Being 'forced' back into the office

[PinkPeonies22]

Wondering whether anyone works for companies that after letting them work remotely for several years during the pandemic, have now told them they need to return to the office. How have organisations been policing/enforcing it, and has anyone been made to leave for refusing to go back? If so, how? (eg. was it via disciplinary?), and did you have compelling reasons why you wanted to continue to work remotely? Thanks in advance.

I'm amazed people are still not back in the office even 1 or 2 days a week

Why???

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🙄 the moaning I hear from my teammates constantly is so irritating. Our company made it clear throughout not to make big decisions moving far away cos its likely we would be back to the office but people still did. Now they moan their commute is long and cost of train fares...well thats not the companies problem is it.

Before people would make sure they are at work on time, now they basically commute over work hours so if they had to start at 8.30 they basically start their commute at 8.30 and get in for 10am then work then leave at 3pm to be home...so basically they aren't not working their full hours either. Which quite frankly takes the piss.

That is ridiculous

@piedbeauty When I joined the co, we were all in Lockdown. The company had allowed the lease on the office to lapse, and so they couldn't put an office address on the contract. They had no choice but to put remote.

Earlier this year, they asked me to go from one day a week in our new office to two. My contract says remote.

Each day that I go to the office costs £50 train fare and 9.70 parking. With 40% tax and NI, that adds up to an extra £500 a month.

It would not be hard to find myself another role at the moment, I am not particularly well paid. So if it came to it I would resign. My boss knows it would take him six months and £25k fees to find someone else to do my job. Far easier to pay me and retain my skills.

Tell me about it. One guy other day was moaning cos they want us in on Wednesdays as a team all day and he said but if they start the meeting at 10am I cant make it as my off peak train doesn't get in until 10.30. This is a guy who travelled into work during peak hours pre covid. I'm sorry but wtaf. We also get discount on our train fares so I dont get what the issue is. He isn't even paying full price like other commuters have to.

We are three days a week in the office (monitored). It was 4 or more usually 5 before Covid. I am so sick of people moaning. We need to interact and train people. It's impossible with us all WFH.

We coped during lockdowns. We didn't thrive!

All contacts were still office based so it's not unreasonable at all

And I juggle, sometimes I shoot home at 4 to do later calls which are all remote but that's after 7 hrs in the office too. As far as I can see it's way more flexible than before Covid.

Yes I've worked for a company on site where someone kicked up about coming back in the office. They were told they can either get a formal warning or they can leave.

She opted for the formal warning. And then catastrophically fucked up a project which cost a huge amount to fix. She resigned.

She then struggled to find another WFH job and eventually got a job but resigned there too.

And so on and so on.

I believe she's worked for 5 companies in 12 months.

Construction is a difficult industry to WFH so I'm not sure how she managed to do any work tbh.

Look noone wants to go bsck to how it was but there has to be a degree if compromise. Id take 2 or 3 days in the office over back to being 5 days in the office. But the more people resist the more it will go back to that. Lets not shoot ourselves in the foot!

I don't get it.... apparently my company is going to start pushing for 3 days a week no exceptions.

There has not been a drop in performance, no rise in errors or loses..... so why??
Good for if your employees have a work/life balance!
God forbid we make it easier for those with disabilities or caring duties to work....

It's been 3 years!! Years! Not 3 weeks.
To think that after that time people can just automatically get back into the office is completely unreasonable!

I simply refused because I knew I had negotiating leverage. The company agreed but changed my job title (salary same), so my colleagues wouldn't demand the same.

I should also add salary thereabouts, but new job title much higher potential for disproportionate salary increment if/when I apply for a new job.

I work for a large organisation that sold some office space during the pandemic. Now some department heads are adamant they want "an office presence". They have been making some threatening noises but they don't seem to understand there is not enough room in the office for everyone... fucking idiots. Workers take turns to go to the office a couple of days a week and that's a good balance I think.

