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Three days in the office and two days WFH for me and I find that the perfect mix. I’m definitely way more productive at home when I don’t have people asking me if I want anything from Greggs or listening to the mad women I work with loudly talking absolute bollocks
But then i remember that I do actually like listening to the mad women I work with loudly talking absolute bollocks, because they’re very funny, and if you’re going I’ll have a cheese and onion pasty and a sausage roll chaser please 😀
We never really left. Over half our team are remote workers, with occasional (bi-monthly) office or training meets.
Those in the offices we've always worked flexibly, but with a 'get in there office for a day once a fortnight minimum' she's most staff choose to spend 50% or more of time in the office. It helps that we're a nice small employer, offer great tea and coffee for free, run an All Blacks style 'no dickheads' rule and generally have really pleasant offices which people live vaguely near.
IME, those resisting going back in either moved too far away in the pandemic to make it practical, or do less work and hours from home...
From my experience it's largely dependent on the role, the individual and their home set up.
Mine's a back office finance role with no real need for face to face interaction. I could easily do my role totally remote. I'm naturally an introvert who's happy spending the majority of my time on my own. From a purely selfish point of view I'm happier, healthier and financially better off working from home the majority of the time , and I genuinely think I am more productive working that way (they definitely get more hours out of me WFH).
That being said even I can understand the argument that some face to face interaction with your colleagues is beneficial, especially for younger trainees. I can also understand some people's personalities or home set up means they hate WFH.
I worked from home two days a week for a couple of years before Covid (and before that commuted 2 hours 5 days a week in same role for 15 years). Back then I thought I had a valid reason to request flexible working (disabled child) but had quite a fight to get it agreed as senior management were split (some against, some supportive). It probably got me a label as being a bit of a trouble maker, but it was a huge positive change to our family situation at the time. I also met some suprising (to me) attitudes from colleagues. There was a lot of teasing about shirking from home, some good natured, some not so (from people who were blatantly jealous or pissed off that I was allowed to WFH, or genuinely believed everyone who worked from home would do less work).
Fast forward to now a lot of those same people attitudes have changed (though some haven't!) and we now average two days a week in the office, which I think works well. Some other roles who have more client/ customer facing roles do more. I think there is a power struggle going on at the top at the moment where some senior management would like us in more, and some people are quite worried they will suddenly be forced to go back to 5 days in the office.
IME, those resisting going back in either moved too far away in the pandemic to make it practical, or do less work and hours from home…
Way too much of a generalisation.
Indeed. Very likely they are doing more work and more hours at home, just not trying to travel at the same time as everyone else to an office. A five day a week rush hour commute, week after week, month after month, can be far more crushing than actually doing a bit more work.
As for the regular/temporary place of work… you can have several regular places of work, all of which you commute to so can’t claim any tax benefits for… 2 days a week in your branch office, once a month at HQ, a couple of days a week at home… all regular, any travel just being a commute.
In a previous life I occasionally worked from home before wfh was a thing. It never ceased to amaze me that I could rattle off a weeks worth of correspondence in a decent afternoon of quiet. I was in the public sector where response times were very much the big thing, and it seemed an absolute no brainer to work like that if you wanted to clear the backlog of correspondence that weighed heavy on our department
The arguments that are generally made for going back to the office full time seem in the whole quite weak and more often than not are disingenuous.
I get that some like the office environment, or that face to face time has advantages etc etc. But when the likes of mogg and the daily telegraph are banging the drum then there's something not right in my view.
I note that the county council (Cambridge?) is no longer being pursued by the government to ensure staff are all present. Largely on the basis that the authority has shown themselves to be more effective and efficient following a 4 day week trial. I know it's not quite the same thing but it is an example of where the facts have at least been established and the previous government proved to be wrong
It seems that technology has given us the opportunity to really tackle issues around congestion, commuting, child care etc. We really should be making the most of it and seeing how we can use it to our advantage. Maybe in the future we'll find out it was a wrong thing to do but right now I'm not seeing any better options
IME, those resisting going back in either moved too far away in the pandemic to make it practical
Also, this is phrased like poor planning, but in reality, the pandemic was four years ago. A lot of people have taken roles on the basis that they're able to do them remotely.
When I say clear, obviously that’s within the context of it being a gov website!
Well, I laughed. 😀
Like many things, it's a few people taking the piss who ultimately spoil it for the rest of us. That article is dated 2014, which 'feels' about right for when my employer at the time had a crackdown on it. We then had engineers (because of course we did) refusing to come in more than twice a week for fear of being reassigned as office workers rather than home workers.
As far as their roles went it didn't really matter. We had better resources available more immediately in my Lab, including test circuits which mirrored the customers' site configurations, but there was little reason why we couldn't ship out kit if they wanted to work from home.
