to find some expectations around constant productivity while WFH unrealistic?

[juststoop]

I work in an industry where the workflow naturally has peaks and troughs. Sometimes it is absolutely manic and I barely stop all day. Other times it is fairly quiet and there simply isn’t a constant stream of work coming in every minute.

Occasionally, during the quieter periods, I might post on Mumsnet more while WFH. Yet whenever I mention I’m working from home, there are inevitably comments saying I should not be posting online, that I should be working every second, that I’m giving WFH a bad name, and that people like me are the reason everyone will be forced back into the office.

I honestly find this attitude bizarre. Do people really think office workers are productive every single minute they are physically in a workplace? Because in every office I have ever worked in, there has always been chatting, tea breaks, people wandering over to someone’s desk for a gossip, scrolling phones, long lunches, staring into space, and generally filling quieter periods.

The difference with WFH is that some people seem to expect absolute nonstop visible productivity at all times, as though you must sit frozen at your laptop waiting for the next email to arrive.

Also, my workplace is not “marching everyone back in”. They have literally sold off large amounts of office space, so there physically is not room for everyone anyway. Hybrid and remote working are clearly here to stay in many industries.
As long as the work is completed properly, deadlines are met, and people are available when needed, I do not understand why someone posting on a forum for five minutes during a quiet spell suddenly becomes something to get judgy about.

I am not saying everyone does this btw.

Whenever I go into the office I do about half the work I do at home! Always someone coming to chat, I take a proper lunch break away from the office, just general piddling about going to the coffee machine, inevitably getting talking to someone there, leaving bang on time to get my train. If I actually want to get work completed I stay home! Going into the office is for networking

One of the reasons I moved into teaching was because the thing I hated most about office jobs was the requirement to look busy and like you had work to do all the time even when there wasn’t any.

i’d rather do a job where I’m busy all the time than a job where I’m literally watching the clock, can’t go home early because the bosses don’t allow it and literally do not have any work.

I worked in an office for a couple of years and honestly that was the worst part of it.

i moved to teaching which has it’s own problems but boredom isn’t one of them.

Oh and DH’s job is also WFH but he only has work to do when someone needs work doing, so some days he can do barely anything, other days he’s really full on. He’s worked there for over a decade with the same pattern, it’s just how the workflow is.

Mine is different in that I have a set ‘thing’ I need to achieve every day. Once that ‘thing’ is achieved, there’s no other work for me to do. Sometimes that thing takes me all day full on with barely a break, other days that thing is done with two hours of my day left. Depends on lots of variables. If the thing is finished, there’s nothing else I need to be doing as next day is an entirely new thing that can’t be worked on till the next day.

Exactly. I think the above posters don’t understand that for some positions there is no clear notion of « overtime » or « working hours ». My contracts mentions business need.
So yes, 2pm I’m on mumsnet. But for sure tonight at 6:30pm there will be an urgent call to handle.

There are so many corporate brown-nosers on Mumsnet who are incredibly uptight about the notion of anyone skiving on work time, occasionally having not much to do at work etc.

They also pop up on threads about workplace behaviours to say it's inadvisable to be friendly with colleagues, to insist that anyone who dated a colleague would be sacked where they work, to insist that casual dress codes are the work of Satan, and to label everything from having a tattoo or drinking a cup of tea during a meeting as 'unprofessional'.

I always imagine that when they were at school, they were the kids who would put their hand up and tell the teacher that she'd forgotten to set any homework that week.

I also imagine they're the managers everyone at work - including their own, more senior managers - tremendously dislikes, winds up, and does impressions of on work nights out.

But it's not the majority of the working population, just a small subset

Ok as a non WFH person . Can you enlighten me about all these meetings? Do they actually get any work done I do remember my partner telling me everyone would be a damn sight more productive if so much time wasn't wasted on endless meetings

So is there not any work to be actually done in this downtown between meetings. Otherwise when is it done?

Okay...? I didn't mention the majority of the working population. I'm talking about people who WFH, which this thread is about. I am aware other non-office jobs exist.

It depends on your job surely. In a lot of roles, the meetings are the work.

Also not everyone who has meetings has them back-to-back. I have about 2 meetings a week, my partner has about 4 a day. It varies.

Well in my line of work, I produce a document, I then have a meeting with someone to discuss it, it then gets modified or not and it then gets re-submitted and approved.

Or, I'm the person reviewing someone else's work and have a meeting to discuss what they've misinterpreted or omitted.

In between waiting for meetings, I produce more documents or review other documents.

