To be so glad WFH became a thing (and to absolutely hate anyone who tries to curtail its availability)

[Designless]

It's just life changingly good

While WFH works for many especially those who are experienced and have strong networks and home situations, it can be challenging for the young who need training and everyday advice, the lonely and those who just want a chat that wouldn’t happen on Teams. If people don’t want to come in for a meeting, I doubt they’ll come in for Phil from Accounts’ shared birthday cake.
I also feel this determination to keep it as is fuelling jobs going to India/far east and the graduate and apprenticeship jobs have fallen off a cliff in the UK, partly because setting isn’t there to support the young. That’s not great for our kids’ outlook.
My advice to all is to embrace hybrid enthusiastically to keep any type of flexibility.

@USSAthena ‘What about turning office blocks into homes?’

I agree, but it really depends on the area and the local council. This what has happened to Croydon but the conversions are poor quality and mainly being used to house homeless spillover from other London boroughs, which has a lot to do with why the centre is so dire now. Having said that, I think it is very slowly on the way up as investment comes back and more good quality flats are being built. The new office developments around the station are largely government departments like the home office, tax offices, VAT, plus the land registry has been there for years. Between the 60’s and 80’s it was full of insurance companies and thrived.

@USSAthena’Many towns have fabulous amenities. Museums, gyms, even beautiful green spaces. Let’s live in them! We used to.’

Exactly. There will always be ebb and flow. No one wanted t live in London after the war unless they had no choice. I remember a lot of derelict sites, old bomb sites included, and that didn’t change until they deregulated the banking system and investment flooded in.

It takes a council with a vision and the investment. Many European cities have adjusted really well.

Depends how busy your job is and what you do in your off time, surely.

Absolutely, and this is something we need to think about given the rates of people who are long term sick and those caring for them.

When I became an academic I had worked at home for 8 years going straight from an undergraduate to a postgraduate degree. So I was used to self directed study, setting my own goals and completing tasks without supervision. I went straight from that into an academic job where we WAH for 2/3 days a week. We went on campus for meetings, to see students and admin. I am not a team or a group person. I achieve best when I agree a set of tasks, a date by which they need to be done, and then get on with it. Ive worked through christmas and new year in order to complete a presentation or a grant application. Commuting is more of less a waste of time and money. Far more so now when so much knowledge is available online. I now tutor postgrad students online and only one lives in the same city. Ofter we communicate from different parts of the world.

Yes so that is totally taking the biscuit 🤔firstly I wouldn't get away with it- I pick up and respond to teams calls same as I would on an in office day. I get more work done at home overall as I've posted upthread so I wouldn't do anything to jeopardise that. People like the one you've mentioned give WFH and HW a bad name, for sure. I also don't see why on earth they found it acceptable to joke about it when they were in the office 🙈

Working carer here agrees

There are always people that take the piss like this in offices too. They are the reason a lot of office work is so restricted and logged now. I’ve been continually astonished over the years at how largely incompetent, lazy and dishonest people rise through organisations. It’s always happened of course (largely because of things like the old boy network) but it does seem to be more prevalent in very big organisations now. Grifters are always going to be grifters whatever their background.

Being in control of the temperature and noise levels, being able to put a baked potato in or make a nice lunch instead of expensive crap/leftovers in a tub, saving money and time commuting. Also I can really concentrate on difficult tasks instead of being interrupted by boring smalltalk.

I agree OP. My DH wfh a lot and it has made our lives so much more manageable. We have 3 young children and I have an inflexible job which can't be done from home. If he didn't wfh, I would probably have had to find a more flexible job, which would pay less and probably be less enjoyable. I'm sure there are many mothers like me who have been able to keep well-paid jobs thanks to WFH!

And how depressing the house is 😂

I agree that hybrid options are the best and certainly might be better for training and people whom live alone. Really depends on the job and the person though. My partner WFH for most of his later career as the internet improved but in the last stage of it had a lot of staff and issues where he had to commute long distances 5 days a week and then do his actual work in the remain hours.
Then Covid happened, which probably saved his life.
In those final few years of WFH he said it was still quite clear who was and wasn’t pulling their weight as the job was very results orientated.

there’s a really good, old, short story by EM Forster called The Machine Stops - it’s food for thought!

It works for me as I am 63, my social life has moved away from drinking and clubbing with work mates a long time ago, to coffee and nice meals with friends I made at the school gate 20 years ago, I can jiggle my hours around to fit, I can put a load of washing on at breakfast time, then get it pegged out or into the tumble dryer on my coffee break or lunch break. I LOVE it.

If I had been WFH as an 18 year old I would have HATED it. Most of my socialising and generally messing about and being young was done with work mates. I commuted to London so would often stay over, I had a complete change of clothes in my drawer for when it got organised at the last minute. I loved my early years at work in an office with similar girls. This was back in the 80s when coming back to work tiddly after lunch time in the pub was absolutely fine. It was often the managers standing the rounds.

I work on a laptop with an overseas based team. Absolutely no reason to be in the office. Was working from home thrice a week but my company is making everyone come in 5 days a week now. Awful as I might have to quit my job as can’t afford the commute in.

I never went back to the office after Covid. It’s made my life so much easier. People like Farage need to shut up about wanting everyone back in the office 5 days per week. There are some great stats around the benefits for businesses who enable staff to work from home. Productivity up, sickness down and less people leaving. What’s not to like? If the government wants women back in the workplace they have to make it more family friendly. WFH is a big part of that.

I love it but I appreciate that I benefited from learning face to face from colleagues and we are going to have a skills and experience gap.

I don't work in a work from home job, it's just not possible.

I don't get the hate fro wfh jobs though, it made my life a lot easier in covid as traffic was non existent in 2021 whilst people were still working from home.

I think some of it is micromanaging, some is jealousy and some is not wanting change, not liking change

YANBU. It's improved my life immensely and also made me much more productive (on my WFH days, anyway, my office day is another story.)

Some people want to take it away, either because they're control freaks or envious of those who get to WFH. Probably the same type of people who bemoan the 'politics of envy' in other circumstances.

Ah ok 😅 my wfh space is cheerful and peaceful, I designed it lol so maybe I'm lucky- but also am hybrid so is not an everyday thing

No more having to leave the pub early because you have work in the morning.

In a previous role I worked that was a type of office but also customers coming and going.

One of the seniors would drive at work and when she was working int he back office, would not do any actual work for the first 2 hours of her being there. This also disturbed others a lot and they didn't get work done.

During covid when the office was working from home - a lot more work got done

This! WFH has been good for women, disabled people, people coping with various responsibilities and conditions.. oh, but people who own city centre property don't like it, ie rich white men. No wonder Farage is moaning about it, with peak irony given that his employers (the residents of Clacton) can hardly count on him being sat at a desk there, or in the House of Commons, through the working week.

This thread shows that flexibility and hybrid options are the way forward. Not all jobs or workers are suited to WFH and we should be able to offer on site working, hybrid and full WFH so that we get a maximum number of people able to work and in a setting where they can thrive. Surely that's best all round.

Mine don't, they can't as we have to be on the phone to answer customer queries. I can see who is online at any time.

If someone needs a break to do something, they announce it in the team chat and we cover accordingly. No one would do that to put a load of washing on.

I always tell them that the way to continue wfh is not to take the piss, be present and get their work done.

Hybrid is good but full time WFH is hell and really bad for a role like mine.

Mm..I can't drink the night before I work though whether I'm in office or WFH. Like a clear head! Maybe my age......