There was a brief conversation around insurance being invalid/nonexistent if they were burgled, I argued that we routinely didn't pay for insurance with DPD anyway because it was cheaper overall just to take the hit on a loss. Eventually I set up a terminal server backwards so they could ring us up, ask a minion to plug box 2 into terminal port 5 and DSL port 3 then telnet to the device's serial port just as if it was on the bench next to them. Literally the only reason to come in after that would be so that we could have a senior engineer (who we farmed out to customers at £1,000/day) put things in and out of boxes rather than the lad on Work Experience doing it.
Work smarter, not harder or longer.
We are expected to be in 2 or 3 days a week. I just ignore it and go in once a week just to get out of the house and see people. None of the people I work with are in the office when I am and are even less inclined to go in. I think in our case its because a couple of the directors dont like WFH themselves and so want everyone else to turn up aswell. The short answer is though we wont all fit in the building any more
Like many things, it’s a few people taking the piss who ultimately spoil it for the rest of us
Makes not to add this to death and taxes
Learning by osmosis gets rolled out a lot where I work. As far as I can tell it is utter bullshit.
As someone who's worked from home for 26yrs & counting (office is 2.5hrs drive away), I can assure you it isn't, there's lots of things I could see or learn from my colleagues or from the shop floor that I never have the chance to & often only get to know about when there is an eff up.
We are min of 2/3 days per week. We also moved to a new head office that can only accommodate about half of the people, and is more than 70 min commute by train. Which is the only public transport option in central London. I manage that, but if it was 5 days, I can go homeworker as my commute is too long and obviously the relocation expenses would have been crippling. It’s a good set up to be fair. What matters is building occupancy not staff presence. And at the moment, it’s pretty rammed Tues-Thurs.
What matters is building occupancy not staff presence.
Why?
What matters is building occupancy not staff presence.
There's a lot of homeless people that I'm sure would be grateful for somewhere warm to stay
What matters is building occupancy not staff presence.
Why?
Have you got a pension?
As someone who’s worked from home for 26yrs & counting (office is 2.5hrs drive away), I can assure you it isn’t, there’s lots of things I could see or learn from my colleagues or from the shop floor that I never have the chance to & often only get to know about when there is an eff up.
It isn't Osmosis though
We're on 2 days a week in the office. I have a fairly unusual role and work with people in Pune in India, Knutsford and London so I get no advantage from being in the office. I don't mind going in, I was doing 2 or 3 days a week in the office when I started 13 years ago. My commute is 55 miles and 1.5 hours and I chose to keep commuting so my wife didn't have to change her job and the children could stay in the same schools.
My issue with the return to the office full time, you haven't been given a decent pay rise in years, and the cut to expenses has been welcome. Now you expect me to take a pay cut because it suits you?
I'll also add in that at my particular employer, a lot of the folk that are desperate to be in and with others seem to spend all their time there (in working hours) rabbiting about inane crap.
Virtually every time I go in there are different groups of 4-6 who don't do a stroke of work before 10am and have spent the first hour nattering and gossiping. They're then the ones who are most vocal when the chimpering about returning to the office starts.
I think those people who moved away from their office during covid because they assumed it was going to become the norm were as naive as the bike industry assuming that bike sales would remain high after the pandemic. Most employers are completely stuck in their ways and seem to refuse to see it from any other angle. We got sent home and the role I was in at the time was customer facing at a university so I switched departments to a technical role which involved sitting in front of a computer everyday and applied for the hybrid working to become permanent for me on health grounds (I have IBD and being in an office makes me unwell because of the side effects) which they rejected on the grounds that 'it may become permanent anyway' which is great unless you have a disability which thrives in stress and now face the constant unknown deadline.
I now work in the same role for another university where I was hired to work completely remotely and I'm the healthiest I've ever been and have an amazing team of people and the talent pool the university is able to access because of the remote working is majorly to their advantage because of the nature of the role. It's all very well saying you can apply for flexible working but any company can just use one of the allowed reasons to reject your claim and then you've got to fight them to prove it which the stress of will put most people off who actually need the flexibility.
It isn’t Osmosis though
Both the Oxford Language and Cambridge Dictionary definitions available online of "osmosis" clearly cover the manner in which it's being used here as an alternative definition. Straight from Google powered by Oxford Language...
the process of gradual or unconscious assimilation of ideas, knowledge, etc.
That aside I'm not sure arguing about language is helpful. There are much more interesting angles to this debate such as people development, quality and ease of collaboration, wellbeing, productivity, work-life balance and home-work separation, knock on economic impacts on city centres and the property market, data security and privacy, confidentiality, access to resources, the balance of office costs, health & safety/DSE practicalities etc.