My yearly commuting costs would be £800 if I had to work from the office full time. So no I wouldn't be happy to lose that money plus 90 minutes a day. Nobody can fault my work or productivity while working from home and luckily I have a sensible manager who appreciates that.

It depends what you did pre covid. If you were office based and paid this before then it isn't unreasonable to expect you in the office twice week.

I work from home now full time, I was office based before then. I use the time I’d have spent commuting to get the housework and meal prep etc done, so my quality of life is much better than before.

the only slight fly in the ointment is that I work in sales and whilst I can focus on my actual job at home and smash it, I also train new starters. I work from the office for 1-2 weeks when they start, and we have an instant messenger thing they can use when I’m back at home, but I do worry about them feeling a bit abandoned!

I really don't understand the thinking behind trying to ''force'' people back in an office environment.

The past few years have shown that it is perfectly possible to do most of the jobs that were office-based remotely.

People are happier, healthier if they are not wasting hours in commuting and can have a better work-life balance. Companies can save money by not having to pay rent on office space and Pau high utility bills.

So why employers want to push people back in noisy and frankly inefficient office spaces (half the time when I used to work in offices hours were wasted in pointless meetings, backstabbing/office politics, gossiping, talking about what you did over the weekend and making tea...).

Employers keep complaining that they can't recruit staff so why risk losing the ones you have by removing the opportunity of working from home.

Now that people know full well that it is perfectly possible to do a good job at home, they won't simply accept that they should return back into old, rigid system of working in offices.

Companies who offer more flexibility will very likely be better able to recruit and keep good staff.

If my company decided to remove remote working although I was assured when I took the job that the role could be done from home most of the time and flexible working was highlighted as a benefit of the job, I would leave. Because as someone who lives with a long term condition working from home means I can keep working.

For many of us there is no going back to having to be chained to your desk all day just because management can't get past their preconceived ideas of work.

As a general point on career threads on MN – I'm often taken aback at the focus on reasonable/unreasonable, what any of us should dare to expect, etc. It's your career, not a bloody marriage (and even then people on MN are far fiercer when it comes to their rights within the house)!

Nobody is going to give you a gold star after 10 years just because you were sweet and compliant. All that will happen is that you'll have far worse working conditions and also be paid way less than others around you, very likely men.

A lot of women on MN simply don't know how to negotiate or leverage within their careers, in a win-win manner. You don't have to be "difficult" (a woman's greatest fear in this society)! Often, both parties can walk away feeling like they've both really gained something from it.

Just as a random example, "Squiggly Careers" - written / podcasted by 2 women - is a really actionable handbook of advice. Employers are often a lot more flexible than you would think – however you do have to think about what you can offer them, whether that be new suggestions or existing skillsets.

Also, what a lot of women/people lower down the food chain don't realise is that it's often double standards. The fat cats (paid eye-watering sums) have been working remotely for decades, by "necessity" e.g. in MNCs, but really barely work during working hours – I know because my father and many family members were doing that.

I'm amazed that anyone is still working from home. I've been working in the office throughout as has dp, all his company have been back in full time since May 21 - only one person objected and she was the main reason he needed to get people back in, she wasn't being productive at home and he couldn't single her out

Yes but that's probably always been the case, not because of covid.

That's called being employed.

Where my DH works they all had to come back to the office full time, no exceptions. The reasoning was you can’t train or manage staff wfh.

If you read the recent mumsnet thread about what people do when working from home it's not surprising employers are asking for return to the office.
Sadly some people just cannot be trusted to work from home.

If your contract if WHF then great!

But if you've actually been originally employed on the basis of being in the office, then your employer is perfectly within their rights to ask you to be in the office.

I'm all for flexibility and WFH myself and love it. But some jobs are simply better suited to having people in the workplace, and some people prefer to run companies that way - they are perfectly entitled to do what they like and we/ you are perfectly entitled to choose whether you want to work under their terms or find a different job.

I can't get over the entitled attitude of some people to dictate that their employer completely change the terms of their original contract. The pandemic was a completely unforeseen emergency.

This 💯