Working from home ending?

[Iamamanandlost]

Jp Morgan, Asda, Amazon and WPP are forcing people back into the office? Is it ending working from home?

I work for a local authority in a very busy department, have been WFH since covid and continue to WFH full time due to being diagnosed with a rare auto immune condition during Covid. I often work 7 days a week (when there is overtime). The new head of the authority wanted everyone without a health issue back in the office, however during Covid they had leased out two floors of our building so that was not possible. Now most staff are hybrid and have to come in a couple of days a week and a few have been full time in the office even during COVID.
There is no way you can shirk your responsibilities without it being noticed. Managers run productivity reports and can see exactly how much each staff member has completed and it is pretty obvious to them who is not pulling their weight.

I can do everything at home including public phone shift as I can do in the office. It also means I can start at 7am and finish at 3pm (half hour for lunch), although I often work way past that as like to keep my flexi at 15 hours.

Yes there may be a few that WFH who take the pee, but the majority work the same if not harder, and It amazes me that people get their knickers in a twist about the WFH issue and assume everyone just sits around in their PJ's doing nothing.

You can change your teams settings so it stays ‘green’ longer. Or maybe that’s just on Slack….

for the record I don’t wfh but during the pandemic at 9 months pregnant I totally had a nap 😂

‘forcing’?
Didn’t the pandemic force it?

I work in a role that could never be done from home. If you were employed on terms that meant physically being in then so be it.

Those who have been appointed since may have wfh in their new contracts. They might be able to argue the point…

I think there's a balance and there is certsinly need to be in the office for many businesses.

We've noticed with DP' business the 'newer to the industry' staff are struggling to learn (it involves alot of technical knowledge) and therefore not able to progress, do decent work. Working in their design teams face to face daily makes a vast difference- they do learn and they learn how to deal with clients, manage in tough external meetings etc.

There are concerns the next levels of management in their business will be less skilled.

those who are simply more introverted than the boisterous extroverts currently in charge of the world...

Yes, of course. All extroverts are loud and boisterous .

An extrovert is someone who feels energized by the external world and social interactions, and isn't necessarily boisterous.

Hope not. I wfh and very happy about it and I'm very good at my job and won't stay in my company otherwise because in other ways my company is shit.

However , many of our younger recruits have just been awful and completely taking the piss. They don't seem to realise it's a privilege to wfh and you need to make sure you actually work to keep it like that.

Nope. My workplace has committed to 2 days per week. More productive and reduced bricks & mortar costs.

I work with someone who is nominally 9-5, in the office every day. He schedules all his trips away from his desk to deal with equipment breakdowns for the afternoon. By his own admission, if he finishes his last scheduled breakdown early, he goes straight home, even as early as 3pm, instead of finding a hotdesk to do admin work from.

And he's nominally paid hourly and getting paid for the full day, not a salaried "paid for the job not the hours" type.

A thread inviting people to 'fess up to their two-hour lunch breaks, store room naps, and Tinder flirting on their phone under the desk would have many takers.

I'd say it's not typical for a customer facing role to be remote and regardless of wfh or remote these type of jobs are easy to monitor - numbers of calls dropped, time to answer average call, number of emails sent etc.....

You couldn't measure my job like that. I manage people, I have multiple projects with deadlines and outcomes to be achieved.

I'm measured on the success those outcomes - not on the time I was sat at my desk between certain hours.

The flip-side of this argument is that I can release my IBS farts freely, instead of trying to hold them in until I can dive out into the corridor, when WFH without upsetting anyone bar CatOfHate. I'm more comfortable, you're more comfortable, everyone wins.

We remain 2 days in. It's unlikely to change as we downsized the office to suit.

In my job it's really important to have those in office days as collaborative work and building good relationships with staff who work in the client service side is important in my role. But I don't need to do it 5 days a week.

I don't know whether some of these bigger companies are actually trying to force people to quit? People who were only in it for the remote work.

I think hybrid is here to stay
Companies have downsized so dont have capacity for 100% attendance on site
Employees demand that level of flex and will find it elsewhere if not on offer (clearly in roles which allow for it).

We have guidance for 2 days in office rest of time at other sites or client sites but some people depending on current role may be in more or less than that. I go in once a week though often less to show face as have no direct colleagues locally and so there's no tangible business benefit to me being there.

Dh was recruited in last year for a 100% remote role as his skills are in demand and increasingly employers are looking outside of their locale to secure them. He's about 100 miles away from their office and been in once works for both of then.

