How long do you think the WFH message will last?

[Bananagurl]

Just curious... I massively prefer it and feel just as productive as home, if not more...

@LumosSolem maybe the difference is that I have never really had a job in my thirty plus years of working where I got proper training? I have always had to seek out people to ask things. So I am very used to starting a new job and finding my own way.

@Withinthewhirlwind I am a 20 something with a spare room (2 bed flat) but I am still looking for an office job! My DH went in everyday when he was allowed to. My 'future nursery' which was empty pre pandemic has become my home office.

Also another perspective- if you and your partner WFH, you are looking at a 4 bed house/flat if you have a child (separate offices). Yes you can move further afield but unless you move north, a 4 bed house in the SE is not cheap. Yes on mumsnet, lots of people have 4-5 bed detached houses but in the real world, the average house is a 3 bed semi detached (even outside London and other expensive towns/cities) and the average family has 2 children. So an ideal WFH house is a home that is above the average size. I guess you can convert the loft, but its not like loft conversions are cheap either. I kinda resent the idea of having to pay more for housing/move out of london just because my employer wants to save on office space which is why I am only looking for office based jobs.

If DH and I are both largely office based, we can get away with upgrading to a 3 bed flat which we were already considering pre pandemic. Even with hybrid work, if we wfh on different days, it can still work, and we can have our nursery as well.

Unless you have confidential phone calls, you can work in the same room as your DP. And you can have a small desk space in a kitchen or living room.

@RoyalFamilyFan I've always worked in the kind of environment where if you have a question, there have been multiple people to ask and help when needed, in an office. I've always been one of the people chosen to provide training/answer questions and help when I've been in the position to as well.

Now, it's the endless ordeal of short meetings to discuss something, then when you need more clarification, waiting an age to be able to ask because someone is on yet another meeting (which everyone agrees have increased massively because it's so easy to spot in zoom meetings), or they're unavailable because they're working flexibly and different hours to you.

Everything takes so much longer to get done and is a nightmare tbh.

I would not have a separate office in the workplace so don't expect a separate office at home.

@RoyalFamilyFan my DH has a desk space in the living room ( I get the spare room)... He has to sign NDAs for his job. It works well now as we don't have a child yet. If we had a child, it would be a different matter.

But if it was hybrid working, it could still work as we would just wfh on different days. If its full wfh, we would probably need a 4 bed house, not a 3 bed flat.

@LumosSolem that is interesting. My experience is the total opposite. I used to find it hard to get answers as people were out of the office. And there were so many bullshit meetings. Now we have way less and shorter meetings and it is really easy to get answers from people.
Literally, the only thing that takes more time is getting simple answers about an IT issue from a colleague sitting next to me.
What I also get way less of is simple questions from colleagues sitting next to me who can't be bothered to spend 2 seconds looking up the answers on our online system. They are probably complaining that it used to be easier, but I used to get so many interruptions. It was always very easily available information.

@onlychildhamster hope it works out for you. I have signed a nda but also said in writing that my DP could theoretically have access to work paperwork, but will not read it - he wont. But I wanted to make clear to them that it is not in a separate space that he has no access to. They were fine with that.

@LumosSolem I do wonder as well if young adults are so used to being spoonfed at school, that they find taking responsibility for looking up information an alien idea. I have heard some young colleagues say it is quicker to ask someone. It is for them, it's not for me.

Its been commented on a lot about the increase in meetings where I work. I can't compare as I didn't work here pre pandemic but because it's so easy to put in a zoom meeting, we seem to have a lot of unnecessary meetings- I was having this conversation with a colleague before the xmas break.

In my old job, I never personally had issues with simple questions from colleagues. We all had each others backs and it was a good environment.

I have lovely colleagues now and they are all helpful. But it takes much longer to get help at times. And nothing replaces the social side of things.

The op is basically asking how long plan b will be in place. The work from home guidance is part of plan b. Boris is already under pressure to release from plan b and is currently holding firm due to the amount of people isolating.

They think omicron has already peaked, if that’s the case we are in the downward spiral, Scotland etc will release their much tougher restrictions mid January, I think the 17th, and move to whatever they come up with, I suspect Boris will likely release from Plan B round about that time, and as such the wfh guidance will go with it, and then it will be down to businesses to decide.

So I think the answer to the ops question , which is when will th government remove this guidance, which is basically asking when will plan b go, it’s likely late to end Jan.

@RoyalFamilyFan they are a lot more relaxed now due to the pandemic. But the FCA have said that bankers' homes are not off limits for investigations. If I was in senior management in the bank, I wouldn't want to take the risk of not having oversight over people's homes.

And also from an employment POV, you can't really dictate/force employees to move to suitably sized homes. The most you can do is to tell them they can wfh only if they have a spare room and to come to the office if they can't (this has always been allowed during the pandemic). But it would most likely breed resentment- even amongst colleagues with similar paygrades, people can have vastly different living situations.

