Full time return to office

[rootsandwings89]

I work for local authority and they've announced a full time return to work for everyone.

I'm surprised there's no flexibility on it after 3 years WFH since covid.

What's everyone's thoughts on this?

Has anybody else been told they have to come back to the office full time?

Bump

Which one? I wonder if this is a sign of things to come.

I like the flexibility but management get twitchy if they can’t see you at your desk.

Our local authority ish workplace has started grumbling about a mandatory 50% in the office. I don't feel like they'll stop there tbh. I think it's a real shame given how far wfh has developed over the past few years.

Whatever the reasons, I think that there will be some staff in the local authority who look and find other jobs, or retire/go part-time earlier than if some wfh remained.

The company I work for (very large American corp) has settled for 3 days in the office, there'll be no advance on that. I'm happy, it's a good balance.

That’s very shortsighted at a time when LAs are struggling to recruit to existing vacancies. Many of our staff including the most senior live very far away. If they didn’t have the option to WFH they would never have considered a role at our less-than-glamorous place and we’d be scrabbling around paying a fortune for interims on consultancy wages. WFH opens up the pool of recruits much wider. And we still struggle! What’s their rationale OP?

Put office is 100% EFH. From my experience some employees do more than their fair share of work and the others are taking the piss. It's difficult to manage people remotely.

This is in no way personal to you OP but I do think that quite a few people have not been as productive as they think they have at home. Similar has happened at my husbands company.

This.

I'm surprised your authority has the desk space to do this. Every one I know is so cash strapped the sold most of their buildings. At mine people are being forced to work from home at least two days whether they want to or not becuse there's only desk space for about 65% of the staff. You only get full time in the office you need it for medical reasons or you've been caught taking the proverbial.

I manage an office building with lots of different companies in. I'd say about 85% of them are in mon to Fri, with the rest wfh 1 day a week.

All of my friends work from the office now except for 1.

I don't blame them for wanting people back in, it's hard to manage staff remotely, they pay a lot of rent for office space so seems a waste to not be using it properly.

Maybe because I always had to be in work even during lockdown, I've not had the wfh privilege taken away so don't really see what the big deal is.

Local authority here as well, no chance of us going back to the office full time as they’ve decided to sell or not renew the lease for many of their buildings, so there’s not enough space for everyone. Surprised you’re hasn’t done the same as I thought many had.

Its definitely got its pros and cons - we don’t get any home working allowance but have increased bills due to being at home everyday. I actually think some people would have been quite happy with the news of a full office return a few months ago!