Wfh - they can dictate when surely?

[ahemfem]

I have a manger who I think has been a bit too forgiving of things and now has put their foot down.

They've said right, you're meant to come in the office 50% of the time and you aren't. (To everyone) so now they've said I want you all in on Monday and Friday and pick one other day a fortnight that you want to come in. I think that's really fair but there's other people kicking RIGHT OFF and complaining. Am I right in thinking that even if the policy just says 50% of time in the office the manager is still able to dictate when that is? They've given a month's notice too which seems more than fair.

Is there a genuine business need for all to be in on Mondays and Fridays? Surely a mid week day would be more suitable. I think it's the fact they've just said those specific days. It should be about business need and are you really busier and need to physically be there then?

Yes - manager can say what day they need people in (depending on the organisation).

I recently told my entire team they had to come in every Friday from now on. It’s our team day in the office, as far as I am concerned. Non-negotiable and they are all livid. But if they hadn’t all started taking the piss by vanishing halfway through the day and ignoring my warnings, I wouldn’t have done it.

Lots of people treat WFH like an opportunity to have an extra day off.

I don’t think there’s any problem with the manager’s decision as the agreement was 50% so that’s what you should be doing. If I had been doing my 50% but on other days e.g. Tues, Wed and Thur and had arranged child care etc. I would go and speak to the manager and have an adult conversation about a compromise or extension whilst I made arrangements rather than just kick off. Most people are reasonable. Kicking off achieves nothing and as a manager I’ve realised it’s generally the pisstakers who kick off.

The genie is out of the bottle, and people with responsibilities at home (and we know its often women picking up the slack), are not going to return to life pre-covid. Those of us that can work from home - we do our jobs just as well from home, if not better, and we have some balance to our lives now. No way should we be forced back into a world that doesn't work for us - one that was created for and worked for, men. If there are issues with people's productivity, then managers need to manage the issues and people. If they cannot do that, then they may not be management material.

OP has already clarified that it’s a 100% office based role with an “ option” to WFH. No need to further look into contracts etc. Management seem to have been very flexible to date. Whingers can take it or leave

Exactly what @Fuckitydoodah said. Employees who leave and go to another job where WFH arrangements are still very flexible are playing a game of diminishing returns. Who’s to say the new place won’t firm up the policy in six months?

We had similar and yea some people left - the slackers and the piss takers.
I had few people approach me about reasonable reasons eg taking longer to change childcare.

with the right people/good staff I didn’t hesitate to agree and explain that there would be flexibility going forward once the initial Apple cart had been upset - I.e the dross had gone

People seem to think it's their right to wfh since covid. It's not, it's a nice policy your company have, its stupid to take advantage.

As it’s 100% office based contracts, people need to be careful. The choice of Monday and Friday suggests some piss taking, and any more of it, the manager is within their rights to insist everyone comes in full time.

Of course the boss is absolutely within their rights to say people need to be in on set days. However when I live schools finish early on Fridays so it would probably result in resignations or requests to officially go part time. Most people with tweens and teens like to be at home on Friday afternoons even if the “kids” are old enough to not need “looked after”.

Yes they absolutely can dictate. Good management practice would have you try to work out an arrangement that the majority support rather than dictating a policy with no consultation but it sounds like your company have tried that approach and people took the piss.

My preference as a manager would be to tackle the ones taking the mickey and only mandate attendance for those who were not abiding by the 'choose your day' policy but that only works if the majority are following the policy. If the majority are ignoring it then you do need to set a consistent new policy that removes the choice for everyone.

I'm fortunate enough to have a contract that stipulates my role is remote, so there is no contractual expectation that I ever attend an office, but I'm fully aware that contracts can be changed so as an employee it's in my best interests to try to reach reasonable agreements with my company if they ask me to attend an office.

We have Monday and Wednesdays in the office and I really like the consistency. It means people know when to schedule meetings and know people will be there. For me personally it means I can arrange childcare around my commute (dd has to be in care an hour earlier in the morning and evening if I have to commute). A bit of structure is a good thing!

Yes we’ve just been told we have to be in the office Tuesday to Thursdays - including people on a remote contract! I’m not sure how legal that is but they they are claiming it’s until reasonable business travel and as long as they pay expenses they are within their rights to enforce it. Doesn’t affect me so I’ve not looked any further into the legalities of that.

I suppose technically they can do this. But I’d be looking for another job immediately. Easy way to lose talent.

Monday and Friday are clearly because people have been clocking in late on Mondays/early out on Fridays. They're the people you want to be annoyed with, because if that's a regular thing, it's pretty obvious.

I think a lot of offices are calling people in. Dh's is just doing a "consultation" and they're expecting to be told 2 days a week in the office. There are a few issues.

