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?

@LadyWithLapdog managers are not responsible for managing diaries

John = Fred!

Oh no they won’t. I think you’ll be losing staff big time. Not my job. It’s yours.

Sunk costs in IT networks will still be useful as there will be more wfh if people have mild cold/flu symptoms.

But a managers job is not purely to manage staff, that’s a very small part of my job I have my own targets to meet and deadlines to hit

I think you’ll be losing staff big time

We’ll see

I think most of companies will try it and lots will be back to 5 days in the office within a year or two. That might be because their managers aren't good enough, but it will still happen.

As as it will happen in more businesses than it doesn't, these businesses won't lose staff because the companies those staff might have gone to will also be returning to more time in the office.

It just can't be true that everyone's working well at home because the customer experience has declined markedly.

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

You trust your team to put their work first during work hours.
If Bill is normal free at 2pm of course he can spend 30 minutes doing yoga. If the team needs to schedule a meeting at 2pm - then no yoga for Bill.

Don’t plan to collect your kids at 3.30pm unless you have a backup plan for someone else to get them instead. It is genuinely not that hard.

Some people have invested £££ in office space and stand to lose out. Is this the issue?

I have worked for companies where it would be impossible to WFH, companies where you could but were very rigid on being in the office and companies that trusted their teams to manage their own and collaborative time wherever they chose to work.

Some of the more rigid opinions on this thread I think are due to having only worked one way or the other.

“Customer experience has declined markedly.” That’s a sweeping statement and not true. Why do you think it might have anything to do with where phones are answered from or where work is submitted from? I think you’re stuck in the past.

@OrangePowder

I actually think hybrid working could be very damaging for women because it will be women who chose to be at home more than in the office, thus missing out on all the chance opportunities. It's human nature to discuss the next big deal with the people who are in the office on the day and to think first of the people you see most often. It will be like trying to maintain a career whilst working PT. Not impossible but much harder.

Meanwhile men will "need" to be in the office often, will still go to the after works drinks, leaving women to manage their home working so they can be at all the school pick ups etc .

Obviously a generalisation but we know that's how things will work in the majority of cases.

See...I think the opposite.

Less chance for men to 'hide' behind a 'busy job' and stay late on purpose to avoid having to do anything at home.

Lots of men I work with do this - they could go home at 6pm but stay a bit later chatting to colleagues or dragging out tasks for longer so that they can walk in to a home cooked meal and kids in bed or just do the bed time story.

Hybrid working means they may actually need to participate in family life.

@Dongdingdong

Our office is fully back, full time out of choice. Everyone is loving it and productivity has gone through the roof.

Indeed - those companies with a WFH workforce are going to find themselves lagging behind very quickly. It’s simply not possible to be as productive at home via a screen as it is in the office face to face. Plus WFH massively disadvantages anyone who lives in a small, cramped property with no adequate space to work.

Nonsense. I'm as productive from home as I am in the office (more so, actually, as people don't engage me in small talk as much at home, only occasionally over Teams).

I'm permanently WFH, as that's my contract with my employer. They realised due to Covid that people can work well from home and now employ a load of us around 150 miles from the office (but within 20 miles of each other in the NW).

Admittedly, there are some inefficient / lazy people (mostly at a level with less experience / work ethic). We've been warned that HR will be deciding which teams need to be back in the office, and the teams with low productivity will have to go back to be supervised / monitored. Not that they'll like it, mind you.

With the right technology / attitude to working unsupervised, there's no excuse to fail at WFH.

@LadyWithLapdog

“Customer experience has declined markedly.” That’s a sweeping statement and not true. Why do you think it might have anything to do with where phones are answered from or where work is submitted from? I think you’re stuck in the past.

It is definitely true!

The extent to which WFH is a factor is open to debate, but I have found that customer service in a variety of businesses has declined markedly over the past year. And I'm far from the only one to have that experience.

@Dongdingdong

If a company needs to make redundancies, it’ll be the people who are never in the office who’ll be first for the chop. Much easier to get rid of someone you never see versus the person who turns up every day. You have been warned.

That would be illegal and cause for legal action. So there may be a few cases from very stupid employers but it will be an exception, not the rule.

There’s been a pandemic, staff furloughed, businesses closed.

It would be callous to use this as proof that WFH isn’t working. Some sour grapes around.

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.

Again it's very industry/job specific. DHs company are looking at reducing sq footage. Again this was a trend pre covid amongst many firms.

The savings in DHs company are estimated at120m plus.

That would be illegal and cause for legal action.

The issue is that hybrid working conditions leave companies open to this can of worms exploding. Which is why I don’t think it’ll hold up long term.

I actually think that rather than companies losing staff for not wfh, businesses that rely heavily on wfh will struggle to recruit, once things open up and people have a choice.

Lots of young recently qualified staff have nowhere suitable at home. Starting a new job when everyone's wfh is really tough. It might suit some, but most wouldn't choose it. Even if there's the option to go to the office, most of the benefits of being in are lost if everyone else is at home.

@Dongdingdong

If a company needs to make redundancies, it’ll be the people who are never in the office who’ll be first for the chop. Much easier to get rid of someone you never see versus the person who turns up every day. You have been warned.

Utter nonsense. Jesus, you really have no idea how progressive companies work.

I am not at more risk of redundancy because I WFH (as per my contract). My company actually needs and values my experience and technical knowledge, which is head and shoulders above most of my colleagues'. In addition, they know that I'm a good fit for the ethos of the firm and I give my all to my job, helping to increase knowledge in less experienced colleagues, as well as doing the job I'm employed to do.

I find some of the views on this thread very out of place with my experience.

Perhaps it is sector specific?

I've worked with Board level Directors at large financial services companies for 20 years and I can tell you that attracting and retaining talent has always been at the top of their agendas.

They have massively improved many aspects of work, to the cost detriment of the business, to attract and retain the right kind of people.

There's absolutely no way they will take the 'my way or the highway' approach some are suggesting on here and I already know for a fact that several of them (all large employers of 4,000+ staff) are fully committed to hybrid working.

I'd like to understand what sectors others are talking about and what level of your own opinion vs. actual known facts are being used...?

@WhenSheWasBad I’m not sure if you’re being obtuse or contrary for the sake of it, but it’s interesting that of my 6 examples you picked the one health related option as negotiable v the 5 childcare related.

Since it’s so straight forward perhaps you can answer this: if I have a project that requires the team to collaborate for a total of 15 hours a week over 6 weeks and there’s only 9.5 hours a week when they’re all available simultaneously due to all wanting different 30-60min slots away from their desk a) where do I find the extra 5.5 hours a week from and b) is it my responsibility as a manger to manage the teams diaries to ensure that the ask is spread evenly across the team.

@wheresmymojo I agree with you. My experience is the complete opposite of what some say.

I can definitely see smaller, less progressive companies going back to the office full time.

They're always behind the curve - partly because of outdated ideas in their management team and partly because they haven't ever invested in management skills so they don't have the level of management capability to cope with anything outside of hierarchical, bums on seat management (which you can see through some of the comments on this thread).

These type of companies always take longer to adopt new ways of working. Some don't change until the MD changes.

But it's a million miles away from the modern corporate workplace.

Remote working existing for many pre covid.