Pressure to return to office-based work

[CTank]

I had an interview for a job yesterday, and they flat out said they don’t do working from home. Really put me off them to be honest, for the job I do it just seems like backwards thinking. Particularly as I’ve been doing 1-2 days a week from home, with no ill effect.

Was on leave today, and doing the school run crystallised that I’d happily never go to the office again. Shame about the financial realities.

 

[zarniwoop]

My employer has embraced flexible working completely as a result of the pandemic. They closed a couple of regional offices, of which mine was one, and we all became home workers. The main office has been revamped with more meeting areas and hot desks and fewer allocated desks. Most of the company will be classed as hybrid workers from now on.

Teams tend to be distributed geographically anyway (UK, Bulgaria, India, Malaysia) so we can't all get together in one physical location every day. We'd already become used to meeting via camera before all this, so it has just extended a little.

 

[david ellwood]

The problem for me is that senior management want to continue working from home, and this means incessant time consuming zoom meetings.
I’d much rather the ineffective wasters just played golf.

 

[Del monaco]

The problem for me is that senior management want to continue working from home, and this means incessant time consuming zoom meetings.
I’d much rather the ineffective wasters just played golf.

They seem to get better and better at golf..

 

[Woodface]

Some pressure is starting to creep in for colleagues but I have been home based for 6 years. I used to meet up with work mates once a week in Manchester, miss the interaction but not the journey from Sheffield.

If you have required skills you hold the cards given how difficult it is to recruit at the moment. One day a week is pretty doable though IMV.

 

[paulfromcamden]

I guess another side to this is that not everyone has a home environment suited to working, especially if you're in a house share or share a smaller home with young family. Some of my younger colleagues couldn't wait to get back into the office. After seeing them in Teams meetings perched on their end of their bed I don't blame them!

 

[gordon]

I've been working from home for the past 15 years, and several 1-2 years stints before that. In terms of measuring productivity, as a software engineer, I commit to getting a certain amount of stuff done in a certain amount of time. So far, my employers are happy with the quantity and quality of my output. I do periodically slack, by going biking or skiing for a few hours. If I were in an office, I would be surfing the internet, or yacking with fellow employees.

 

[matt j]

All this talk of "new paradigm" or the "new normal" when we were in the height of covid has turned into a complete joke, they're soon reverting to type wanting everyone back where they can be seen as though nobody can be trusted.

Pathetic really in this day and age with the technology at our disposal, it's not like we're solely relying on landlines FFS. The world is moving on at a pace, but Backwards Brexit Britain is trying its hardest to keep one foot permanently anchored in the 19th century.

 

[gintonic]

we are operating a flexible location policy. People need to be in the premises when there is a business need. In our case, being a university this means face to face teaching and other matters. Typically at the moment I am in the building 2 days a week. Many of us in the senior team have given up the notion of a personal office.

My wife is also at home most of the week. She amongst other things is responsible for several engineering labs, so going to the physical location is always needed. But being in the office is not.

 

[Bananahead]

I have had HR briefings this week about our new hybrid working model. Nobody will be allowed 100% WFH. Nobody will be allowed 100% WIO*.

*There are some role-based exceptions.

 

[richardg]

All this talk of "new paradigm" or the "new normal" when we were in the height of covid has turned into a complete joke, they're soon reverting to type wanting everyone back where they can be seen as though nobody can be trusted.

Pathetic really in this day and age with the technology at our disposal, it's not like we're solely relying on landlines FFS. The world is moving on at a pace, but Backwards Brexit Britain is trying its hardest to keep one foot permanently anchored in the 19th century.

Nobody can be trusted. well, very few. I'm probably not good enough at the interview stage of recruitment to work out whether that person would take the piss whilst working from home or not. Worse, the gap in skills we have here is we could really do with someone on social media full-time, so no point in being in the office all the time to do that. But it just feels like it might be a job that attracts the slackers.

 

[SteveS1]

Nobody can be trusted. well, very few. I'm probably not good enough at the interview stage of recruitment to work out whether that person would take the piss whilst working from home or not. Worse, the gap in skills we have here is we could really do with someone on social media full-time, so no point in being in the office all the time to do that. But it just feels like it might be a job that attracts the slackers.