The work environment is ultimately not about individuals it is about teams/the organisation as a whole and what may be optimum for a single team member may not suit the wider needs of the team/organisation. If the organisation does not prosper or properly function then that is bad for everyone including staff ultimately.
Occupancy matters if you’ve just taken delivery of a new building you want it full. That it won’t accommodate the entire staff means that as long as it’s full, does it matter who’s in? In fact we have to book in via a pass to activate, and there are limited passes available on any day. So on really busy days you may not be able to come into the office, even if you need to. So the 2/3 days a week may be incompatible with spaces being available. That has yet to happen but the building is full. No company wants to run empty office overheads. The previous office was seven times larger and very empty when we left.
During Covid, I didn’t mover further away from the office. But the office moved further from me. I could just be a home worker, but believe that some office face to face contact is important. And I get a nice cycle commute.
Occupancy matters if you’ve just taken delivery of a new building you want it full.
Maybe I'm just controversial, but I'd look at that from the other side, both from the business perspective and the employee perspective.
If the building is at capacity all the time, space will become an issue and they'll have to get a bigger new building - if I want to wfh at all, it's a losing game to ever go in.
Pretty much the same thing from the business perspective, do I really want to have to buy another/a bigger building? And if I can cut costs by having a smaller building (as presumably you've already done so), could I cut them further by having an even smaller one in the future?
Basically, making people come in for occupancy's sake seems totally backwards. Wouldn't it be much more sensible to encourage people to come in as it actually makes sense for them to come in/they want to come in, and then right size the building accordingly?
Occupancy matters if you’ve just taken delivery of a new building you want it full.
Why?
An empty building costs, at worst, the same to run as a full one. If fewer people in you can zone the aircon, put lights on timers / motion sensors for the quieter areas... Hell, you could rent out unused office space to other companies and actually make money from it.
The only reason I can think of to desire a new building to be full is if you've just bought a new building and then have to justify the expenditure to higher-ups when it's half-empty.
Covid gave companies an opportunity to reassess working patterns. Mixed working has proven very popular, so any future offices can be planned and sized accordingly. Whether that is consistent with requiring people to come in five days a week, or even two or three is moot. Office occupancy is the corporate measure of success and efficiency, proportion of people attending three days is not. The latter is an individual metric for performance. And those can be flexible. Given the location of our new HQ, plenty of people had the option of full-time home working (including me). That or request relocation costs to move closer, or compensation for breach of contract. I think it’s a healthy compromise.
Office occupancy is the corporate measure of success and efficiency
To whom?
That's nuts.
Office occupancy is the corporate measure of success and efficiency
But don't you win that game by not having an office at all?
2-3 days here. Some do more, some do less. I'm 3-4 days depending upon when I'm needed, no less than three as I use those for my cycle commute days. Some staff can't realistically do more than two as they have been moved to shared office space with other Teams, and the space is tight. Then you have other staff who are rarely in but insist on a desk !
But don’t you win that game by not having an office at all?
I don’t think that’s how multinationals work. 😉
Occupancy matters if you’ve just taken delivery of a new building you want it full.
Sunk cost fallacy. And if being over-full means people can't come in that really need to, that's an additional cost on top of the building itself.
Trail_rats point about investment funds and the value of buildings was interesting, certainly fed into my feelings of a larger agenda at play.
So does city centre office building stock lose value due to WFH, and does forcing people back in really solve that? Why would a company care if their (presumably leased) office building was losing value?
Clearly I'm not an economist lol
This is (as with all things) complex, and I think a lot of it is puff in the RW press on behalf of commercial landlords (who’s shareholders include a lot of our pension funds etc).
In countries where there is a labour shortage (which includes the UK, and US AIUI) its going to be hard to force people to return to the office, as hybrid working might become a recruitment carrot?
I could work from home every day but I choose to go to the office. I don't have a sensible comfortable place to work at home. I live on the South Coast and house prices are such that my role doesn't pay enough to buy a property big enough to raise two children and carve out a small home office.
I find it very very difficult to educate and train new young staff entirely remotely but I'm expected to. More office presence would make this process easier and better for everyone but my employer is not one of those enforcing any form of mandatory office time.
WFH is, like a lot of things, complicated.
WFH is an incredibly contentious issue that I can see both sides of the argument, but like most things in life should be negotiable.
My company owns the office I work in so they encourage you to come in, however in another region, they were renting and decided it to be cheaper to give up the lease and make everyone work from home. Companies will do whatever they think is best for the company, but you do get the odd upper manager on a power trip who will make decisions on their own agenda whether it is good for the company or not.
A quick google comes up with some employees winning legal cases against their employers about WFH, so maybe a strongly worded letter to the HR department might be worth a shot, even if only for your record purposes.
Or get a letter from the doctor saying you have anxiety about having to work in an office and all the commuting faff/stress.
