Mums forced into office by big UK company?

[MM90]

I work for a big, well-known company. The bosses are considering plans to force all colleagues to come to the office 3 days a week. They are thinking about checking our turnstile data individually and disciplining anyone who doesn’t come in for 3 days every week, whether they need to be there or not. I thought this was the 21st century where working women have the chance to create a sensible work / life balance so long as they perform in their job. My line manager gave me a great performance rating during Covid. I have two children under 5 and no family nearby. Any thoughts on this?

Anyone working from home is already in a privileged space - a huge part of the population (including almost anyone who has not got an education) can't do it.

Second, a job is about colleagues, culture, community. It is not just about computers. It is about greeting the new person by the coffee machine. Its about lending a hand to someone who is stuck/upset. Its about playing a bigger part than sitting in front of a keyboard.

Third, my personal experience of colleagues working from home has been poor. It prevents collaboration. Hours that are productive drop. You waste time trying to track them down, to set up meetings or to otherwise engage.

As for your children - do what every other working parent has done - use childcare. Or ask their father to sort it out.

No, it's about doing your job and taking the money above all. Creating community in your life is your responsibility, not your employers.

A bad experience of home workers means you have poor workers.

The world has moved on. Good employers know that.

But the employer is trying to create a place where people want to work - which for most people includes a degree of collegiality, support for the stressful times etc/ decent training and shared values. It is totally the employer's responsibility to try to foster a positive work community. Loyalty to the team helps people through, and that only comes with relationships and trust.

Of course, the OP may rate herself to have skills in such short supply that she will never be on a list for possible restructuring or outsourcing to less favourable jurisdictions. She would be brave to assume that.

Interesting thread and responses. I've got very mixed feelings about full time wfh. I work 90% remotely and manage a dispersed team who all work from home 100%. Personally, I find it very useful as it reduces my commute, allows me to do the school run for my upper primary kids and generally make life less frantic and stressful. However, from a managers perspective it's a nightmare - constantly trying to figure out where people are, people not adhering to core hours and having to be pulled up, people taking a 20 min break and re-appearing 2 hours later after an unspecified emergency, people working with very young kids at home in the holidays. Adding the fact that it is difficult to monitor productivity, hard to demonstrate a process with someone who needs support, and difficult to build relationships with people who have never met each other face to face. It's a lot of work and difficult from a management perspective. My DH's work has ordered them in 3 days per week and tbh I can see why they've reached this decision.

I'm all for WFH, it suits me and my family really well. However, I continue to use the same after-school care as I did pre-covid so the main advantage for us is being able to pick them up earlier (travel time to school is substantially less). I would hate to think I might have to return to the office more because some people are abusing WFH by having DC home with them while they are supposedly working.

What a silly things to say! No, some parents are single parents. And for those who are not, not all are a couple that splits childcare / housework / etc equally. Don’t be so naive to think everyone is living in the same set up as you, or indeed want to.

You seem to be assuming that someone who is wfh is not doing their job.

i personally find that my wfh days are way more productive than my office days…it’s always been the case even before covid

Op I work in hr and our company wanted to do this from head office. They consulted Legal and its actually illegal to capture and analyse attendance via acces card swipe data etc at an individual level due to gdpr . So they could only analyse data at an aggregate level and therefore office 3 days is now only a guideline in our company but it cannot be enforced. Our contracts are office flex not full office based. However I think this could still apply even with office based as they couldn't check your access data individually...not sure it helps as managers will still push for u to be in

If your contract is work from the office, then you should have no issue if your employer tells you to work from the office

if your contract has your WFH, then there is just cause to fight this.

your children should have some type of child care during your working hours. You’re not truthfully going to be fully focused on your work if you don’t have child care of some firm during your working hours.

covid was not normal times, it isn’t a valid example any longer. Everyone was trying to work from home and no one could go anywhere. That was unusual times and no longer valid to what is going on today.

Hold on- you make female employees prove they have childcare, but don’t ask the same of the men? Surely not?!