@LumosSolem I have no issues with an occasional simple question. But when you are focused on something and your concentration is diverted for the fourth time that day by the same person asking a simple question it would take them 2 seconds to look up, then yes I do care.
Where I am everyone has commented that we are having way fewer meetings and the people who hate the usual bullshitters who drone on for ages saying very little of substance in the face to face meetings, all say we want meetings to be online in the future as it seems to stop this happening.
I don't care about the social side at work.

Hopefully a hybrid wfh model will be here permanently wherever possible. I used to spend so much time driving to meetings on different sites (and trying to find a parking space when I got there) - such a complete waste of time. I go into the office 2 or 3 days a week and work at home the rest of the time - I can get so much more done at home when I’m focused on work and not getting drawn into the chats over the desks. Not missing the long stressful commute in the car either.

I have noticed that young people I work with- in their early 20s- are becoming more and more socially anxious, withdrawn and just downright odd.

@onlychildhamster My work is not covered by the FCA so I can't comment on that.
i would only apply for wfh jobs from now on.

@CaliforniaDrumming that was happening before covid though. I had two young assistants in my old job they were so so flaky and had zero resilience to anything put in their way. Wasn't just my assistants that were like this either. One was called up to ask where they'd got to when they hadn't turned up, they answered that their parents had gone on holiday and as a result they hadn't been woken up and were running late. A 22 yo graduate ffs!!

[quote RoyalFamilyFan]@LumosSolem I have no issues with an occasional simple question. But when you are focused on something and your concentration is diverted for the fourth time that day by the same person asking a simple question it would take them 2 seconds to look up, then yes I do care.
Where I am everyone has commented that we are having way fewer meetings and the people who hate the usual bullshitters who drone on for ages saying very little of substance in the face to face meetings, all say we want meetings to be online in the future as it seems to stop this happening.
I don't care about the social side at work.[/quote]
Literally never had that experience and I've spent years working in a contact centre and regularly training new starters and temporary staff in my previous job.

I guess the pandemic has suited those who want to treat colleagues like they have the plague down to the ground though.

I guess the pandemic has suited those who want to treat colleagues like they have the plague down to the ground though

And perhaps not the ones who prefer to spend their working day chatting to colleagues under the guise of collaborating, whether they want to be interrupted or not.

@LumosSolem
I’m sorry you are struggling too, I know it’s not restricted to the younger age group; it does make me so angry that almost all the talk about wfh seems to ignore those starting out in their careers.
I think the managers of this cohort are generally too young to have adult children & really have little idea how much their staff may be struggling.
I hope things improve for you soon.

Maybe it's ok for those with spare rooms and space, think of all those in house shares working in their bedrooms. It's no way to live and work.

@SirChenjins

I guess the pandemic has suited those who want to treat colleagues like they have the plague down to the ground though

And perhaps not the ones who prefer to spend their working day chatting to colleagues under the guise of collaborating, whether they want to be interrupted or not.

Lol of course, all of us who actually just like to be around other people are lazy time wasters

No one in my large department wants to go into the office. Our sick leave is down hugely, productivity is up, we team work great over teams, we have more flexibility so can cover bits of work outside hours now. I use my local shops if I want a sandwich at lunch. The money I save on my commute goes towards days out, theatres (and soon will go towards utility bills/council tax/insurance rises instead). The time I save goes to support my DC with schoolwork.

WFH suits my company and my Department, especially as we were already scattered across different locations, they don’t have the desks for everyone now and parking at my office there was always an utter nightmare.

I should say anyone who is struggling WFH is invited to work in an office. Very few have done that, none in my department.

There’s two sides to every story, management have to decide what’s best in their circumstances.

[quote Withinthewhirlwind]@LumosSolem
I’m sorry you are struggling too, I know it’s not restricted to the younger age group; it does make me so angry that almost all the talk about wfh seems to ignore those starting out in their careers.
I think the managers of this cohort are generally too young to have adult children & really have little idea how much their staff may be struggling.
I hope things improve for you soon.[/quote]
Thanks @Withinthewhirlwind

I have made some of my best friends at work over the years. My best friend is actually my old manager from my job that I started at 18. Loved working together and our friendship has lasted 15 years and long since both of us left that company.

I feel sad for younger people having those opportunities taken away from them now.

My DS is starting out in his career as a graduate in a large multinational - he’s 24. He and his peers are really enjoying a hybrid model of wfh/office - they love the reduced commuting and associated costs, they’re enjoying the more flexible hours and because they’re young and adaptable they use technology as the norm to communicate with colleagues across the UK and Europe. The idea that you would commute 5 days a week to an office to work rigid hours seems alien to them - neither he nor his friends and young colleagues have any intention of working in this way.