Working from home or going back to the office?

[lightand]

I thought working from home was here to stay, but I am hearing about more and more firms wanting their staff back into offices.

Just wondering, for a few reasons, what is happening generally.

Are you being called back in?

DH reckons there are no immediate plans to get them back. However, he does have a trip in the UK and one abroad that are desperate - he thinks UK one will happen as soon as we can travel, in indoors.

I work in retail so don't have a choice, but DH has been told he never has to work in office ever again if he doesn't want to.

We have changed our WFH policy to make it more flexible, before you had to work one day a week in the office but that's now scrapped, I'm not sure what the new policy will be as they do want to encourage some contact but it's likely to be monthly/quarterly rather than weekly.

I've applied for a job in a different civil service department based in London, I only applied in the hope that if I get it I won't have to go in more than once a week (as I live a good 1.5 hours away) not sure if I've even got an interview yet but will be interesting to see how that pans out if I was successful.

Work may well want me back in the office but I will resign if push comes to shove. I am never again going to be in a office full time. Fortunately I can work privately or change employers quite easily.

Still wfh indefinitely. I suspect we’ll be asked to go into the office once a week/fortnight at some point, but otherwise remaining at home. Very happy with that.

@Gamefacer

I think there will be a proportion of people who are now wedded to the idea of wfh and view it as a change to ts and cs. For the vast majority this was never contractual and staff can and will be called back when employers want them in as per their employment contract. If an employee refused they would be in breach of their contract which would likely trigger the disciplinary process Hopefully we will see employers and employees both show a little mutual flexibility and they can meet in the middle somewhere..

I think my relative was told verbally[dont think it is written] that he could always work from home. Not sure it is going to be the case. He hasnt had the vaccine yet. I think work may be flexible in that they will wait for him to have had the vaccine first.

Maybe I was naive, but I did think that when so many companies were saying working from home was working great, that that was going to be the new normal. Seems not.

Not sure what has changed.

I’m not planning to go in for a while! (Pregnant, hence can’t get the vaccine either and just too nervous now).

But DH was initially saying he’ll wfh until July, but now rapidly seems like people are going in 2-3 days a week (he works in the City).

I’d like to wfh half the week longer term, but let’s see what the world is like after my mat leave