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

Been at my job at the civil service for 3 months now and going to WFH 3 times a week. This saves me £20 in parking - as there are 100 more staff members than car parking spaces. Then , a fifth of the bays are given to staff who have disabilities - understand that. Plus around £10 for fuel a week as it’s a 34 mile round journey each day. It’s around an hour each way to drive - 42 mins last week when schools were off.

It’s easier to WFH with a second monitor. We have been given a laptop which we plug into the two monitors, keyboard and mouse setup in the office.

People thought that after working in a supermarket I would struggle with WFH. I don’t.

I am saving £30 from being hybrid a week. Though increase use in leccy - heating (for heat source pump), laptop use, lighting, kettle etc won’t be £30 extra.

I can have a lie in. Doesn’t matter if I wake up 30 mins before work.

They're on the phone so I see them and their output. If they wish to do their washing, watch Netflix or dance around dressed as a squirrel in their breaks then I couldn't give a shit. They're adults.

I only do 1 WFH day and I really love it. Just the thought of the WFH day on a Thursday gets me through the hideous commute Monday-Wednesday. I am so much more productive working from home and being able to finish and immediately walk the dog improves my wellbeing 100%.

We’re in chat groups the whole time as we work on things together. You know if someone has gone to the toilet. There is no opportunity to do anything but work really. My manager wouldn’t allow dc or gc being at home while we work. Nor do we do housework in work hours. But without the travel at each end of the day I can exercise more and make healthier food. It’s a lot less time wasting in many ways. We aren’t roped into unnecessary meetings and don’t spend ages chatting to people. They’ve saved millions closing one of the buildings we used to occupy.

But most of all it enables women to work full time because they aren’t running themselves ragged. So they can leave abusive men if they want to and end up with a decent pension.

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

the young people I know hate working from home. I can see my own child missing out on what I had in the 90s.

I'm another one that hated it, fortunately I was able to retire so only had to do it for about six weeks. I lived near work anyway so not much of a commute so no savings or good points

We have email and Teams so can chat/video individually or in my team and department.

My DF originally WFH from 1993. We had a 2nd phoneline fitted and communication was fax and phone. Though he did visit clients 2-3 times a week.

That’s just poor management of a poor employee.

there are people who take the piss in offices or on sites too.

I absolutely love it. Especially now my husband has lost a lot of his mobility due to a genetic condition we didn't know he had. He falls down the stairs a lot and collapses several times a day. I don't have to panic about him being home alone. I'm on my 2nd promotion since working from home, taken on more work, more voluntary roles, more productive, barely any sick days etc. If I have a stinking cold, I can just carry on working because I'm at home already.

Anybody who doesn't like it - It's a -them- problem. They won't have the statistics and experience to support their criticisms, so they don't really matter. Mind over matter and all that jazz.

whilst I appreciate that and sympathise it’s not the job of the employer to provide playmates for young adults.

they need to organise their social lives more actively themselves

It's the best thing ever.
But if I was young and single, no.

It’s not, but the fact remains that a lot of friendships are formed in workplaces.

Businesses do have to suit the young as well, not just the middle aged and close to retirement. They need the young to be their leaders in future so need to engage with them.

I think it completely depends on your circumstances and personality. I wfh the majority of the time and I love it. But I have a completely separate office which has been decorated to be a really lovely space, I live with my DH and my work colleagues and I chat a lot on Teams/ the phone/what’s app. However, some people I work with go in the office every day because either they live alone and feel lonely at home or they don’t have a separate office and don’t like work encroaching into their living space. So I do think it depends a lot on circumstances.

I have worked from home nearly 6 years. Been offered a job with 2 days a week at the office. Not sure how i feel.

I wake up 15 mins before work! Wash, teeth, clothes, hairbrush, done!

A lot of vacancies are now office based again. This is why a lot of middle aged and older are hanging onto the wfh jobs for dear life.

And younger. Because after all, people who loved working in person when they were in their 20s and did very well out of it are not the default.

It’s not just that is it. The older folk happily wfh on this thread don’t really care about young people who are missing out on face-to-face contact with mentors and learning from seniors. You can learn so much from working with colleagues face-to-face and learning from senior partners in the firm.

Many young people are living in rubbish housing which is not conducive to working from home. They then go to the office and find themselves the only ones there as their managers are working on teams.

I think hybrid working is fine, but young people are definitely missing out in the workplace. It is not just about ‘playmates’ as you so condescendingly mention. My first post on this thread was to highlight that many keen young people are desperate to learn from seniors face-to-face, at least part of the week.

Absolutely but I don’t take the piss

can’t say the same for a lot of the youngsters coming into the workplace though

Training always comes up in wfh threads, I don't think its so cut and dry that wfh means you wil miss out on learning opportunities. I think it can totally vary from company to company. wfh doesn't mean you are going to miss out on training and in-office doesn't guarantee you will have a good f2f learning experience. It really does come down to a company ethos, and there are some in office ones and wfh ones that are woeful at training and mentoring younger workers.

Thinking about my absolute favourite thing about hybrid working, at home it's the balance with family life, and the silence. Quiet is genuinely something I crave in my life. I live in a fairly quiet residential area in terms of it being a nice area but it's also noisy in terms of the constant noise of roads, motorway, there's always works going on somewhere. In the house there's always sport on the TV, music on, the oven and washing machine aren't the quietest. There's always something and I'm very very rarely in the house on my own otherwise. Those days I work from home when I'm genuinely on my own and there's no teams meetings are actually quite restorative. I don't have the radio on or my audiobooks. I work in silence at the front of the house with the windows closed and it's so good. As said the only downside is really the heating bill in the winter and possibly the 'will just finish this' mentality which can easily turn into working and extra hour when I didn't intend to.

At work I do like seeing my colleagues (and my long term work crush 😏) and the social aspect - small doses is definitely best. However I frequently leave work on office days having been constantly interrupted which means I know the next day at home is going to be fairly full on trying to make that up. And probably contributes to the working extra as well.

The people on this thread are mothers, or mostly mothers, and very very few employers have accommodated us. It's not our job to make everything perfect for everyone else. We're allowed to enjoy something that works for us for once.

I am a hybrid worker (one or two days in office per week). I definitely wouldn't want to wfh all the time I enjoy my days in the office integrating properly with colleagues, Personally don't like Teams calls and meetings.

I also think working from home isn't good for younger people, they probably don't have their own home so will be working from a bedroom or encroaching on family space which isn't ideal and the non commute doesn't make up for this in my opinion.

The youngest person in my own office chooses to come in every day even though they don't have to.

So it's not as cut and dried as 'a good thing' or 'not a good thing' I don't think.

I care, and personally have mentored a 22 year old colleague for the last 7 months on my office days. However my personal circumstances dictate that hybrid is vital to me and my DH. Not all us older ones 'don't care' about our younger colleagues, but we also care about our own wellbeing too. I had my share of hard knocks when I first started work, I try very consciously to contribute to a positive work experience if I get any input.

We do kudoboards instead ;)