No not just female all workers who want to work from home with children have to show they have childcare. Sorry that was a typo it meant to say people I will go and change it now sorry

I completely agree that a huge number of jobs can be done just as well wfh, some better wfh.

It is a shame these roles do not remain with this as an option as there are so many benefits.

For the company, they have a wider target audience for vacancies rather than just those within a commutable distance.

They can also be an option for people who may be incredible at the job, but due to sensory issues (just as an example), a big busy office does not suit. Or MSK or other health related issues prevent them from being office based.

Employees generally appreciate the work life balance too, and as save time commuting even work extra more frequently (our local data, I don't know anything wider, but I would assume similar).

For those in busy open plan offices, there is increased risk of illnesses.

Wfh is not suitable for all jobs. But for those it does suit, it gives those people who need to be home based a viable option, and indeed if there is no need to go in, it seems it is about power or lack of trust.

Good luck.

It isn't just the corporate sector that is going backwards, the public sector is doing the same. I

Personally I am three times more productive at home, not least because at home the stupid politics and petty squabbling and grandiosity of some of the wildly overpromoted managers are minimised.

However I now work in a department where one of the managers is known as the Invisible Woman, she's there so rarely and the amount of WFH she pretends to do combined with the sickness record would have had her long since sacked anywhere else, even in the public sector. So I can't say I'm surprised at the opinion the senior managers have of WFH.

The lack of flexibility for me personally however is what will ultimately make me leave unless we get more sensible middle managers and in the interim I am far less committed than I was to either the organisation or the wider team and far less likely to speak positively of the organisation. Around 80% of my job could be done from home and I always make sure my department is covered.

Ironically the organisation as a whole is very supportive of flexible working, it's even part of the corporate plan. but our wider development is not. It is beyond frustrating.

You can’t edit posts after 10 minutes but thank goodness it was a mistake!

How do you do show that when a partner is providing childcare?

I'm asking because I do WFH with children - DH looks after them (we both work PT on different days so that we can do this). But sometimes I worry that colleagues may think I'm trying to work and look after children. I've also wondered what would happen if I were asked for proof of childcare - I suppose I could send them DH's shift schedule or something?

Yes and that would be acceptable for my team . What is needed is proof that you can work without child care responsibilities.

I imagine that it would not so much be that you had to show physical proof of your DH’s shifts (these could change anyway), but you’d need to explain in writing that you understood work and childcare could not be carried out at the same time, and state how you planned to arrange for the children to be cared for while you were at work. HR/line manager would review and agree that it was acceptable and the plan would be kept on file so that if they had reason to believe that you were combining work and caring for children they could pull it out to show you had gone against what you told them you had planned to do. In other words they should take it on trust because the consequences for lying would be severe.

Wfh is not suitable for all jobs. But for those it does suit, it gives those people who need to be home based a viable option, and indeed if there is no need to go in, it seems it is about power or lack of trust

Though a big supporter of WFH where it's appropriate I'd add that it can also be about what happens when that "I'm much more productive at home" turns out to be far from the case

In many cases it's perfectly true, but let's be honest - the minority who are only interested in their own convenience are hardly going to say anything else (though as said upthread the "It's their job to manage" quickly turns to "They're micromanaging me!" if anything untoward is picked up on)

My dh’s (male) colleague wfh. Dh tried to phone him and he said he’d phone back in ten minutes because he’s just got back from the gym… .

Unless the job was advertised as WFH then YABU. Who has your children whilst you're "working" at home? Why is it only women that should be allowed a work life balance?

They didn't "let" people work from home, they were compelled to, and people did a brilliant job in difficult circumstances - and as I said above, this is how they are rewarded.

Very good point above about carers of elderly parents, as well. There are lots of reasons why people need flexibility.

Sigh

Only women?

Well well well

How does your employer even know they have kids (excepting if they've been off on maternity leave, obviously).

In my office we are allowed to go to the gym at any time even when we are working from the office. If you have space in your diary and get your work done it’s up to you when you have your breaks.

Only women?

Again the sexism on this thread is quite extraordinary.