Extreme measures to get WFH-ers back to site?

[skyroofwindow]

Background: Doing an office based job in large department in multinational company. People you interact with are often on other sites and in different countries. When lockdown started the entire department was told to WFH and not come onto site to avoid bringing Covid in and jeopardising operations. Productivity maintained across the department during pandemic and in the time after as people adapted to WFH. Company now wants people back on site, which is not unusual across the corporate world. But there is huge reluctance at this Company/site - especially as now there are not enough desks so if you don't book one a month in advance you end up sitting in the canteen!

Company is now taking a harder line getting people back on site and there are two facts I'm not happy with:
*Whether you receive a bonus this year will depend on whether you are meeting their target for numbers of days on site
*There is a public spreadsheet showing everyone's attendance rate, which includes people I know who have particular circumstances (eg health related) impacting their ability to work onsite

While it is entirely in the Company's rights to try and enforce/encourage people back to the office, the bonus and the spreadsheet make me deeply uncomfortable. But I'm not having much success identifying a specific reason other than it's creating a hostile environment, and staff morale is through the floor. Do I have anything specific I can take to HR? They are aware and seem ok with it so far.

The tables have turned and the latest studies repeatedly show that people who work from home are less productive. You can't really blame employers.

The implicit question in these threads is always "what can I say to my employer to keep working from home?" It's never really about genuinely trying to help the company accommodate all staff in returning to work.

I already said they need to sort the desk issue out

But ultimately, it sounds like quite a lot of places where pleas and reason and reminders of expectation havent worked and people are still at home blathering about their rights, and commuting time and child care and it being more convenient and better for their welfare etc etc and not going in

So companies get harsher.

The issue is that bosses at every company need to have an action plan of some kind every year. What better than forcing staff to come back into the office more, even though many people don't like being in the office, have the additional transport costs and are more productive working from home. I think those employees who want to climb the greasy pole should come into the office and this that just want to do their job, well, should at least be allowed to work from home. If you want people to come into the office you'll be able to find a survey somewhere saying it's better to have the staff at work!!

You are working at home, probably doing more work than when you're in the office.

But the latest studies all show that people are much less productive at home. My guess is that people worked hard at first to 'prove' the viability of the concept but then became complacent and lazy.

Whinging about commuting costs is like whinging about having to pay bills. It's just part of life. And who cares whether employees would rather work from home. They're getting paid to work. I'd prefer to be paid for not working at all but it's tough shit tbh.

We wanted staff back in ,felt we needed it post Covid to recover our position
A few people complained ,I could have picked who they would be
A couple left ,no real loss
We pay a bit over industry standard, so we never have a recruitment issue

This

My work reduced office space from 4000 to 1600 desks during covid. They have asked us back 2 days a week or 40% of the time. They couldn’t ask everyone back full time because there simply isn’t enough space anymore.

Interesting, it doesn't record when they log out

no. We were told they weren’t allowed to use data from our passes when we swipe in and out of the building for the purposes of determining whether we “attended site” that day. Because the data from our passes is only recorded to ensure the right people are given access to the building and for roll call for safety/fire evacuation. So this was the alternative they came up with. I think it’s ridiculously open to abuse - the modern day equivalent of the old wheeze of hanging your jacket on the back of your chair and disappearing for the day telling people you were at meetings.

I don’t see how people can use not coming in for health reasons as an excuse. If you were a nurse that wouldn't wash. You are either in or you are on sick leave.

62% of workers say they feel more productive when working remotely. The survey found 55% of employees said they put in more hours while working remotely than at the office. Plus, 83% of remote workers said they “feel” they operate at the same or higher level than when in the office. Now, hard science offers fresh ammunition over subjective opinions from these earlier surveys on the debate between remote versus in-office work, supporting what many employers have claimed all along.

A recent study from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) found that remote working might not be as productive as once thought. Workers who were randomly assigned to work from home full time were 18% less productive than in-office employees, either taking longer to complete tasks or getting less done. This contradicts previous reports showing a nine percent increase.

In another study, Stanford scientists at the Institute for Economic Policy Research found that remote work productivity depends on the mode of remote work. Fully remote work is associated with about 10% lower productivity than fully in-person work. Challenges with communicating remotely, barriers to mentoring, building culture and issues with self-motivation appear to be factors, according to the scientists.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bryanrobinson/2023/08/12/remote-work-might-not-be-as-productive-as-once-thought-new-studies-show/?sh=248a6f763e7a

It’s not just the desks…do you have enough meeting rooms for everyone now? Places where you can shut a door to hold confidential meetings? Enough collaboration zones? Lockers to enable hotdesking? If they want you to come in, they have to show that they are providing enough of all of these to service everyone who is in the office at peak times…it’s not enough to say ‘we have 5,000 employees and they must be in one day a week, therefore we need enough meeting rooms etc for 1,000 people every day’. Because dollars to donuts, 4,000 of you will be in on Weds and the other 1,000 will be spread mostly over Tues/Thurs.

