to think some people would be weirdly excited if WFH came to an end?

[LoveWFH]

Why do some posters sound almost delighted at the thought of Nigel Farage stopping WFH?

There’s this tone of “that’ll teach them” whenever it comes up. As if people working from home have been getting away with something.

Here’s the practical bit though. My company couldn’t bring everyone back full time even if it wanted to. They’ve sold off chunks of the office space. Whole buildings gone. Desks gone. Leases not renewed. There literally isn’t room for everyone anymore.

Hybrid working isn’t some trendy phase. It’s how a lot of businesses are set up now. They’ve planned for it. Budgeted for it. Recruited around it.

You can’t magically create space that no longer exists.

If you prefer being in the office, fair enough. Plenty of people do. But I don’t get the satisfaction at the idea of other people losing flexibility that works for them and their employer.

How can any government tell companies where their staff can work from? I just think the media is creating hysteria over this unnecessarily.

Very wise words. My sector has been hybrid way before that term was used, started in 2002. I’m very much a “work is what I do not where I go”. my company doesn’t have capacity for full time office based and our transport network couldn’t cope, our roads would be clogged.

let’s get Farage trying to a Thursday morning commute in rush hour to see how the transport system couldn’t cope.

Yeah agree with above, the government have no say in it

Lots of money is invested in office buildings.
If wfh is banned then those landlords can charge more as there will be higher demand.

I wonder if NF or his backers have invested in office space.

Quite right. I think the weirdly delighted people come in two flavours though. There's the ones who themselves have a natural tendency towards laziness that they may or may not have worked hard to overcome but assume that everyone who does WFH is similarly lazy and needs to be in the office in order to be productive. And then there's the social butterflies who get energised and inspired by the group atmosphere in the office and find it genuinely more difficult to get motivated when working solo. Both types have an enormous empathy deficit or willful ignorance about colleagues who find the office environment distracting or even overwhelming and who are 10 times more productive when they WFH.

I work in facilities, we are and always have been in the office 5 days per week :(

People have always worked from home. My great grandmother took in washing for example.

Definitely. That's what it's about.

Agreed.

Although I feel strongly that converting many of these blocks to residential flats with 3-4 bedrooms for families would be more valuable.

Yes some people are weirdly foaming at the mouth about it. I think a lot of it is jealousy from people who cat wfh. The whole “if I have to suffer a commute so should you” thing.

How could the government even legislate for this? I thought right wing parties were against state interference in business

I’m another one whose employer sold all our buildings except one HQ in London which is too far to commute for most of our national workforce and wouldn’t accommodate everyone anyway.

Do people really think the government can force organisations to buy or rent properties just so they can plonk workers in them?

Absolutely insane.

Farage’s backers need office rentals to go back to pre covid levels.

Yes, lots of companies would have to rent more space. They’d also have a smaller pool of applicants- only those who could reasonably get to that office daily, meaning they may have to pay more, or take longer to recruit.

Unexpectedly nanny state approach from Farage there isn’t it…

It’s also a boldfaced attempt to further ferment “class war”- amongst the working class / lower middle class- or maybe better to define as white collar/ blue collar?.

regardless- it’s much better for Farage if all the people on minimum wage and/or manual jobs that can’t be done at home, feel livid about people probably earning about the same as them but WFH “taking the piss” “trashing the economy” “hastening the demise of city centers”- because it distracts from the real issues- which he has no idea how to fix.

WFH are just an extension of “boat people” strategy- point the finger at one group, and sit back and wait for the baying mobs to go where you tell them- which is very far away from your cronies and their interests.

Agree. People get really weird about this and quite nasty. I also suspect that the people insisting that others aren't productive at home likely don't do much themselves.
I'm not a fan of Farage anyway but I think this is just daft from him. It might be a vote winner for the small number of complainers who think everyone else is a shirker but most people want a choice.
My old company insisted on 5 days in office and had huge problems recruiting. We just didn't get CVs in. People don't want to go back to the office full time.

Of course the government cannot demand companies order their employees back to the office. But what the government has to do is deal with the consequences of a huge number of people working from home. As in the ripple effect on local cafes, town centres etc. People in the past would socialise after work or during their lunchtime, there has been a massive impact on those businesses now that people are no longer coming into the town centres, this needs to be looked at and they need to be supported. Demanding everyone back to the office is obviously not the answer but there needs to be new thinking on city/ town centres and what they are, what is their purpose, unique selling point etc if the office worker is no longer a source of income/ footfall for them

Definitely jealousy

I saw a study saying it is mostly men who want to get back to the office. They want to get back to a place they can boss around juniors and have women fawn on them again, rather than having to help with the housework and raising their family with someone who might hold them to account. Says a lot about the workplace IMO.

I can understand people wanting to wfh so they can fit working around their domestic lives, and I can also understand different people wanting to leave the house and go into work where they can talk to people.

The blindingly obvious solution is for those who want one way of working to look for work that offers it, and for those who prefer the other way to do likewise. Stressing about what other people do and why they do it is pointless and (to me) inexplicable.

I don’t know why this is getting so much traction. The government can’t stop private companies from allowing workers to wfh. IME hybrid seems more popular than wfh but that could just be me?
He said it because he’s repeating the words of his favourite US Conservatives. Surely he is one of the most famous wfh people in the country? I doubt he works from his constituency office 5 days a week bar trips to Westminster to vote (snigger)

My understanding is that the ripple effect has actually improved things in town centres -ie, people do visit their local cafes, town centres, gyms, etc - because they are near to their homes. What has suffered are the city centre offerings.

Town centers were dying before WFH increased.

Nightclub and pub after work culture was on its way out pre covid.
Online shopping fucked high street retail well before WFH
I don’t see any dearth of coffee shops etc anywhere, so they’re not struggling.

And tbh if WFH was the issue, there should be an element of pent up demand for goods and services, which if you’re not going into the town/city during the week, you would expect to see at least largely reflected in weekend footfall and expenditure …

I also suspect that the people insisting that others aren't productive at home likely don't do much themselves

Plenty of those against wfh don’t work or have retired!

My understanding is that the ripple effect has actually improved things in town centres -ie, people do visit their local cafes, town centres, gyms, etc - because they are near to their homes. What has suffered are the city centre offerings.

It has hence why companies like Pret have expanded into local high streets.

The only problem is that the amount of remediation work (sewage, drainage, fire and safety improvements and so on) would make the building completely financially unviable. It would be better to knock it down and rebuild, but that's not good for the environment. Rock = hard place.