It has to work for both employee and employer and does feel like employees are forgetting that these days

It sounds similar to how I work. It would be pretty obvious if I was away from my my desk for any length of time.

As mentioned earlier, I’m not fond of hearing people munching and slurping at their desks, touching their keyboard at the same time as eating a bag of crisps! It’s disgusting! Stinking out the office!

As I have a sedentary job I am aware I need less calories but there are tons of staff who start munching on their lunch by 11:15 !😳 and then carry on through the afternoon!

Honestly, if you’re sitting on your arse all day you can survive on a soup (to drink in the kitchen/canteen) at lunchtime or a couple of coffees!

The people snotty about wfh reveal a lot about themselves - if they only work when they’re being observed in the office but take the piss at home then it says a lot about their overall effectiveness. If you’re crap at your job it doesn’t matter where you work, the results surely speak for themselves? The research on this shows people are way more productive from home but people won’t let cold hard data get in the way of their shitty attitudes.
I work hard and get great results consistently; if my employer started to treat me like an insolent child I’d just leave for one that respected me and trusted my ability to deliver in the way that works best for me.
The problem with a lot of the orgs forcing a return to the office is they aren’t realy interested in culture or turn over of staff; they pay v well but don’t care about keeping you as its all v short term. That may suit some but I think the true winners will be the orgs that win the best people by trusting them and letting their performance be the metric they focus on.

There should be a whole separate thread about people eating at their desks.

I do far more work at home than in the office. Far more. No distractions. I still have the same targets whether in the office or not but I do better against them on wfh days. Not sure how that is 'work shy.' I work harder not than I ever have in twenty years!

Same. I start earlier and finish later because I'm not commuting. When I go into the office people are always coming over to ask me things that they would otherwise put in an email.

I get more done at home as well, but there have been several threads on MN recently from posters who admit that they get very little done at home.

I think it is dependent on the type of person, the type of job and the employer.

There are too many variables for it to be a one size fits all.

I think people are biased on both sides of this argument (I don’t like WFH and never did so I’m probably biased too).

People who like WFH claim they work harder and are more productive and people who don’t say people take the piss.

I know someone who works at one of the organisations the OP mentioned who said that their internal data showed that WFH resulted in no loss of productivity in 2020/21 but since then productivity has declined and that’s why they’re back to the office 5 days.

It’s a shame for the people who do work hard at home but unfortunately enough people have been slacking off and are ruining it for the rest.

Unfortunately not everyone is a reasonable employee.

Yes, the work shy member of my team was just as work shy in the office

I work in a hospital so I can eat there or stand in a corridor or tiny kitchen so everyone does eat at their desks. Not really sure I’d ever have time to go to a cafe, but we’re not crammed in and no one ever comments apart from Fridays when occasionally people go and get fish and chips from the canteen. It’s for patients/visitors/staff so never any room so they bring it back to their desks and everyone goes “oooh now I want fish and chips”.

I guess some people are sensitive to noises but eating at your desk is very normal in my workplace.

Agree I rarely wfh but sometimes I get work done much more quickly bd easily without people coming in, interrupting, running errands etc. Other times I do wfh to fit round eg taking my kids to the dentist or collecting from school early and the stop-start nature means I'm more easily distracted at home.

I mentioned earlier and was scoffed at that on many threads people say they get their work done in 2-3 hours and nobody notices or cares when/how long it took. ....although there was a recent thread where a manager noticed an employee was taking 2 hr breaks for school run etc and was more unproductive.
I acknowledge that some people are paid mainly for their experience/expertise and don't have to account for hours, but I'm not convinced that that accounts for all the posters who insist they can do a day's work in 3 hours!

Absolutely agree with a full time return to office and sooner the better. People ruined it for themselves. 20/21 did indeed show continued productivity and reduction in sick days, but back then people were afraid for their jobs and keen to demonstrate they could wfh. Since then productivity has dropped and sick days have soared. Prior to 2020 I don't think I had ever had an otherwise healthy person take a whole week off with hay-fever or cold. Now absolutely the norm. People now schedule personal appointments inside work time to avoid impacting their weekends, again unheard on prior to 2020. That's all without taking into account the young people entering a business who miss out on training and learning from their peers. It's no wonder that businesses are changing their mind on this.

On Teams If you hover over a person’s name it will tell you how long they’ve been away for. Doubtful you’d be able to claim your wee took 45 minutes. If you are on a call it will show as in a call. If you work in a small team I find it unlikely people will be able to waltz off to the gym in work time more than a few times without getting called out on it.