This stuff needs sorting before they drag you in, not after.

The spreadsheet sounds unnecessarily hideous. Find another job.

It's almost like the employees are the ones in charge now. 😂 I almost wish companies would just start sacking the grifters that were previously fine coming in but are now reaching for any reason not to come in and making pompous demands/setting ultimatums. No steak and red wine for lunch? Not good enough!

Send the message that we're the ones paying and you either do your job or piss off. There will likely be plenty of candidates ready to step up and fill the shoes left empty. Could be a great equaliser for those that aren't so experienced for example but are really keen to get a foot on the ladder.

Civil service is demanding similar as are many others. But

• needs a proper workspace to work at
• spreadsheet awful idea. We have shared calendars so you can see where people are if you need it.

Name and shame will make people leave

Commuting costs do come into it. Maybe you took up a job because you could afford to pay for 2 days a week, but not 5. Or distance and time. You can do a 3 hour return commute twice a week, but not 5. And so on.

I'm seeing various bits of data that's showing WFHers are less productive.

It does explain why, since Covid, the local pubs , cafes and restaurants are rammed during the day and why there are so many more dog walkers during the day.

Probably also explains why , according to another thread, we are all spending so much more time hanging on the phone to companies.

Not really (yes, yes we all saw the Forbes article). But there’s scientific studies to support every view. Like the research study published in the PLOS ONE journal, that suggests that mandatory WFH (like in lockdowns) is detrimental to productivity whereas WFH arrangements that employees choose and are supported in increase productivity. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0274728

What it comes down to is that some people are better working from home. Others are better working in a structured office environment. The rest, a bit between the two. But everyone who claims that all people fit into just one of those boxes then find studies whose results support their worldview. Which is usually the box that is true for them.

Why on earth would you want to try to help a company accommodate all staff to return to the office, when that would be detrimental to the productivity of some staff? Why wouldn’t you want to work out what works best for each person in order to have the best outcome for the company?

My previous workplace tried that. All the important people left, as there are plenty of wfh opportunities in IT these days.

But nobody ever said it would be forever. You'd be a bit daft to put all your eggs on that.

PP knows that cafes, pubs and dog walking places are rammed during the day. Funny how someone who’s around relaxing during the day gets to be vocal about others WFH. I work in the office with a long and expensive commute. I don’t begrudge people WFH.

I bet you CEOs and HRs are emailing their diktats from home.

It could be a reasonable adjustment for a disabled person, for example - perfectly able to do the job from home but not to commute in.

@Drosera its not my case, but not everyone is coming into the job market fully aware and clever. Yes, I’m referring to young people, and you can call them daft. Not everyone is born a wise Mumsnettee.

Why on earth would you want to try to help a company accommodate all staff to return to the office, when that would be detrimental to the productivity of some staff?

One of the studies explained it well....

They said that the people that needed to work from home were the ones that were usually the least productive - were looking after the kids at the same time etc. Those that wanted to work in the office were less likely to have any such obstacles and were thus more productive. Making everybody come in 'self selects' the more productive employees.

It would be near impossible and labour intensive for companies to analyse the working preferences of each employee and benchmark performance, especially as many believe themselves to perform better at home even in the studies where the findings have contradicted this.

If you're saying these people are better off in an office where they can observe best practice and be mentored then I agree. This was a key point in one of the studies I posted.

Send this report to your HR dept. Do you have a union rep you can raise it with? Or even some sort of staff rep who liaises with senior staff.
Withholding opportunities to earn a bonus whilst not providing you with a space to work which doesn’t meet your personal workspace requirements (ie
not enough desks so you have to work in the canteen) sounds like a potential legal/tribunal case.
https://www.motherpukka.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Forever_Flex_report_FINAL-03.11.20.pdf

When we first started returning to working in rhe office after covid there were capacity issues ro meet covid guidelines so each team was assigned specific days they had to be in the office. This way there was always enough space for everyone. Maybe an alternative way of assigning desks might cauae less prolems. People could choose permenant office days themselves or give preferences to HR then they'll assign days or it could be done by teams or lines of management.

If either of these policies cause discrimination against someone with a protected characterist then these should be dealt wirh at least on an individual basis.