If I'm waiting on other people, and have nothing to do until they do stuff, I do whatever I feel like doing!

I can only speak for my work.

Yes our meetings are very productive.

yes there is work that can be done during breaks between meetings

but it’s also ok to have some downtime and chill

I WFH and it can be bloody relentless. Pre COVID I would go to meetings in person, travelling to external meetings, chatting to colleagues before and after. I have data now when I am literally in Teams meetings or working flatout.

When things are quiet I dont look for extra tasks to do, because I would quite simply burn out if I tried to maintain that pace the whole time.

I've got a very busy period on at work at the moment and to maintain confidentiality, I'm WFH throughout.

I just had my best day of the week using pomodoro breaks (3-10m every 25m) in an empty house.

Not only have I made significant progress at work, the front doorstep is painted, several pieces of housework, and some decluttering and my own admin, all with TV on in the background and a few breaks to do some weights.

I can't do this if my husband is at home - any kind of chit chat is horribly distracting compared to doing doing tasks by myself.

22:30 at night and I've just logged off from work... I definitely wouldn't be in the office until this time! (And I only got paid until 5pm)

Jesus, I’ve got the wrong WFH job, I think….relentless! Barely time to eat a sandwich, let alone painting doorsteps!

I definitely do get that work can ebb and flow, and many more senior/specialist in their fields are employed for their knowledge/ability to respond in crisis situations as opposed to churning out work like a machine. However, in cases where the hours and duties are more ‘set’/regular and the employee is consistently getting things done with hours to spare, I would expect honesty with management/checking in to see what else might need doing. It’s this lack of honesty and initiative that I think gets people’s backs up. Plenty of initiative when it comes to non-work related things in work hours though, it seems!

because the vast amount of people, particularly people working in an office environment, like the OP - do? Unless you are literally chief exec equivalent, most people in most jobs have someone they report to.

What a bizarre thing to pick someone up on!

Long befoe it became common to WAH I was doing so in my academic job. Academics are expected to do writing and research which would be impossible in a busy noisy office. So we routinely WAH 3 days a week - more if working on an urgent task. The system was to agree on a series of tasks and a deadline by which they were to be done. It was then up to the individual to organise the tasks and get them done. There was no expectation that you woud sit at a desk 9-5 on WAH days. In fact my boss admitted she took her dogs out twice a day. So the job was organised on results and not on presenteeism. Obviously there would be requirement to be present for meetings (this was before zoom and teams). The assumption was that you treat staff like responsible adults and they will perform accordingly, and ask for support if they need it.

If your progress in the profession depands upon your research and publications then yu are not going to pizz about and fail to produce the work. Anyone capable of producing a 150,000 word theis PH.d thesis is responsible enough not to be micromanaged.

Fair enough if you don’t have any actual work to do, but if you do, but just fancy having a lazy day, then yes, it’s taking the P. I can’t say I ever have ‘nothing to do’, I have a list as long as my arm for things I need do, but lately i’m in 5-6 meetings a day so sometimes I might need 5 mins between meetings and nothing wrong with scrolling on your phone then. But we all know some people do take the P and yes you can do that in the office, but chatting to colleagues at the photocopier is at least collaborating / building relationships with colleagues, even it talking about Eastenders. Being on MN for hours, is not.

My eyes were opened recently when I read the thread where the mother of a toddler - I think toddler age - managed to do WFH whilst caring for her child without her employer even realising. That shows you how little we know about what people who WFH are doing..

That shows you how little we know about what people who WFH are doing..

I had jobs in my younger years where I sat and did nothing in the office all day.

However, in cases where the hours and duties are more ‘set’/regular and the employee is consistently getting things done with hours to spare, I would expect honesty with management/checking in to see what else might need doing. It’s this lack of honesty and initiative that I think gets people’s backs up.

Project based work can be different where there are gaps or working with international organisations. Does it mean every gap has to be filled up?

Possibly this will be considered out of touch but I find the not infrequent comments about how wfh solves the childcare in the holidays problem utterly staggering, both from the point of view of work and parenting.

I don't think sitting and doing nothing, which would have been fully on view to the whole company,.is on a par with somehow "combining " a job with bringing up a child.. it's not the lack of productivity, so much as the fact that you can be unaccountable whilst WFH. I realise it's the fault of the company, or management or ethos or whatever but I think it's just crazy that it can happen without their knowledge because of WFH..

Combining it with bringing up a child is a separate issue.

But I have sat in the office all day doing my own stuff.

Yes I realise what you have done..what I'm saying is when a person WFH we don't know if they are or are not working.