Do you think government will recommend return to ‘WFH if you can’?

[SophieH83]

Some of my colleagues (perhaps wishfully thinking) believe that gov will reintroduce ‘WFH if you can’ any day now.

Do you think it’s likely?

I agree to a point on bang for buck but I do think it slows demand. I’ve noticed it in my sector - just recently jobs have shot up - many made changes back to workplace in Sept

@ThePoisonousMushroom

I fucking hope not, it absolutely destroyed my mental health. Living at work, no differentiation between work and home, having to cram my desk and computer into a tiny corner because we haven’t got any proper space to work from (funnily enough when we bought the house we didn’t realise it would have to be used as an office too). Hated every single minute.

I’m with you. Although I actually have a fully set up home office and still hated every minute of it. If they try and make me do it again, then I’ll seriously consider if it’s possible for me to be signed off sick instead. It’s taken me months to get back to being able to function again. WFH makes me ill. I NEVER want to do it again.

The whole work from home thing is so hypocritical if you then go out and enjoy cinema trips, the gym, bars and restaurants and other busy venues. It should only be brought in for people who are vulnerable. If Covid is no risk to you personally, you need to crack on because the damn virus isn't going anywhere. Of course if your employer is happy for you to wfh, then that's fine, but it shouldn't be for Covid reasons anymore.

It'll be funny if they do as our department have just spent so much time and money getting us all back into the office despite staff suggesting maybe autumn/winter wasn't the best time. I'm not worried either way, happy to go in once a week as I am now, happy to save the fuel if I don't.

The whole work from home thing is so hypocritical if you then go out and enjoy cinema trips, the gym, bars and restaurants and other busy venues
Actually it’s common sense. WFH halves the number of people you have contact with and doesn’t affect the economy. If everyone halves the number of people they have contact with, virus spread reduces massively.

@Marelle not really if you have more money in your pocket from saved travel fares and lunches, that's more money to spend on socialising and more time to meet up with friends and family during the week.

Makes sense, the option to do so at least.

@thedevilinablackdress

Never not been in Scotland Not saying every employer is still following it, but certainly public sector are IME I think this will come back in England for the winter, along with masks and something vague about social distancing

Nor wales. Same as masks yet we and Scotland have had higher rates than England for most of the last few months despite lower population density so neither initiative seems to be doing much really!

@bellamountain
“ if you have more money in your pocket from saved travel fares and lunches, that's more money to spend on socialising and more time to meet up with friends and family during the week.”

The evidence is that most people, other than children, aren’t mixing as much as we were, but if you are determined to see hypocrisy everywhere then I suppose you will.

You can really see the gap now between employers who have embraced a new way of working that fits around people's lives and those who are stuck in the old school style of rigid hours and presenteeism.
So glad I have the former.

Maybe the government will manage to ride it out now that cases are dropping a bit.