I guess I'm one of the corporate dinosaur management type who is keen for staff to return to the office. I'm a director for a large US based Investment Bank, we have approx 4000 UK staff and over 90,000 globally.
We haven't said how many days we would like people back, this is at the discretion of the individuals. But we try to encounrage it as much as possible. There is no single reason, its covers a large spectrum.
1. Personal health and well being. If my team members want to spend an hour chatting before cracking on with work. I'm OK with that. I want to see personal interaction. Lots of reasons why, but I want my team to get on well and actually enjoy working together. Once a month we organise a breakfast, 0930 until 1030. This is across all business areas/locations. Not everyone will appreciate it, but there are no nefarious goals. I just want my teams to socially interact with other.
2. Personal health and well being. I have a large number of reports, both direct and indirect. I want them to know who I am. I want them to feel like they can come and discuss anything with me. Going through a divorce and need a bit of slack, come and talk to me. Need any career guidance, lets go for a coffee and discuss. Completely open door.
3. Personal health and well being. Work / life balance Not everyone is good at finishing work at a certain time. Some people allow work to get on top of them, this may be ok for 6 months, a year, but I can track it better if they feel they can discuss it with me or with their manager. I can have a better visibility of what is going on when we meet face to face, people are more likely to give me an honest appraisal of the situation (both work and personally). (Not just me, but my managers can keep an eye out for their staff and so on)
4. Mentorship - I am the mentor for a number of my staff, covering different levels within our organisation. I meet each individual once a month, I'd like to think that for the junior members of staff, having face to face time with a senior manager is something that they see a benefit from. I learn an awful lot more about them than I would over a 30 minute zoom call. When we see each in the corridor, we chat about football, about rugby, about family life.
5. There are then the corporate benefits of the offices having staff working in the office - this really is secondary to my organisation. But we would be foolish if we did not think of these benefits.
I do understand that some people will still see the above and think it is archaic. However we take our responibility to individuals incredibly seriously. Investment banking/wealth management and risk management are notoriously high pressure environments to work in. We do our best to look out for our staff.
We also have local offices in a number of major UK cities. My job role is based in New York, however I spend 50% of my time in a small regional office. If people have moved away from their previous office, we are more than happy for them to attend a different office. If people have moved to an incredibly remote location, I would be ok with that. But this has been their choice, I would still expect them to come in to the office once a month (ish). I would want them to meet with their manager to discuss what is happening with their work, how does it fit in with their life etc. Nothing prying, just ensuring that they are ok.
Apologies if this is rambling, typing out as I commue in on a train. And I do appreciate the above could all be carried out with remote working, but I am not certain about how effective it is. Within my organisation we have a HR consultancy business, they have carried out really detailed studies on this topic.
So does city centre office building stock lose value due to WFH,
Yes, the value of buildings is based on demand. Once you start getting smaller businesses pulling out of various buildings or renting smaller areas, rental rates go down (supply exceeds demand) and the value of the business that owns the building drops, and the value of the building does too (part of value is based on how profitable it can be)
and does forcing people back in really solve that?
Yes. Full occupancy, pressure on space, increasing rent rates
Why would a company care if their (presumably leased) office building was losing value?
Because a shit load of these companies own (or have shares in) the leasing companies too.
So does your pension company as property is worth investing in. Well. It was.
I'm formally allowed 30% WFH, i usually do about that, one fixed day every week and then usually one other random day. Manager doesn't much care if i go more either. Neither does his boss.
And FWIW, if everyone turns up, we're about 20% short of chairs across the business. We have to move into conference rooms to work, and even then it's about 5% over capacity.
And the 30% is based on union negotiations and stipulations from the company insurance co.
Pros and cons to all office, pros and cons to all WFH.
A balance of a mostly in and some out seems to work pretty well for us at my place.
SW eng, FWIW.
I'm uncomfortable with the idea of business managers deeming themselves an authority on their employee's health and wellbeing and making important decisions on that basis.
Lots of people suffer enormous amounts of stress and anxiety as a direct result of the requirement to travel to and sit in busy office spaces. Open plan offices in particular have been shown to cause negative impacts on both physical and mental health.
So I think we should leave people's health and wellbeing to the medical professionals and well away from WFH decisions.
I guess I’m one of the corporate dinosaur management type who is keen for staff to return to the office. I’m a director for a large US based Investment Bank, we have approx 4000 UK staff and over 90,000 globally.
We employ twice that, just in the UK and have reduced our office space to the minimum - WFH is the norm for non-customer facing staff.
I'm back-office in Financial Services and went into the office once last year, and twice so far this year.
Before Covid I was about 3 days office and 2 days out/WFH - still live in the same place (90 mile round trip, but under an hour each way) AKA saving a packet.