Firstly, there aren't actually enough desks for everyone, by quite a long factor (moved offices during covid) and so it's going to have to be formalised when people are in, which is what's causing an issue. A lot of people do do around 1-2 days a week in, but it's round when other people are in so they can meet in person. Dh is working currently on 3 projects, but there are others working on far more, so coordinating on that isn't going to be easy.
Secondly they're pretty niche. So since wfh has become a thing, they've found recruitment far easier. They have people employed who are 2hrs+ away who come in perhaps once a month. One in his team lives way further and what he does is every couple of months stays in a local hotel and has a week in.
These people will probably resign if they have to come in twice a week, for obvious reasons.

So they're hoping they're going to be told on average 2 days a week in the office, but with flexibility, including for those employed during wfh to have less.

Dd started working in a mostly wfh place, and it would have been far easier for her at the beginning to have people around to give her the little unofficial bits of information. They took a long time to pick up. When there was a new starter last year she went into the office every day for a fortnight to help them as she remembered how hard it was - and she vastly prefers wfh.
I also wonder about loneliness. Dh has weeks when he is totally wfh and he sees the family, and goes to church. That's all he does with "real" people. People who haven't got a lot of social things on may get more and more isolated, and that isn't good.

So I can see both sides.

They may “like to” but the bosses won’t care about their pick ups or childcare preferences. What did parents do before Covid? I’m not singling put your reply particularly @museumum, just using it to ask the question in general.

Look, I am the first to say that society could have used Covid as a massive re-set to put loads of stuff right. Pollution fell with less traffic, working patterns/WFH was better for disabled people and I’m sure opened up jobs that previously ‘couldn’t’ have been done outside the office. But society didn’t re-set. We’ve gone back to all the old problems. And unfortunately that’s starting to mean going back to more time in the office.

Our team doesn’t have enough desks to all be in on the same day. I would prefer team days personally as I have child/dog care to arrange

unfortunately people with covid babies seem to find the idea of paying for childcare unreasonable and this is causing resentment/issues arranging meetings etc

i think a balance is great - given no pay rises over the past few years a lot of people have been using wfh to save costs - so I can see both sides

Lots of employers seemed to think it was their right to force employees to wfh during Covid, even when it wasn't the law so that's fair enough I think!

Exactly this!

Unfortunately, it’s unfair for the people who do actually work hard and don’t take the piss but when you have staff who do take the piss (multiple posters on different threads definitely do) then I can see why you have to do it.

WFH should be treated with the same respect as if you were working in an office.

You wouldn’t just leave halfway through the day or have a day off in an office and so you shouldn’t do this when WFH.

Most people with tweens and teens like to be at home on Friday afternoons even if the “kids” are old enough to not need “looked after”.

I would say most people would like to be home every afternoon whether they have kids or not.

We don’t just get to go home early because we’d prefer to be at home.

I was reading that the teacher recruitment crisis has got worse; some investigation revealed that - among other things - younger people didn't want to pursue a teaching career because "there's no opportunity to wfh", which shows you how ingrained it is in the culture.

I really cannot imagine WFH full time. Maybe a day every two weeks or once a week, but everyday would drive me insane.

I have no option to WFH as I’m in education so the whole concept is baffling to me.

if you are supposed to be at work (whether at home or the office) you should have formal childcare in place. WFH should not be a piss take with people juggling kids, school runs, dogs, clubs etc. You are paid to work so work you should.

as for the saving money aspect, I firmly believe that if you choose to Wfh your salary should reflect this, especially for those jobs with London weighting or commuting costs considered. Why should you profit in this way?

My team all WFH (I'm the most junior and my contract doesn't allow it at all) and they all dart off at 1:30 to be home in time for the school run - it means that despite them saying "I'll be on my emails all afternoon!" They're offline from 1:30-5:30 and then get back online well after the office has closed and their kids are asleep.

It doesn't feel fair.

The whingers about this sort of thing make me very anxious. I need a certain amount of flexibility and long pre-covid I had established ways of asking for it and proving that I was trustworthy within it. Now (in a new job) I feel that people like me are lumped in with those who don't necessarily need flexibility (just like not feeling like they have to be work-ready and on a schedule), aren't offering reasonable solutions that mean that they can be relied on to be where they are actually needed and get the work done when they are not - and I hate it. 5 set days in a fortnight is totally reasonable and anyone who took a work in the office contract should be able to make it work. On the other hand, a month's notice for wraparound childcare is going to be very tricky for some people and while I understand why management is making a stand, now those childcare people are going to be lumped in with the general whingers and it's going to be really hard for them.

I really hate office whingers. I feel that you should either get on with it or you make a reasoned argument and an alternative suggestion. This general attitude of sullen resentment about being expected to do your bloody job makes management less flexible and life harder for everyone.