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.

@DojaPhat I think it's more complex than that. There is value in having people in the office where they collaborate and learn from one another. New staff members benefit greatly from working alongside more experienced colleagues. You cannot pick up whether someone is struggling or help them as effectively via Teams as you would in person. The service levels of many organisations has plummeted since Covid which has a knock on effect on productivity. That's not to say that WFH doesn't have its place but it was never going to be sustainable long term for all job roles.

Covid regulations such as the legal requirement to self isolate ended February 2022, not July 2021. Post-pandemic gaslighting is so weird!

@SilverGlitterBaubles I agree with you in the main, thank you for your considered response. My post was slightly facetious but I genuinely think WFH has been one of the best work-policies to be implemented along with things like annual leave, sick pay, maternity etc. I can't understand how it's so controversial. A lot of people who'd benefit from a WFH-first policy are also up in arms about it. On another thread someone wanted to know where another poster worked because she (I presume) was going to call up the poster's employer to tell them their employee often puts on a wash or makes her kid lunch when WFH.

WFH has been many people's saving grace. People of colour employees, people with disabilities, people who struggle to maintain positive mental health have all benefited greatly from what would have been the normalisation of a flexible if not WFH policy.

My employer has just mandated 40% of our time back in the office so for full timers 2 out of 5 days. Most people are easily doing that anyway some people doing one and happy to go to 2. There are some outliers that have moved miles away from the office (over 2-3 hour commute) and they are being dealt with on case by case basis, knowing my employer the ones that dig their heels in will be tolerated depending on who they are or managed out via disciplinary. What I find strange though is that we were always told to come in the office with purpose, so to collaborate, team days etc. there are some people who are based in a different office so maybe in a team of 10 there's one person based elsewhere, they are also expected to go into their own office for 2 days a week, it's hardly travelling with purpose in that sense as they're still joining via teams etc and visit our office once or twice a month.

If the firm said they would be changing to wfh, it's very unfair to people, especially those who made life changing decisions on the back of that.

Pre-pandemic, a department in a major bank wanted the wfh benefits - especially with easier coverage across all international time sectors. It was working well until a new department head came in. Some of those people had moved pretty remote and one felt able to afford to have another child due to the housing cost differences of moving out of London.

I wonder if some people moved house in a sort of faux-innocence way, knowing they’d then use it as an excuse to not go back.

I can see the benefits of wfh and being more flexible eg if you normally left the house at 7am to start work at 9, you can potentially start at 7 ish and get work done before school finishes. Less interruptions etc might make it more efficient to get a days work done in fewer hours, and can spread hours to accommodate putting washing on or doing the school run. I don't see the point of being in the office for x days just for the sake of it, it makes more sense if members of the same team are working collaboratively.

But recently there were threads where people have listed stuff they did, including looking after babies/toddlers etc, surely if you can complete all your work in 3 hours for example while simultaneously looking after a 2 year old, is it actually a full time job?

Given the soaring house prices over the past couple of years and the absolute ballache of moving, I doubt it.

Indeed, if your contract does not specifically say that you are home based then making a decision to move far away is always going to be a big risk.

I thinkt there is no where back to fully in the office.
employees (rightly) expect some flexibility.

I am part of a small global team working on global IT projects. Our IT team all work out of different local offices in European locations, US, and India and the business stakeholders on our projects are also remote. The projects I am currently working on cover US and Latin America.

The last 3 years I have WFH almost completely, with the exception of the occasional week in the office when the project team have travelled for workshops. We all spend most of our days in zoom calls with each other and with WFH I can flex my start/end/lunch times to match the time zones of those I work with (in Europe +1hr, India +4.5hrs and US -4hrs, Mexico -6hrs) - I can be at any meetings 7am to 7pm meaning I have enough hours where I can be at important meetings.

It has worked really well and my immediate line manager sees the very obvious business benefits. Our team has a 2hr window where we can all meet daily and our team has really got to know each other better in this time and it has made us much more effective. This window will disappear when we are in the office.

But higher levels of management in IT have made a global dictate back to office working 60% of the time, it doesn't affect me yet as my manager prefers me at home but there is a senior manager relocating to our local office who is more likely to insist we are in. So we will all have daily commutes, to be in the office local office times, have to go to a fixed lunch break when the canteens are available meaning we all lose 3-5 hours of meeting time every day making it difficult to find slots with the right skills available in busy calendars. In the office I will not interact with anyone other than social chit chat with random people who work in the same office at the coffee machine and I will sit on zoom calls all day in a busy open plan office, with no work interaction with anyone, before heading home earlier as I have a commute. It is just madness, it makes no sense and the lack of insight into what we do and how we can best do it is demotivating the whole team. The only suggestion they have given is zoom calls outside of each of our office hours that anyone can't make can be recorded and listened to the next day which is ridiculous when a key person in another timezones input could change the direction of the call or decisions made and mean we need to regroup or play email ping pong instead.

The global mandate is so frustrating, I wish our company was being a bit braver/cleverer about it and looking at it at from an individual role/team etc angle but I believe they are simply too scared to allow some people and not others.

I welcome going into the office if there was a reason such as a team day, workshops etc, but commuting in just to meet a % when it has a such negative impact on my work day is frustrating.

I said lockdowns. Nit-picking is so weird. It still wouldn't be "several years" long if you included self-isolation - which, of course, half the country ignored because they couldn't afford not to.