It seems that technology has given us the opportunity to really tackle issues around congestion, commuting, child care etc. We really should be making the most of it and seeing how we can use it to our advantage.
I listened to an interesting item some time ago about stuff that falls through the gaps becuase of the way government departments are structured. An example being Health and Housing - one of the factors creating long waiting lists for treatment is bed blocking because patients don't have suitable homes to return to (when I've been admitted to hospital in the past I seemed to get as many questions about my home as I did about my symptoms, but it was my house that set the conditions for me to be discharged)
Historically 'Health' and 'Housing' were the same department and improvements to housing provision were made on health grounds. We created the NHS and Social housing because they were two tools for solving the same health problems
That idea was extrapolated to transport - Transport is a stand alone department so solution to transport issues are - more of different forms of transport. More Public Transport, or more roads, or cycle provision or whatever. What Covid revealed was that the biggest move the country could make to alleviate congestion is to buy the country one big shared zoom license. That thought never occurred because transport and telecommunications are different government departments and treated as deferent topics even though they both tools for achieving the same goal.
For me, it's 2 day's a week WFH. On the odd occasion I work 3 days at home.
I have 50 odd mile round trip commute and this time of year is in the dark which I find tiring, often getting home with a migraine because of the headlights of the on coming cars.
But as others has said, I have very little personal contact with my colleagues when in the office. My team members all mostly work in different countries in different time zones. Local to me is CET.
Experience in my previous company was those I worked with (including my boss and his boss) were enthusiastic about wfh, but someone above them ordered everyone back 2 days into office for various reasons.
It was a 4-5 hour round 150 mile trip for me on the M25, M3. I was hired remote, but my contract said office based. They said this was for cost-centre purposes at the time. I quit as I couldn't relocate and didn't want to drive 4-5 hours a day twice a week on top of an already quite long day.
I was hired remote, but my contract said office based. They said this was for cost-centre purposes at the time.
I normally ask people to change the contract.
The world has changed with better connectivity so wfh is clearly possible - and it was proven during the pandemic that everything didn’t come to a crashing halt for the most part.
However, I think there is some balance here, and it depends what kind of job you’re in / your company.
Mine has now mandated 3 days a week in the office for staff who are also able to work from home. Some jobs are not doable from home such as staff working in the branches that are customer facing etc etc.
I’m good with it personally - I had enough time sat in the box room at home (setup as an office) over a few years to want to be in an office with actual live people in person. I find I actually work better in the office for whatever reason.
The blend of 3 days office / 2 days wfh is almost perfect for me. I wouldn’t want to go back in 5 days - but then I haven’t been 5 days in an office for probably 8 years as I’ve had sales roles where I’m out seeing customers / can work from home where I want to.
If someone has been hired remotely / in a home working contract then I think they have a genuine case to push back on going in the office - if the contract says office based or hybrid then it’s difficult not to.
Ultimately companies are paying our wages to do a job as they want it done - so if they want people in the office then it’s either like it or lump it. Vote with your feet and find another job that does offer full remote working if that’s what you want to do.
Some companies are bending over backwards to get people back in the office to some extent - my wife contracted for another large bank for a while a year or so ago - they were always doing events with free food / free entertainment etc in the office and were piloting taking your (lockdown) dog to work in the office with you.
I think when you have people new to the company / graduates / apprentices who are new to the world of work etc that it’s not helpful to leave them wfh on their own. Yes you have teams and zoom - but it’s not the same as being sat amongst other people who you can quickly ask a question.
Apologies if this is rambling, typing out as I commue in on a train.
An interesting read. "Employees being more efficient" didn't seem to feature, unless I bleeped over it? All of the benefits you describe are laudable, it sounds a great place to work. But is the outcome better for both employer and employees as a result? It reads like a LinkedIn job advert where perks include "statutory paid holiday" and "free parking." No-one ever went into an office because they wanted a cuddle. Well, almost no-one. 🙂
I could work from home every day but I choose to go to the office. I don’t have a sensible comfortable place to work at home. I live on the South Coast and house prices are such that my role doesn’t pay enough to buy a property big enough to raise two children and carve out a small home office.
You can work from home. Why not move somewhere which is more appropriate for your needs and cheaper?
Yeah it's happening, I know someone who moved from the South East to the North East to live the rural life after being told their role was remote, aside from 'the odd in-person meeting'. Fast forward 2 years and they're having to live with their parents 4 nights a week to save a 200 mile commute at their own expense.
It's sadly a debate that became a politicised argument. Unions and the like will tell you workers are 20% more efficient at home, partly because of a lack of distractions, plus an ability to mix work and home lives more efficiently. The likes of Forbes will tell you the opposite. The argument becomes so entrenched that facts become opinion and vice versa. How to you measure efficacy? The smart, but hard way is to measure output, the stupid, but easy way is to measure input.
