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.

Can you seek legal advice as a group? I missed your post earlier @Agapornis, and thanks for the link on law around bonuses, that's useful.

I do think thought that when dealing with large multinational companies, once you start with grievances and consulting the solicitors about what your employer is up to it really means you're on the way out, and you're just trying to get the best out of it before you exit. Hope it doesn't get that far.

I didn't expect the thread to get so many replies on the Work board, but it seems WFH is a hot topic for some. I've got my answer in that other employers are also using bonus schemes to incentivise attendance on site, and also some employers have the same desk capacity issue. The attendance spreadsheet could be problematic depending on how its being used, and that's a concern that can be raised. Will see how it goes.

What type of bonus do you get?

OK, so what you're going through now I went through 2 years ago.

Yeah, it's hostile. No, there's nothing you can do about it. And no, it's not going away.

The only thing you MAY be able to catch them on is the second point; sharing named attendance data could be construed as sharing personal data to which you (possibly?) haven't agreed to under GDPR. But expect anonymised stats instead and more micromanagement from your team lead, who would have visibility. Wouldn't change much in practical terms.

I would advise either accepting that it sucks and comply, or move jobs. 🤷‍♀️

I don’t do childcare as I don’t have children, a washing takes 3 minutes to chuck in the machine and I do that before work then hang it up at lunchtime if I do it at all. I work better at home without distractions and interruptions.

My experience is that young people actually want to be in the workplace and learn better in person where they are better supported. It is very difficult to build relationships with colleagues if you rarely see them in person.

I save a ton of money with hybrid work too. With the rising cost of living it’s welcome being able to save some train fares.

I’ve heard some rumblings of this for a while. Where I work (public sector), my team is really understaffed which means people are often working until 11pm or up at silly hours in the morning. If I’m told I have to start going back to the office on a reg basis then I will not be giving up anymore free hours of my time and will not be clocking back on after I leave the office. They can’t have it both ways 🧐

TL;DR 😂

Yup. It's much harder to have a quick informal chat and many younger colleagues may not feel confident to directly call a senior colleague. When you can have a quick chat over a coffee it's much easier.

The cost of travel is a huge factor as is additional childcare costs if earlier starts or pick ups are needed. With the cost of living crisis and mortgage rates rising asking people to go back to commuting if they have WFH for a long period is in effect a pay cut.

I dont see how people save on train fares, surely a day ticket over 3 days, works out more than a weekly or monthly season ticket (well it does for my OH anyway)

A monthly ticket costs £115 for me, a day ticket costs £5.40 (as ScotRail are found off peak all day every day right now).I work 50% on site so average 11 days. I’m saving around £50 a month. When tickets had peak prices two flex tickets covered the month and cost £70 total as you buy 10 journeys up front. DH is only in 1 day a week so we save a lot.

That works out well

If my OH pays for 3 days to go in separately thats £240 for a week, but the weekly season ticket is £195, so it saves no money

I dont know if that changes if you buy a monthly and work it out over that time, but its probably similar

But in the other side, you must be spending more money on heating/electricity. You probably had to buy a desk/reorganise your house etc… Some people had to build a ‘shed’ in the garden as an office and so on.

We already had one room set up as an office space. If both of us are home the other spare room has a dressing table which is now a desk too. so no we didn’t re-organise, but a new desk or build a shed. Our heating isn’t on anymore than usual as it’s at a constant temperature and if it gets cold I just stick extra layers on. Do laptops consume loads of electricity as during the day it just two laptops and screen running?

When we had peak tickets a flex journey pass was much easier. It’s basically 10 journeys for a cheaper price than peak tickets. It’s with checking ticket options.

I find a quick chat over Teams much easier than over coffee, but I guess everyone is different.

I think young women will disproportionately suffer as they'll be less confident to request one on one meetings with senior men to discuss stuff that isn't super urgent. It's much easier if you've already seen somebody and bid them good morning or at least smiled at them.

I'm not talking about stuff that needs to be done, but more when you think you'd benefit from running it by a colleague but aren't sure whether to bother them. Men are less likely to be hesistant about this kind of thing.

I'm not so much talking about convenience/time. More the sort of instances when you're talking with somebody while waiting for kettle to boil or while having lunch. It's easy to say "Kate mentioned you'd worked on xyz project. I was wondering if..."

However, a lot of people won't have this conversation if they have to arrange a video conference instead.

You are very lucky/privileged to have a spare bedroom to use as an office though…

As for heating not on as its constant temperature… do you have a heat pump or something lime that? Again unusual and a privileged position.
In my house today, as it’s getting colder, the temperature was down to 17.5 oC at 11.00am. DH is wfh and even with layers on, he was getting cold. Heating back on to bring back to 19oC. By 3.00pm it was down to 17….
So yes wfh means higher heating bills….

No heat pump. The thermostat kicks in at a certain temperature. That happens if we are in or out. The spare room is due to the fact that we bought a house to start a family but have fertility issues so it’s not luck or privilege it’s heartbreak.

We have been expected to be in the office at least 60% of our time for a couple of years now (local flexible arrangments can be made according to need, as was the case before covid).

This year overall attendance of at least 60% will be one bonus metric (ie it will look at the staff cohort as whole not individuals).

We do have enough desks though and a bookable system that works pretty well - we also have had more sound proof areas installed in the office for people to take calls or have one to one meetings.

The spreadsheet thing sounds terrible and a grievance in waiting. Individual attendance concerns should be raised by line managers on a private basis, just as any other performance or discipline concerns would be.

Interestingly case law is beginning to be built on this issue (apologies for DM link)

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12987361/judge-senior-manager-appeal-work-home-time-impact-performance.html

@Ginmonkeyagain I wonder what the judge would make of multi site teams or people orphaned on a site working alone.

Don't know. I suppose this judgement is based on the evidence presented in this case and wjther the emoloyer was reasoanble to ecpet dtsff to work in tbr office some of tbe time. In this case he clearly decided that the claimants view that 100% WFH was as good as being in the office did not stack up.

I suspect them being a senior manager had something to do with it TBH.