Dh has been told to get back to the office

[SmiledWithTheRisingSun]

For a minimum of 2 days per week.
Is this an end to WFH?

Sorry, quoted wrong bit!

Naturally. I expect that’s a risk management are willing to take

I once worked for one of those companies. Tried to bleed as much out of staff as humanly possible. Turnover rose to 75%, cost them a fortune in recruitment. Workforce massively deskilled and demotivated.

They don’t operate anymore.

If I’m honest keating I’m glad you don’t have staff or manage people. You sound like you would be a very inflexible employer.

You’re determined to make this debate about ‘inflexible managers’. It really isn’t.

As I’ve said before, just because wfh suits your husband who likes doing the school run, it doesn’t mean it’s in the best interests of the wide company and everyone else who works there.

Employers will be focused on what’s beneficial for the company in the longer term. Employees naturally have the right to quit and work elsewhere

But allowing people to effectively come and go to suit their own lives impacts on other people’s ability to do their roles & it becomes very complex when people start talking about things becoming custom and practice and therefore contractual - I’ve picked X up from school everyday for a year it’s therefore my right to continue doing it
I’m actually a manager who supports WFH but it has to go two ways and can’t always be about what works for the employee

Will London wages still be a thing for people who work for a London based company ...but arent actually required to be present most of the week?

Tons of people wfh pre covid. My sister works in tech, been working 100% remotely for years. Even worked when living abroad for a yr. Still gets payed a high amount.

I would find it difficult to respect a boss who was unable to understand the current situation, or didn't care about the welfare of employees.

My own boss has always been ahead of the game. Anyone not already WFH was told to on February 24th 2020.

We're reviewing that decision in March 2022.

(Some of the younger members of the team whose WFH situations were less than ideal have access to rented work pods in the gardens of local pubs and similar.)

We are determined to be part of the solution - not add to the problem.

If we didn't already appreciate that we had a good boss, we do now.

I do agree childcare should still be in place when wfh in normal times.

@TheKeatingFive

You’re determined to make this debate about ‘inflexible managers’. It really isn’t.

As I’ve said before, just because wfh suits your husband who likes doing the school run, it doesn’t mean it’s in the best interests of the wide company and everyone else who works there.

Employers will be focused on what’s beneficial for the company in the longer term. Employees naturally have the right to quit and work elsewhere

The reason I keep talking about management is because every issue you’ve brought up can be solved by decent management of staff.

With regards to my husband. His company have decided everyone (almost) will be working from home. So clearly it works for his company.

Employers are definitely focussed on what is best for the company long term. That’s why so many look after staff well-being and are flexible.

Imposing blanket conditions on your staff because you can’t manage them properly is not on

It’s not a managers job to oversee team diaries, much less those of other cross functional stakeholders.

It’s entirely reasonable to expect a team whom collaborate regularly to ordinarily be available at the same time for most of a working day. If everyone has to pop out for 40 mins here and there, the number of available collaboration hours reduce very quickly and that has a detrimental affect on the business.

For some people who work almost entirely in isolation and don’t need their role “covered” whilst they are ooo it’s fine but most people don’t work like that.

I'm going back the week after next for 2 days a week, moving up to 3 days at some point.

Don't think we'll ever be back 5 days a week though and this seems the same for most of the big financial services organisations I know of.

The reason I keep talking about management is because every issue you’ve brought up can be solved by decent management of staff.

I don’t necessarily agree.

With regards to my husband. His company have decided everyone (almost) will be working from home. So clearly it works for his company.

Let’s see where we are in 18 months. There’s a lot of settling down to do.

The only thing I’d caution about is people making major life changes without an updated contract stipulating wfh in hand. Plenty have already fallen into this trap.

@Franklin12

Honestly the skiving that has been going on is not sustainable. People having children in the background during conference calls, others not being available between 1500-1600.

I worked for a very large FTSE company for many years and although it worked for the senior people it had to be stopped except by exception for junior staff. I had two people in my team who just couldn’t be trusted. One had to be brought back to the office kicking and screaming and this was before covid. She said she couldn’t afford childcare and just had to have her children in the background.

Research shows that people have actually worked longer hours at home than in the office.

Unless something critical happens between 3-4pm what difference does it make if a parent takes that hour out and makes it up at a different time of the day?

This is a very outdated approach to work and likely to be extremely alienating to your staff.

The only thing I’d caution about is people making major life changes without an updated contract stipulating wfh in hand. Plenty have already fallen into this trap

I think that’s good advice. Already hearing about people who have moved further out as they don’t have to commute; taken on a bigger mortgage as they no longer have to pay childcare.

I’ve had an employee move back home to another continent and then be upset when they’re told they need to come back to the U.K.

Research shows that people have actually worked longer hours at home than in the office.

Presumably that 'research' is based on self-reporting though? I doubt too many people are going to admit it if they work fewer hours.

