Work from home again in England?

[Jourdain11]

I missed the news today and I'm wondering... was much said about work from home guidelines in England? I cannot see that anything has been said specifically but wondering if there was any "laying of the ground".

[quote HousethatChunkbuilt]@lupad wouldn't WFH make this worse as it would mean that some of the London jobs could be done by anyone, anywhere in the country. Presumably for less money too.[/quote]
Is that a bad thing? I'd have thought it would be good if jobs are more equitably spread out across the country.

Nobody comments on the suggestion that for (I swear) a majority of people, there are parts of their job they cannot do at home.

I don't understand the logic behind reintroducing this now, anyway!

@Jourdain11

Nobody comments on the suggestion that for (I swear) a majority of people, there are parts of their job they cannot do at home.

I don't understand the logic behind reintroducing this now, anyway!

I don't know anyone for whom that is true.

Whenever I read examples it's usually not wfh that is the issue. The problem is generally that the employer hasn't put systems in place to handle a situation that everybody knew would happen.

And there's not much excuse for that to still be the case after all this time.

@PrincessNutNuts I agree. My teams have to answer the phones. We don't have to be in the office to do that.

They have work mobiles and calls are directed there. Someone calls our extension and it goes straight to their mobile, where they can leave a message if the person is on the phone.

Someone calls the main office reception for us, they transfer it to us. If there's no answer a message is taken and emailed to the person and their manager.

Took about 40 mins to set up the morning of the first lockdown when we got heads up that it was coming.

We are in Wales, in a large office of around 60 people and we are all in the office. Our management are very hot on presenteeism, any advice to WFH where possible is being completely ignored by our management team 😒

@Jourdain11 I agree! Trouble is those at home can't see the problems so don't know they exist if you know what I mean. Example, a printer not working, call to the engineer, etc, is not the thing I send an email out for.

And I should add that the whole office worked from home for over a year, seemingly successfully but our MT is very old fashioned.

We don't have company mobiles and we have had customer (not general public) complaints. My colleague was in the office one day when someone complained and was going to give my personal mobile to them. Let's just say I wasn't happy! I don't see what the problem is as we can speak on Teams and most of the time email is sufficient.

I've not been back to the office until today for training! WFH since March 2020, our phone lines are via our computers so easy to use from home or office

But if you have "office hours" and your office is supposedly open to, say, students, don't you think it's true to say that you're not doing your whole job when working from home?

I don't think this is to do with set-up - it is actually part of the job.

@Jourdain11

But if you have "office hours" and your office is supposedly open to, say, students, don't you think it's true to say that you're not doing your whole job when working from home?

I don't think this is to do with set-up - it is actually part of the job.

I would put that firmly in the category of

"The employer hasn't put systems in place to handle a situation that everybody knew would happen."

A lot of employees have to be accessible to colleagues, mentorees, clients and the public.

It's up to the employer to put in place systems to manage that.

Presumably there was a time when everybody was wfh. What happened then?

The students were also off campus - now they are not.

"Presumably there was a time when everybody was wfh. What happened then?"

Furlough? Lost job? Many can't work from home.

@Jourdain11

The students were also off campus - now they are not.

But why does the student contact have to be face to face?

Surely your colleagues have emails, teams, phone numbers?

And if your providing a service then normally there would be somewhere fairly prominent displaying the contact methods?

Like a PP I’d say your work just hasn’t implemented systems correctly - who is telling the students to drop in and see you face to face if there aren’t enough people in the office for that to happen?

You can't really agree that students can be back on campus and then not provide any on campus services It seems reasonable to me. Yes, of course, there are elements of my team's work that can be done remotely, but much of it is more effective face-to-face. We're supposed to have staff available 10-12 and 2-4pm and this is indeed advertised widely!

I don’t think anyone suggested that it’s reasonable to have students on campus and not provide any services have they?

It’s the delivery of that service that’s the issue - if it has to be done face to face then there either needs to be a rota with some leeway to allow for sickness, bad weather etc so sufficient people are on site at any one time.

Or the service needs to change so it doesn’t have to be done face to face - but that needs better communication to all service users.

I guess what I'm trying to get at is...

There should have been 7 people in our office yesterday (according to the rota) - there were 2!

One of those is on leave, so fair enough. But others were "I have a cold so I'll wfh today", "I'm wfh today" (no further explanation!) and it may seem like, according to their planned tasks and prearranged meetings (which can be done on Teams etc) they are fully performing their role from home.

Yet, what they're not taking into account is the drop-ins... and these don't tend to be extremely lengthy or complex cases, but they do take up time when there's only 2 people and you're constantly having to take time out of your own tasks to liaise with colleagues who are off-site.