One opinion that does seem to be a fact, the ones shouting the loudest about Office work, have the most to lose. The City Centre office space owners, the lunchtime meal deal providers, the transport providers etc.
I've gone back to being in the office as much as possible rather than WFH as its just far more effective in a small team (SW development), we just discuss ideas more frequently and have lots of impromtu discussions about technical issues. Personally it doesn't really bother me as I'm only a 20 min bike ride away from work. Although I did blow £3k on a pair of Apple Studio Displays at home, which barely get used now - might have to bring them into the office to get some use out of them.
I’ve gone back to being in the office as much as possible rather than WFH as its just far more effective in a small team (SW development)
It's more effective for *your* small team, maybe.
I'm *way* more effective as a software engineer wfh than in an office.
I took a role 2 years ago, they were desperate for people. So i told them right at the start, their office location doesnt work for me.
So id been WFH with rare visits into the office. However my contract actually said office based, managers discretion etc etc.
They reverted to wanting peeps in the office 3 days per week minimum. The location, as said, doesnt work for me so i told them 'bye bye'.
Back to contracting, full time WFH for a Copenhagen company.
Seems to be the way now with many others in my sector. 2 days WFH, 3 days office. Seems they have some big offices to pay for (or more like the client pays for it as a project fee, and if no ones in, client not paying.... hence bums on seats needed)
It’s sadly a debate that became a politicised argument. Unions and the like will tell you workers are 20% more efficient at home, partly because of a lack of distractions, plus an ability to mix work and home lives more efficiently.
It's also sad that the argument can't be phrased as 'hey we might be slightly less efficient but we're not clogging up roads/trains, we're spending more time with families/children etc. etc.'. The societal benefits as a whole should be massive but that seems to be getting overlooked.
I definitely agree with a lot of the reasons stated above for still going in to office, my new company seems like a great office and crowd of people, shame it's just too far away for more than once/twice a month!
the client pays for it as a project fee, and if no ones in, client not paying
Does the client come round and check? I'm not in Projects (though I dealt closely with plenty) but it seems an odd thing to charge for. We'd estimate and bill clients for engineering hours, not seat warmers.
The world of office based work is backwards. I find it staggering that we still insist on a set number of hours for some roles. I'm a big fan of judging people on what they do as opposed to where they do it and how long they spend sitting in one place. A hell of a lot of place I've worked seem to count being present above everything else.
The company I work for delivered more during lockdown than at any other time in it's history. I personally don't mind working from the office (well, the warehouse, office not so much). It's nice to WFH on a Monday though as it eases me back in to the week and doesn't involve getting up early for an hours worth of cycling. It also means I get more done as the two hours a day I'd spend commuting can be spent on working if needed. If I was forced in to the office then certain things just wouldn't get done as I'd strictly stick to my hours.
My work now mandates 2 days a week in the office (pro rata), but because of my long COVID they let me off with less. Which I'm very grateful for.
If i could manage it, I'd probably do 2 or 3 days a week in the office. I miss the social side and some stuff is just quicker when you can walk over to someone's desk for a quick chat. And I miss getting the exercise! But some stuff is far easier to do when you don't have the distractions.
My work has two compulsory "high occupancy" days for the office staff and there is a lot of pushback from some members of staff whenever increasing that number of days is raised. The claim that they are more productive at home isn't really born out by the company's performance over the years since Covid.
"I’m a software engineer, and even if I’m sitting next to someone, I’d stick the question on slack first, before interrupting someone else’s train of thought."
I dont know whether this is more effective or not.
I currently work from home but 3 of us meet up most weeks for an office day.
It's certainly nice to get out of the office and we have a chat over lunch.
But I get the feeling the other 2 guys don't really like being interrupted when working, which from a work collaboration perspective makes it all but pointless.
Despite all the other pointless corporate rubbish that came with our merger, the WFH and flexible working policy is one thing that's got better. No more old fashioned "you must do 3 days in the office and clock in/out at your designated hours" - all that has gone and it's just a case of being trusted to get your work done on time but fit around life stuff whilst going in for the days when most people are in.
I'm seeing less fully remote jobs posted now though which is a shame as I'd never want to go back to fully office/studio based. Wouldn't mind doing fully remote for a bit so I could get rid of my car and focus on paying off some debt with the money it frees up!
I dont know whether this is more effective or not.
Yes. It is.
The process of having to write down your thoughts clearly means that you often solve the problem by yourself.
Even if you don't solve it that way, you've at least worked out how to clearly express the situation, and are better placed to communicate it.
You reach a wider audience than the person you'd walk over to.
People are free to engage when they reach a natural break point for their current task.
