Honestly - why are you not going back to work?

[SpaceOP]

I've spoken to a lot of firms, read lots of news reports, all saying that the UK workforce are not going back. I know many firms are doing internal surveys and the feedback is universally that people aren't planning to come back yet.

My question is, genuinely, how much of this i because of covid and how much is because quite frankly, WFH is nicer? Or if there's a list of reasons, is Covid number 1 or number 5?

Certainly, in my case, I have worked from home for years but I admit that I am enjoying barely ever having to go into town. It's time consuming and painful and often means I lose out on time to do other work and/or home stuff. So the more my clients continue to work from home, the better it is for me. I'm not staying away because of Covid as the main reason, although I would say it's a consideration - I feel like the risk doesn't feel that worth it but if I had to go in, I would?

Anyone else?

I think particularly for ,many women there is the childcare situation - odd school starts and finishes no afterschool clubs, no extra curricular stuff, potential for whole year outages (yrs 12 and 13 in our case send home today although I appreciate they can sort themselves out, in actual fact its plus siblings as all need to self isolate for 14 days unless tested), but also commuting is awful, the trains are pretty empty even in London compared to the norm.

I've been back 2 days per week since July.
Now doing 3 days per week until end of September.
Have been told from 1st October I'm back full time in the office as will be everyone else in the office.

Would prefer to work from home due to the commute.
Don't know how they are going to fit everyone in to the office and social distance. I have heard talk that people will be on a rota to work in the office. Screens have gone up already in the open plan section of the office.

Plus, we have already made over 100 people redundant.

I think it's awful that so many people are losing their jobs over this and think I am lucky to still have a job.

I save money and time on the commute.
We get to eat as a family
I don't miss the headache of juggling clubs and trains and wraparound care
I'm more productive
There is absolutely no reason for me to be in the office, i WFH part of the week anyway

My company has only opened offices for vital training. Everyone else is working from home until at least Jan 2021, and a lot of jobs have been re-designated as homeworking so that there is no automatic requirement to go into an office.

For me it saves 2 hours of commuting, I can whizz round doing my housework during a short lunch break, pop the washing on if I need to and then spend the entire evening with my kids. As a single parent that's made a big difference for me. It also meant during lockdown I could continue working.

I'd always worked partially from home, but I've been permanently home since early March now, and the kids feel like they've benefited massively from it, so I wont be going back any more than 1/2 days a week even when I'm allowed to.

The company are actively encouraging people to think about their mental health and work/life balance a lot more than they were this time last year, and they're openly supportive of working from home now.

I’m on maternity leave but just before Covid restrictions hit my department was moved to a smaller room where we would be hotdesking. We were also given smaller desks in banks in the expectation that we would go “paperless” (which many of us had been trying to do for years, but the systems weren’t easily set up for it yet). This means that until a rota/cleaning/distancing system has been figured out everyone is still wfh

I've never stopped working (NHS), been at it full time throughout covid but very much enjoyed the empty roads and very short commute as a result.
Now I'm still at work but the commute is back to the hour plus hellish commute with traffic jams.

My office hasn't re-opened, and there have been no announcements giving when they expect us back. I think to be honest, that my employer will take this as the opportunity to close a lot of their satellite offices .

I only used to go to the office to make sure I got some fresh air every day, as I walked there. No-one on my team is based in the same office as me, so it hasn't reduced my collaboration with team members.

We were previously not allowed to wfh as it was frowned on by the senior people at the organisation. I always wanted to do 1/2 days per week and hope that will be allowed when I return from mat leave. I don’t want to be at home all the time though - I like the contact with colleagues and clients in person

If my employer said I HAD to go back in I would happily, but they are actually insisting we stay away.

WFH is my preferred anyway (I did it long before Covid) but while I'm not so much worried about catching it myself, I think we all have a social responsibility to those who are vulnerable. Why would I risk spreading it if there's no need for me to be in an office 🤷🏻‍♀️

There’s no need for me to go to the office so I don’t. I’m happier wfh and going on the amount of people in the office on any given day (around 10-15% maximum) then I’m clearly not alone.

I’ve been to the office a couple of times and whilst I’ve enjoyed it, there’s hardly anybody around, I get less done and I’m definitely more tired from commuting in. I wouldn’t choose the office over wfh and will only go in when I’m forced to.

Our business doesn’t seem to be in any rush to get people back, there’s been some gentle chivvying now the kids are back but given the powers that be are equally absent from the office, I think everybody is happy to go with the flow, especially as productivity is the same or better, sickness absences are down and (for the most part) people are happier.

Do you mean “going back to work” or “going back to the workplace”? Because the two are very different and having worked insanely hard from home since the very beginning of lock down, I’m getting very tired of being made out to be as if I’m being lazy or difficult because I simply don’t happen to be in the office.

I have worked at a fairly senior level for a number of big employers in the financial services industry.

Many of them haven't asked their staff to return yet or have just invited staff to come in who are considered 'frontline' and with the option for those finding it difficult to work from home to be in an office.