I’ve noticed on these WFH threads:

1. lots of “I’m so much more productive at home” comments from people who also complain about chit chat and gossip in the office. Why not just stop the chit chat and gossip in the office? Are these people too scared to say “sorry, can’t chat, have to finish up so I can get my train on time”?
2. so, so, so many people made naive and rash life decisions - moving house, ending childcare contracts, having babies - based on pandemic restrictions, which were always and only ever going to be temporary. These people are often the ones complaining the loudest about returning to an office
3. Too much emphasis on “productivity” as the be-all/end-all of why they should wfh (and often, you can tell from other posts made during a working day as it happens that they’re probably nowhere near as productive as they think). No regard for training new joiners, teamwork etc. All these people are the real wage-slaves: I do this and that task, you pay me money
4. Everybody seems to think that their office job is the same as everyone else’s, and that this should be a national debate and a national decision should be made
5. a small contingent lifting their Marxist arms, seeing all this wfh brouhaha as a way to redress the worker-bee balance. The most delusional of all

The pandemic was an aberration. It may have brought in some permanent changes, for some people. Many, many people suffered and struggled a lot through the pandemic and are grateful that life is now returning to the way it was. It’s laughable that a chunk of the working population - office workers, established in their workplaces, enough space and good enough internet connections to wfh, often with caring responsibilities or smug in their lifestyles, earning enough - are making such a song and dance about their physical location at times while they earn a living.

Even if you contract was WFH the company can change the contract as long as they give you notice, I’ve had it happen.

I work for the NHS and even though I’ve been employed by x trust, when x merged with y I had no legal standing to object to being told to work at y because my contract states to work anywhere in the Trust!

It's not goady it's true if teachers said they wanted to work at home and start teaching online then children's education would be affected. Same as a business if they need people back in to keep the business going strong and you decide not to go in then the business will suffer. Rather than make stupid comments ask what I mean.

Its amazing how many people can't imagine jobs differently to their own

Sone jobs are better done at home
Overall productivity is measured higher

Sone Poor managers need to see people

Some jobs can't be sone with people gossiping in the background

Sone jobs can't be done at home

@midgemadgemodge I do see both sides and it does very much depend on the job role. Personally I find it difficult to do some things in a busy place where I am interrupted constantly but l also feel the benefits of being together with colleagues. Hybrid and having some flexibility on both sides is the best solution IMO.

Someone pointed out that a lot of people had made a move or started families because of the ability to WFH.

I think, whilst it's understandable to want to get away from the daily grind, it's a real risk to make life changing decisions based on the ability to work from home.

Even if your company doesn't start changing its policy, there are so many companies going to the wall at the moment. If you've moved too far away from the 'hub' of the jobs you can do, you're surely making it harder to find work if redundancy comes?

If the commute would be too much for even one day a week then it's not a good move. Because that one day could very easily become a five day a week commute if your job ends and you have to accept a full time back to the office one. It's naïve to assume any job will last, let alone a WFH one. Until you retire you have to be near the jobs you're qualified for (or be prepared to commute a lot) - that's just a fact of life. WFH is a bonus.

What does your contract say?

Mine was changed to reflect our hybrid working. If they tried to change it back I’d probably leave as the ‘new office’ is harder to get too etc.

I’m sure you meant to say lockdowns but you said restrictions. Which ended February 2022. It’s still a public health emergency according to WHO, so it’s been three years now – aka several. During which many workplaces have maintained WFH, social distancing, an expectation to self-isolate and not come in on hybrid days even when it was legally OK to.

This is a great example about why blanket policy doesn't work.

My current job can't be done from home (yay). I personally prefer the separation. Dh is still at home most of the time, technically 2 days a week but it's far more flexible than that. However he regularly does over 60 hours a week and tops the billable hours chart by a substantial amount so I don't think management care where he is. I on the other hand...would like him back in the office a bit more.

Please carry on nit-picking since you can't argue with my actual points. "Several" is "several" and not three - and even by your calculations it was two years which is not several. Two is "a couple".

None of which means that there are loads of decent jobs that are fully remote NOW. Many jobs were never remote or hybrid. Many will never be.

According to ONS, it is mainly the higher paid who can home / hybrid work; mostly available to older workers, more likely to be "professional", and more likely to be white; and at no time, even during lockdowns, did home working ever exceed 50%. https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/articles/characteristicsofhomeworkersgreatbritain/september2022tojanuary2023#:~:text=A%20higher%20rate%20reported%20hybrid,work%20from%20home%20(10%25).

The rarified environment that makes up MN is hardly typical of society. And certainly not typical of the working world. I am supportive of home working and hybrid working in the right circumstances, although it is not suitable for all people or all employments. But the point that these frequent threads keep missing is that employment is not a democracy. The terms are dictated by employers, and whilst you are very welcome to vote with your feet, the oft-assumed "greener grass" is mostly not there.

Several = more than two but not many. Pandemic declared early 2020 and it’s now 2023 = three, more than two, therefore several. But work to whatever wrong definition you want, you do you!

Many companies (more than several, even!) have had homeworking for the duration of the pandemic – the duration being several/three years. I suspect a lot of backtracking on WFH has more to do with investments in real estate and recruitment and retention of younger staff who want an office to go to, rather than their bedsit, and nothing to do with long-term staff productivity. Of course, they need their older staff in the office to populate it to bring the younger workforce in.

@Lolacat1234 my company has said exactly the same.