Other people can easily jump in and get up to speed with the current state of play.
If anyone else has the same question in future, they can search and find it.
And, having it on slack doesn't stop you from also tapping on someone's shoulder if you need a faster answer.
“I’m a software engineer, and even if I’m sitting next to someone, I’d stick the question on slack first, before interrupting someone else’s train of thought.”
I dont know whether this is more effective or not.
Ah, but more effective for whom, the one asking or the one answering?
@oldschool if you insist on one manager being present at all times then surely you need a rota for that…
my point is, pre Covid the team managed to agree who’d cover what days based on business needs and each others personal needs. They spoke to each other, they understood each other. Now they feel that attending the office is a hassle and need reminding that they took a job office based, I relaxed the rules soon as I joined as I know there are wfh benefits, now they want more. They’ll claim they’re more productive at home and in a selfish way they are, but the teams below them that need guidance aren’t as effective when they are lacking guidance as issues develop. We’re in engineering and deal with issues at sites as they occur, the admin team take customer calls, engineers from 3pm onwards try to swerve attending and the managers aren’t there to get involved in real-time. They get a message or call from admin, reply to admin/speak to engineer and pass that message on….. All the while the customer is left dangling - the person that ultimately pays our wage bill.
There is no simple answer and as someone said. It’s the few that’ll ruin it for the majority. (Which happens time and time again in business). We all have a legal right to request flexible working but some requests are laughable. I had one from a staff member. “Can I have wfh, so I don’t need to arrange childcare”
pardon? Are you suggesting you’ll look after your (I think from memory) 8 month old on your own all day and do your job and answer customer calls?
“yeah she doesn’t need much really”
It’s laughable that someone thinks that wfh is pay me a wage to do nowt but log on.
I like flexible working, hybrid working call it what you want but and it’s a big but, there’s still a job to do, a customer to look after and invoicing to get out.
Learning by osmosis gets rolled out a lot where I work. As far as I can tell it is utter bullshit.
Maybe in what you do but in engineering it’s hugely important. Listening to how others approach and solve problems is one of the best ways to learn. Overhearing how more experienced people deal with situations and problems is how I’ve learnt to (and more importantly how not to) engage with colleagues, customers, solve issues etc.
You don’t get any of that sat at a desk at home while all that goes on in individual calls.
Respectfully disagree.
I only started my "proper" engineering career about 16 months ago.
My team is in SW England
I'm contracted out of SW Scotland.
I work directly with one other person in the office.
I work at home 4 days a week. Supposed to be 3 but nobody is counting and my manager agrees there's no massive value being in the other day.
I've been signed off on my first competency area with another one and my general competency mentor guides in the bag, this is normal progress. I was tied up in an event recovery for 2 months after Christmas and been playing catchup ever since. I've also had about 3 months worth of training since I joined.
I knew what I was getting into when I was interviewed and took the job on. I knew I'd have to maintain contact via teams. It worked. It's not been that bad.
Yes I'm a sample of one but everyone was prepared to put in the effort and it's paid off.
Yes being in the office has its benefits but my god do people talk a lot of shit. I also don't have to put up with noisy desk eaters at home (I stay away from that side of the office anyway, once in the zoo was enough). I dread to think how much worse I'd be off financially and mentally considering I took an overall pay cut when I took the job if I had to travel over an hour each way 5 days a week.
Regular attendance at a workplace
3.11
An employee attends a workplace regularly if their attendance:
is frequent
follows a pattern
is for all or almost all of the period for which they hold or are likely to hold that employment
It’s reasonable to class anything done repeatedly, with some sort of consistency, that is, frequent or habitual, or follows a pattern, as ‘regular’ attendance. This means that fortnightly travel, for example, is capable of being regarded as ‘regular’. However, it’s possible that the attendance might be for a temporary purpose. The longer the interval between each visit, the higher the possibility that the purpose of the visit is a temporary one, therefore each set of circumstances will need to be considered on its own merits.
We all have a legal right to request flexible working but some requests are laughable. I had one from a staff member. “Can I have wfh, so I don’t need to arrange childcare”
pardon? Are you suggesting you’ll look after your (I think from memory) 8 month old on your own all day and do your job and answer customer calls?
Laugh all you like but the employee doesn't need to justify their request to you, the clause after the comma was irrelevant. Rather, you need to justify a refusal for that request. "I'd like to move from 5x8 hour days to 4x10 hour days so I can play golf on Tuesdays" is a totally valid request, in knocking it back you would have to demonstrate why they need to be working on Tuesday. "Sorry, we can't because there's no-one to provide cover" is a legitimate response, "are you taking the piss?" is not.