In that instance the majority of their staff (hundreds of thousands across all of them) aren't the decision makers here.

I know that those businesses are:

• Considering how they can reduce their office costs while still providing space for some co-working for people who don't like full time WFH and meeting space

• Are hoping to be able to save office costs and related costs as an offset to how many people they may need to make redundant

• Don't want all staff back in as it's simply not possible to be a COVID secure working environment and have 100% of staff back in

• Would prefer to keep the impact of any second wave on operations as limited as possible. If a member of staff WFH has COVID that's one person off and easy to deal with, if they come into the office and spread it to several more in the same team that is much harder to deal with

• Understand, as parents themselves, that DC will be in and out of school over the next few months because of symptoms / waiting for tests and it's less disruptive if people are already set up working from home

• Know they're in control of how COVID secure their offices are but that they have 0% control over packed commuter trains and tubes if everyone starts to come back

Happily the average business leader in a big business has about 20 times more sense than our Govt.

My team is not back because it was pretty obvious there's be a second spike once everyone went back to work, so it would have been a big waste of time!

The organisation is using space for the activities that can not be done at home (the customer-facing bits).

@KitchenConfidential

Do you mean “going back to work” or “going back to the workplace”? Because the two are very different and having worked insanely hard from home since the very beginning of lock down, I’m getting very tired of being made out to be as if I’m being lazy or difficult because I simply don’t happen to be in the office.

People who work from home normally have been putting up with this for years . I had a previous role where I worked full time from home for 3 years. The amount of people who thought I could look after their kids or pop to the shops to get them something during the day etc was insane. DH works from home full time and has done for 5 years. His dad (an ex headmaster) thinks that means his job isn’t real’ and that he dosses around all day. He earns 6 figures working for a global financial services company... I don’t see him between 8am and 8pm as he’s holed up in the office working.

Because I’d have to get on a packed commuter train. And when I’m in the office we’ll be socially distanced, unable to discuss things any better than we can at home- meeting rooms will be out of bounds, no eating together in canteen, one per person in lifts. So might as well be at home for now.

Have been trying to. Had just about sorted and started plans for it having done all the risk assessments and processing of guidance, but as of this weekend having to start considering the next set of contingency plans due to local situation and it looking nationally like things are about to start getting hairy again, and possibly escalating quite quickly.

So looks to me like having managed to get things sorted to go back, it's going to be replanning to return to wfh, and keeping both sets of plans open until the situation gets clearer. Fun this.

It costs me £30 to go into work due to travel and childcare. Wfh is a payrise for me and I gain 2 hours a day to put into work or other activities which I would otherwise waste on a stressful commute.
If I go into the office I won't get the benefit of mixing with colleagues due to social distancing and will just be stuck on online meetings. I may as well do that from home and reap the benefits above.
It's a no brainer for me.

I'm back one day per week (civil service department) but can't go any more than that due to the lack of capacity at our office.

Previously I wfh 1 day as we were all crammed in like sardines and that took the pressure off desks (we nearly all did 1 day at home).

Now I'd like to do 2/3 days at home as the IT has got so much better and stakeholders are working that way too,

Forgot to say I miss my colleagues and going out for lunch/pub but I can't see the situation changing any time soon.

you're right. I'm sure it'll get some people's backs up as many don't have the choice to WFH but for me it's absolutely nothing to do with Covid, it's simply because I like working from home and being able to potter about doing chores around work

It doesn't apply to me as I'm a teacher (on mat leave) so my job is best done in person.

Hypothetically though, I would probably enjoy part time WFH in order to be around more for my children at breakfast/ dinner time, keep on top of minor house work and small errands rather than spending two hours every single day just driving to and from work.

I don't think I would enjoy full time WFH though as I do enjoy working collaboratively on certain things and having a sense of team.

Our company has split us in half so we’re only allowed in every other week at most. It’s also means that at best you’d see half your team members as we’re also split in half.

I think many large companies don’t want the negative publicity of having at COVID cluster in their head office and if productivity is fine during WFH why take the risk?

I'm a lecturer and was supposed to be doing a mix of remote and face-to-face classes, but my employer have now changed their mind and it will all be remote because of the rise in cases.

I would far rather be at work, I absolutely hate teaching online, and am beginning to loathe my kitchen table!

100% Covid.

A second wave is inevitable and offices have been shown in studies to have one of the highest attack rates. No surprise — aerosolised virus + prolonged contact with members of different households in poorly ventilated space.

our office is open this week. I have both dcs about to go back to university, one this saturday, the other the next saturday. I said to my boss, as I've had this long at home, it seems a bit sad that I'd go back to work 2 weeks before they are both gone. He agreed so I go back in 2 weeks time.

the people back in the office today said the trains were pretty busy, especially the people who have attempted to come in early to leave early (I think a lot of people are doing this to carry on trying to get evenings with their kids)

my commute is 80 mins one way at best so I'm not missing it at all!