the thing - for me, in my role - it’s very personal and role specific but I don’t see that as a major problem at all to anyone - better for all to utilise best options for best work as far as possible.
Apart from very initial lockdown I haven’t known anyone working long term at home and caring for their young kids - it’s not viable or usually even permissible, and if folk try they’ll likely fail and it will be stopped. It can easily be managed.
A lot of those upset by all wfh will be equally upset by people sitting in ‘nice, warm offices with drinks on tap’ or whatever the media suggests they may be getting that you’re not I guess!
I will repeat, as it can’t be said too often, that it’s risible that this is suggested by Frogface, who doesn’t know how to turn up at work himself.

I am glad you appreciate your staff, although odd that you were slagging them off earlier.

My first job in IT mid 90s was for a company whose core IT talent were a husband and wife team with kids who worked from home.

Maybe I have realised it is necessary to minimise hirings and when hiring choose wisely and have robust fair to all procedures in place.

The benefits you have listed are nothing special. A lot of people couldn’t care less about a gym membership and would probably never use the private health cover. Pension contribution from the employer needs to be at least 10% to be considered good. I suppose you give them free pizza once a month too?

I would rather have flexible working than any of those things you have listed. It is not ‘lazy’ to not want to work in an office full time. If I see a job advertised as wanting someone in the office full time (when the job doesn’t require it) I assume it’s a terrible employer to work for, with micromanagement who don’t trust their staff to behave like adults.

Difficult situations arise further down the road and that is understandable. Except many have kids with no plan of how they will manage I.e no provisions and long-term strategy. These are the people I refer to. Benefits will be cut so my tip is to sort out your life now and be resilient or step up your budgeting as skills.

What a complete bellend.

Fuck off Farage!

Well, as I've said, if you're a manager/hiring manager you should do what's best for your company/business based on the work required and the ability of management to ensure their workforce achieves the required outcomes. What you shouldn't do is think you have any say in how anyone else chooses to run their business.

Oh so a few limited examples.

As mum to a child with Down’s syndrome who can’t attend wrap around care, I work school hours only so that I can be around when she gets home from school. Luckily I have a carer’s passport allowing me to be in the office once a week rather than the mandated 60%, as commuting to the office is a 3 hour round trip and completely negates the advantage of my taking a pay cut to be able to do school pick up and/or after school childcare.

Colleagues absolutely cope with arranging Teams calls around my hours just as they do with any other PT member of staff, just as I cope arranging calls around others’ meetings etc.

Normalising WFH was the silver lining of covid and allowed me to stay in my professional job rather than ending up in a minimum wage ‘mum job’, dependent on DH or UC. If that’s selfish of me, I don’t particularly give a crap.

Some seem very keen on ‘how it used to be was better’ - things change, and with work much of it has been for the better.

I doubt anyone here regrets stopping young kids going up chimneys but there were a lot of difficulties at the time with pushback. Same as a reduced work week from 48 hrs or more than 5 days.

I couldn’t have cared for my parents without flex/wfh, and there’s many examples of care responsibilities outside young children and that is only likely to increase - when you think of this then the gov’t/local authorities/tax payers are saving overall with at least some of the many unpaid carers able to keep going.
Meetings can easily be around school hours - who is ready at 8am to be in a meeting room and who likes them at 4pm? I had a manager loved to put them in at 3:30 Friday - it didn’t even work well as getting too late to follow up immediately and then have to remember and fit it in on the very busy Monday am.
Obviously, some work and meetings may have to be done outside school hours, depending on the type of work - however some work in today’s world has to be outside 9-5 too, so flexibility with all often can mean this work is a lot more easily covered than before.
It’s a bit reactionary and short sighted to maintain work on an in office 9-5 model - but that’s Garage (as well as lazy).

Working 8am to 6pm onwards, meetings at 8am are a good way to start the day. Why would you think 4om isn't a meeting time? 5pm onwards is when you focus on non meetings.

WFH should be uoto the employer. Productivity is down and more and more companies are seeing the value of onsite employees for the majority of roles.

Specialist niche roles which are not reliant on teamwork and meetings will probably continue to WFH in a hybrid capacity.

So meetings 8-5 with 1 hour of non-meeting work time at 5pm?

1. that's a 46 hour work week.
2. that's a dreadful meeting: work ratio
3. where are all the childcare options open at 6.30/ 7 to allow for a universal 8am start?

I am talking about productivity of a company, nothing to do with childcare. That is an issue for parents to navigate with nurseries, childminders, neighbours, family, nannies .

In truth I'd be equally concerned if Farage had called for an end to office work because he felt that people were more productive at home. Because the worrying thing is that he would feel entitled to misuse his power to meddle in things outside of his remit, based on his own personal whim. Huge red flag for an authoritarian despotic approach to government. Which is all good and well if you views continue to align with his, but not so attractive the day they don't.