Working from home ending?

[Iamamanandlost]

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

god I hope not. I cannot work from home and I worked every scheduled day of Covid lockdown as a first line provider and please please keep wfh because the traffic is so much more tolerable. Surely many people can self police and get shit done while maybe doing some laundry and having the crockpot humming along

The person you were replying to was talking about putting kids in daycare during the work day, and being able to drop off later and collect sooner because of not having to commute. Your response, in that context, was a non sequitur.

On re-reading, they non sequitured you first. My apologies.

I think it's more likely to move to hybrid - or more office days than not, but with a WFH day (or two).

I was full time WFH for a couple of years before the pandemic. Changed jobs in 2023 to a firm that was hybrid - and still is. I prefer hybrid working. Whilst WFH is brilliant for time efficiency and the luxury of not having to commute, it's very isolating.

There's also a noticeable difference between the progress of our grads that started during the pandemic when it was fully remote, compared to our grads who have joined since we've been hybrid. I know collaboration is a total cliche - it's actually the listening and observing that gets missed. Seeing and hearing more experienced and senior people around you, how they interact, how they present. In some jobs it won't matter but it does in ours.

It's also much easier to intervene as a manager if you can hear something isn't right. I don't manage a team right now (am enjoying the break!) but PP mentioned about customer service quality - it's much easier to jump on something early and give in the moment coaching and feedback if you hear it happening around you. Whereas if you are remote, you've got to rely on the chance of it being picked up in a random call listening sample.

I do 3 home, 2 office now, which I really like. I'm more productive at home because I am easily distracted, so working on my own means I get my head down and churn out what I need to do. But my office days mean I get to catch up with people I wouldn't otherwise see or work with, and find out what's going on through the general chatter.

It's also much easier to intervene as a manager if you can hear something isn't right. I don't manage a team right now (am enjoying the break!) but PP mentioned about customer service quality - it's much easier to jump on something early and give in the moment coaching and feedback if you hear it happening around you.

See heading four of cacm.acm.org/practice/five-nonobvious-remote-work-techniques/

Either that, or people who don’t WFH and are jealous of those that do. My organisation is outcome focussed. We have a mix of WFH and office based which works well for us. If people just sat round at homes twiddling their thumbs it would be obvious. Times have changed.

OK, so heading four talks about "silently", but I'm sure it can be adapted to supervising a small number of newly-hired call centre staff with the sound on.

On this thread: "People who WFH are lazy piss-takers and should be forced back to the office".

Elsewhere on Mumsnet: "Disabled people should get off benefits and into work. They can always take a WFH job if they can't commute or deal with the office environment".

PICK ONE. You cannot have both.

We're downsizing our office so wfh won't end.

I Iike working from home, it has opened up job opportunities that I wouldn't have thought about if it was 5 days in the office. I'm lucky I have my spare room set up as an office (no bed in there at all) but in the summer I take my laptop and work in the garden(my boss and I have swapped photos of our working locations before, he even told me what I need to do to be able to see the screen in the summer!) it's quite peaceful and I get a lot done, or I have Wimbledon on the TV (although I used to have it on my second screen when I was in the office so no different),I'll stick cricket on the radio too(not fussed who is playing I like the background noise).

I always do the washing in the time i would have been commuting. I'm less stressed as I don't sit in traffic(which used to be horrendous before covid) and I can go to the gym in my lunch break when it's quieter.

It's meant I don't have to take the day off if I have workmen in, I just leave them to it, offering coffee/tea when I get up for a break. I no longer have to get parcels delivered elsewhere, I can take the cats to the vet before work or in my lunch break freeing up evening and weekend slots for those who need them.

I get very little done in the office as there is always chatter. At home I can sit down at 8.30 and look up and it be 11.30, other days I get distracted and stare out of the window for hours (no different to being in the office and talking or going on wanders around the office). Some days I work in complete silence other days I have music or the tv on(as mentioned above usually when the tennis is on). If I get a call Alexa gets told to turn herself off.

I think people forget what little work people would actually do in the office before covid, there were always days where you spent most of it chatting or wandering about the office making yourself look busy. You'd be in at 9 leave at 5 on the dot, usually packed up and ready to go by 4.45pm, Friday was always an early finish. Always taking your hour lunch break. You'd leave your house at 8am crawl in stop start traffic for 30 minutes, get to work, have a coffee and chat and probably not start any actual work until after 09.15.

I can see how it would be good for firms that want to do 100% remote - as they structure their processes and practices to support that. My point though, was that other firms may choose a different model.

It's irrelevant for my firm (which isn't a call centre) as they work hybrid - and were doing so before COVID. It was a big reason for me joining them because I wanted to work somewhere that had hybrid working well embedded in its culture. In our set up it wouldn't work because our process are built around hybrid attendance.

^^this is the clincher. In any ‘thought work’ role, the most valuable, high-level, qualified employees won’t choose to work for an organisation that mandates their presence in a certain location like a group of untrustworthy schoolchildren.

WFH is also a lifeline for people like me who have disabilities or NDs that make in-person workplaces difficult. There’s another thread going right now about how we need to get people back into work - making it easier for people to WFH would be a step in the right direction, surely.

In terms of ‘working contracted hours’, as several other posters have said, many people who WFH have fairly high-level jobs that aren’t about sitting at a desk carrying out a process for eight solid hours a day - that’s not what we’re paid for. I get paid a lot of money as a contractor because I’m an expert in my field. I work very flexibly and refuse any project that won’t let me work 100% from home. You want my expertise and time, you pay for it on my terms.

I don't think there can be a blanket term, wfh works better in some roles but not others and for some personality types and not others. Some employers want people to wfh to save on the cost of office space, some employees want to wfh to save on childcare or commute costs, but iimagine for many jobs hybrid is better than solely one or the other.
I can wfh but fairly infrequently because it's a practical job and a lot of times requires working in conjunction with others who are doing a different part of the process. I can take for example a batch of work home that can be done independently, and I did last week, but wanted a second opinion on something which I did by contacting a colleague and sending a pic, however they didnt look at it straight away (as its a practical job we dont always see emails or messages straight away) so I had to pause. If we were working next to each other, I'd have had their opinion in seconds and carried on.