It’s entirely reasonable to expect a team whom collaborate regularly to ordinarily be available at the same time for most of a working day

Actually it’s not. Loads of people make themselves unavailable for a few hours during each day so they can get on with actual work.
Being constantly available can mean constant interruptions which isn’t great for productivity.

Teams tend to plan meetings in advance, it’s not sensible to suddenly start a whole team meeting with only 30 minutes notice.

If people aren't in the office reliably, you miss all those opportunities where something is mentioned in passing and you learn something or spot an opportunity or share an idea.

People who want to wfh may be happy to accept that, but if there isn't enough people in work, everyone is affected and the company loses out.

One of the biggest deals of my career came about because I was musing over a problem I had putting it to together and the woman sitting opposite had a solution (which I credited her for). I doubt I'd have called her for help, it probably wouldn't have occurred to me that she could. It certainly wouldn't have if I hadn't seen her for a year because we were all wfh. That deal made almost £500k for the company.

Unless something critical happens between 3-4pm what difference does it make if a parent takes that hour out and makes it up at a different time of the day?

@wheresmymojo because not everyone wants 3-4 off.

Amy wants to start at 9:30 because of school run
Burt wants to dip out at 11:30 for pre school collection
Charlie would like to do Pilates fo his back over his lunch hour at 12:00
Dan picks his DD from nursery at 1:30
Emma’s son finishes school at 3 so she’s out 2:40-3:20
Fiona’s oldest is in senior school but she’s no longer travelling by bus so she needs to get her at 4:45.

Suddenly you’ve got a team of 6 who should be spending a significant amount of collaboration time together but there’s barely an hour in the day where they’re all available. It’s very tricky to manage.

A lot of companies have had to invest £££ in their networks and equipment to have everyone working from home and now they are looking for a pay off from that which will be hybrid working to reduce office space needed.

I don't think being in the office 5 days a week will be the norm again.

Even those businesses that are 'old school' will have to adapt because they will find it increasingly difficult to get staff if they won't be flexible.

@Dongdingdong

I've worked (cleaner, supporting an essential service) throughout and don't understand why people think it's ok to carry on not really doing the job they are paid for

Quite. And I can’t believe anyone would be so foolish as to have made any big life decisions over the promise of working from home. Surely they didn’t think this would a permanent thing?

I find this a weird view. People are still doing all of their work, just at home instead of in an office.

My job and what I do is exactly the same whether I work from my house or not.

www.forbes.com/sites/kristinstoller/2021/04/28/employees-are-working-an-extra-day-in-unpaid-overtime-each-week/?sh=71361f435cc4 Here is the mention of people working more (unpaid!) when WFH this past year.

@WhenSheWasBad you’ve misunderstood my use of ordinarily available.

Of course I’m not suggesting people are available at thirty minutes notice - that would be insane. What I am suggesting is that when I try to schedule a meeting for three weeks hence if there are no common hours where teams are available because they’re all running around doing other stuff that negatively impacts the business.

If it’s tricky to manage then managers will have to work harder at their job. Or be creative. Not petty or petulant that what was once only available to them is now available to others as well. Move with the times or be left behind.

I think the opportunity to offset costs is overstated. Most office leases are negotiated medium term. We have large offices in central London. They cost in excess of 10m. There is no opportunity to break the lease until 2027, although we have recently negotiated no raise in rent.

The money we’ve spent on extra screens, home printers and some office furniture for home, pales into insignificance against the cost off the office.

If it’s tricky to manage then managers will have to work harder at their job. Or be creative.

No they won’t. They’ll refer employees to the terms of their contracts and get them back to the office. I doubt they’ll be too concerned about losing staff as a critical mass of employers will be doing the same thing for the same reasons.

@OrangePowder

The hybrid model works for some people and not others. And that's the problem. If Sally works perfectly well from home, but Fred finds it hard to apply himself and Julie has to work on the sofa. In theory a line manager can deal with all those issues and leave Sally happily wfh, but it's much easier to treat everyone the same and have them all in. People will say a good line manager can manage it, but why would they if they don't need to?

It's always going to create friction if managers have to say Sally can wfh, but Fred, who does the same job , can't.

Some people are good at wfh, others really aren't. It's not only whether the role can be done at home it's whether the people can wfh.

It really doesn't.

Line managers should be setting measurable targets / deadlines / level of quality output required.

This is line management 101.

All that matters is whether Sally & John meet their targets/deadlines irrespective of where they are working.

If John chooses to work from home and doesn't meet his targets/deadlines consistently then the performance management process begins. The first step of this process is coaching John on why he is failing to meet his targets and what he could do to address this - this is John's opportunity to realise that slacking off at home is the problem and fix it. If John chooses not to then the performance management process continues until he is managed out.

^ This is what proper management looks like and it is totally independent of the physical location of any staff