Or, one example, I ended up dealing with a very charged situation which really needed to be handled there and then, on the spot, in the room with the individual concerned. But because I wasn't the person who'd been handling the case, it took a while longer - and then involved a very lengthy email to the person who has been handling the case.

My point is... I think wfh culture leads people into thinking, "I can do my role from home, no problem", but this isn't really reflective of the reality. Yes, of course it would be possible for us to work from home - but not if the students are still learning on site.

One of those is on leave, so fair enough. But others were "I have a cold so I'll wfh today", "I'm wfh today"
So of the 5 people you were short, one was on leave, so only 4 missing… And WFH with a cold seems reasonable in a pandemic – no one wants to commute alongside someone with sniffles, or catch something that means testing. Every time DD picks up a cold she gets booted out of nursery til she gets a negative test.

@Jourdain11

I guess what I'm trying to get at is...

There should have been 7 people in our office yesterday (according to the rota) - there were 2!

One of those is on leave, so fair enough. But others were "I have a cold so I'll wfh today", "I'm wfh today" (no further explanation!) and it may seem like, according to their planned tasks and prearranged meetings (which can be done on Teams etc) they are fully performing their role from home.

Yet, what they're not taking into account is the drop-ins... and these don't tend to be extremely lengthy or complex cases, but they do take up time when there's only 2 people and you're constantly having to take time out of your own tasks to liaise with colleagues who are off-site.

Or, one example, I ended up dealing with a very charged situation which really needed to be handled there and then, on the spot, in the room with the individual concerned. But because I wasn't the person who'd been handling the case, it took a while longer - and then involved a very lengthy email to the person who has been handling the case.

My point is... I think wfh culture leads people into thinking, "I can do my role from home, no problem", but this isn't really reflective of the reality. Yes, of course it would be possible for us to work from home - but not if the students are still learning on site.

Again, that's the fault of your employer for not putting in a system that can deal with that.

(Such as a gatekeeper to apportion walk ins to the staff working no matter where, and perhaps supervised in office Teams or telephone access for the students to the person helping them with an ongoing situation.

So who's setting those TEAMs meetings up as presumably those walking into the building aren't known to the ones working at home. To be honest when I go in to talk to someone face to face (bank, pharmacy etc) it's because I don't want to wait for hours in a phone queue. These students are probably needing some guidance. Lets be honest email for complex matters isn't the most effective, it's a constant back and forth of information with a wait for replies. If someone has just got to their halls of residence and something is wrong, for example, of course they're going to March down to the office which is onsite rather than email.
I feel for you @Jourdain11 and I do think you need to say something. We have a rota and the point is that if someone of the two allocated to be in is sick then we have to call a WFH person and ask them to come in. Trouble is no one wants to make that call. Also if someone is sick, but WFH, you can't really ask them to come in. People are very reluctant to come in on their WFH day, which I can understand.
Being in the office is way way busier than being at home and I think we all know that.

Most of us have people who need to get in touch with us as part of our jobs.

It's been 18 months, we've all had to adapt.

Whenever I read about poor service or WFH colleagues not pulling their weight the issue is almost always that the employer hasn't adapted, and hasn't put in place the systems necessary.

And that's clearly the issue in this case.

It’s your employer’s problem with not understanding the situation. I don’t think you should have to work later - just stop working at your normal time and tell your employer why. Maybe if everyone wfh on one day, your employer will realise that someone has to co ordinate a rota and get minimum office staffing.

Not coming in when you have a cold is sensible - spreading it to others and causing them to take tests, isolate etc is not helpful.

@PrincessNutNuts it clearly isn't. Wouldn't you be frustrated in this instance, as a customer?
University student: hello, I need help getting into my bathroom, the door sticks. I can't open the door at all.
Person in office: ok I'm not your allocated accommodation person
Student: ok how do I get in touch
Office: you email them as they're working from home
Student: but you could just do it, couldn't you
Office: yes I have access to the system and could ask for someone to come and look at your door but I'm not doing the work of someone working from home.
Student: oh

[quote HousethatChunkbuilt]@PrincessNutNuts it clearly isn't. Wouldn't you be frustrated in this instance, as a customer?
University student: hello, I need help getting into my bathroom, the door sticks. I can't open the door at all.
Person in office: ok I'm not your allocated accommodation person
Student: ok how do I get in touch
Office: you email them as they're working from home
Student: but you could just do it, couldn't you
Office: yes I have access to the system and could ask for someone to come and look at your door but I'm not doing the work of someone working from home.
Student: oh

[/quote]
As I keep saying. A different system is clearly needed.

Also I think the 'customer' (be that patient, student, person coming into a council building) was understanding at the start of the pandemic.
But people pleading their case to WFH full time when also going to nightclubs and Birmingham NEC at the weekends. I think that's what's annoying the general public. Especially those who can't WFH.