Shouldn't be a problem if you have a clear idea of what you expect the role to provide. That's what probation is for. I suspect the inability of companies to properly define and measure outputs is more of an issue. I've worked in plenty of places where 'looking busy' trumped effectiveness in the eyes of a management who had little idea of what was desirable/possible, other than an utterly unreliable "gut feel".

 

[darrenyeats]

Exactly, if management aren't able to tell if people are being productive, then there's a big management problem!

 

[matt j]

Nobody can be trusted. well, very few. I'm probably not good enough at the interview stage of recruitment to work out whether that person would take the piss whilst working from home or not. Worse, the gap in skills we have here is we could really do with someone on social media full-time, so no point in being in the office all the time to do that. But it just feels like it might be a job that attracts the slackers.

Surely you'd notice the difference in productivity between home and office if there was one?

 

[ciderglider]

I've been WFH since the 1st lockdown. As I have a long commute I am very much in favour of WFH, and I don't feel my productivity is affected. My employer wants us to start coming in 1 or 2 days a week, but this hasn't yet been enforced. Some colleagues seem very keen to return, others don't. Management's point-of-view is that when we are in the same room we will have more discussions. Embrace the synergies! There's some truth in that, but not enough to make me want to return to the office, and there are other ways to improve the flow of information around the team. I think that team spirit has declined during the WFH regime, and maybe this is management's real concern.

 

[gintonic]

Exactly, if management aren't able to tell if people are being productive, then there's a big management problem!

indeed - and i would suggest incompetent management.

 

[bor]

We are discussing this intensively at work, so naturally, I summarised this on a Power Point presentation, which was well received.

My conclusions were pretty banal, and have been covered on the thread already. The key thing, as Ciderglider and others have said, is that what works for me, doesn't work for you, so the key thing is that it should be fully flexible/optional for the employee.

A common conclusion, is that for technical discussions, whether WFH or in-office, everyone prefers to be able to use SKYPE or TEAMS to be able to use their own screens, so all meetings should as far as possible, have an option to dial-in.

Another thing, is that the advantages for the employee of WFH, can also be built into a case for the employer - no wasted time commuting, less absenteeism due to catching the 'flu on the bus, less expensive office real estate needed for example.

Personally, I now find it extremely difficult to concentrate in the office when I can hear people around me talking. Maybe because I'm not used to it, but I am definitely less effective in the office compared with WFH.

But we have certain measurements that indicate we need to have some amount of face-to-face contact in the office, to maintain a certain level of creativity, to spark off each other and so on, and although I prefer to WFH, I can see this happen when I am in the office.

But how much is enough?

 

[paulfromcamden]

Shouldn't be a problem if you have a clear idea of what you expect the role to provide. That's what probation is for. I suspect the inability of companies to properly define and measure outputs is more of an issue. I've worked in plenty of places where 'looking busy' trumped effectiveness in the eyes of a management who had little idea of what was desirable/possible, other than an utterly unrelable "gut feel".

Remote work empowers those who produce and disempowers those who have succeeded by being excellent diplomats and poor workers, along with those who have succeeded by always finding someone to blame for their failures. It removes the ability to seem productive (by sitting at your desk looking stressed or always being on the phone), and also, crucially, may reveal how many bosses and managers simply don’t contribute to the bottom line.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/why-managers-fear-a-remote-work-future/ar-AAMGW3R

 

[BTC3]

I am the exception at my work, in that I have worked from home for the last 10 years (it's written into my contract). I live in a different country to where the office is located, and spend a large chunk of my time speaking at events and dealing with customers at their locations. I started off going to the office for a week every month, and that has evolved to being there when I'm needed, which works out to... a week a month, give or take. I've heard all the jibes about people taking WFH as an excuse to not work, but the pandemic, and people being forced to work from home has rather turned things around on that front. Most are now clamouring to go back to the office, as they found it harder to create a hard break (time-wise) between work and home life, were working longer hours than before, etc, etc. Going back to an office today, in the UK, is hard. Mrs3 works in the City and does not relish the idea of busy commuter trains and the Tube, but company policies will be what company policies will be. Paying for fancy offices, often on fixed term leases and leaving them empty doesn't really work for financial controllers...

 

[garyi]

My role is flexible by its nature but I prefer to go to the office even now a couple of times a week and its a 120 mile round trip. I was not furloughed thank god. I prefer the balance, I would be rather depressed working from home all the time.