I like flexible working, hybrid working call it what you want but and it’s a big but, there’s still a job to do,
It's not a case of calling it names. "Flexible Working" is a legally defined right for full-time employees, of which hybrid working may form a part. It's somewhat concerning that as a manager of lots of people you don't seem to understand the difference. Talk to your HR department for clarification/guidance perhaps?
You are 100% correct that there is still a job to do of course, but the million dollar question here is can they do it? If the answer is yes then it's the end of the conversation regardless of their quota of toddlers, if it's no then they're justifiably back in the office and your arse is covered.
If the job is being done then why should you care how it's being done? If they're employed to do a job which is deemed to be eight hours worth of work per day, they actually work nine or ten hours but take more frequent breaks to wipe snotty lips and change nappies... if the job is completed at the end of the business day then the net result is the same from a company perspective, is it not?
Someone's never had to look after. A toddler long term and it shows.
You can work from home. Why not move somewhere which is more appropriate for your needs and cheaper?
I don't want to. The house and location are perfect for what they were bought for, raising a family and living in. It never occurred to me I'd need an office. I'm five minutes on a bike from my heated, fully serviced office, (one of the reasons to live here).
The house is perfect for my needs and includes a huge home office, it just happens to be someone else's office...
Someone’s never had to look after. A toddler long term and it shows.
Quite. We all muddled through lockdown but productivity was down in my team due to the lack of childcare.
in knocking it back you would have to demonstrate why they need to be working on Tuesday.
One of the young lads I manage currently works a 32 hour over 4 days. He’s asked to back up to full time but still over 4 days. I refused it on the grounds that he already has issues with stress and wellbeing with his current arrangements so going up to a 10 hour day isn’t realistic. I don’t really think anyone should be working 10 hour days, it’s simply not good for you.
I'm going the other way, started this job just over two years ago, remote contract. expectation expressed was 3-4 days/month at a company office, on the company. glasgow or aberdeen. I'm in the SW.
not been to a company office in over a year now. might go to one in december for a couple of days.
We had 'flexible working' pre-Covid, but it was (senior) manager-discretion.
I applied on couple of occasions (for compressed hours), both knocked back.
I've always been an early starter, so compressed hours just meant getting a day off every other week 🙂
Then found out two female colleagues had both moved onto compressed hours.
Turns out that compressed hours wasn't something middle-age blokes should be doing...
Needless to say my immediate manager suggested that I just needed to let him know when I was taking a half/full-day off, and he'd turn a 'blind eye'.
And then Covid happened, and it was the norm.
The debate about which is "better", office or WFH home never be won by either party as both can find stats to back up their claim.
From the perspective of someone who works in recruitment, 3 days in the office, maybe 2, is becoming the norm in the industries I encounter. That changed from 1 or 0 days in the office that was the norm coming out of Covid. Whether this is good depends on who you ask.
Personally, I prefer WFH, but if I was early in my career I suspect I'd have lost some development opportunities by not being around others in the office. The issue is that you can't just ask the junior staff to come in as the whole idea is that they'd learn from the more senior staff, so they also need to be there. I'm nominally a "senior" and am very happy doing 1 day per week in the office, but if I was in senior management I'd want at least 2 from my team.
Speaking to people, there are a few things that annoy:
1. Moving of goalposts. So being employed on the basis of 1 day in the office and this being moved to 3 or 4. Very few companies put home working in their contracts, most allocated employees to an office so making them attend that office is normally fine from a contractual perspective. That doesn't help if you've taken a role that's a long commute away though.
2. Pointless office time. If you're going to ask people back in at least make sure there's value in them being there. This often means coordinating office days for a whole team, or at least planning meetings with this in mind, but doing this removes some fo the flexibility of time management many enjoy. A guy I spoke to has to do 2 days per week in the office but it's up to him which days. He goes in Monday and Friday as that works for him, but it also means he sits in an empty office on Teams calls as everyone else goes in Tuesday and Thursday. If they dictated his days he's struggle so he just goes in when he can, ticks the "I'm in the office 2 days per week" box and works the same was as if he was WFH.
3. Crap management. The view is that a lot of the desire to see people in the office is driven by bad managers who don't know how to manage remotely.
Laugh all you like but the employee doesn’t need to justify their request to you, the clause after the comma was irrelevant.
but it’s not really is it. I have a duty of care, they furnished me with that information and if I’d ignored it and said yes, I know they’d fail. Then go down the road nobody wants to go down.
If the job is being done then why should you care how it’s being done? If they’re employed to do a job which is deemed to be eight hours worth of work per day, they actually work nine or ten hours but take more frequent breaks to wipe snotty lips and change nappies… if the job is completed at the end of the business day then the net result is the same from a company perspective, is it not?
It’s not the same, that’s the issue with plenty of roles. The staff in question are on the phones. We have opening hours people call us, wiping arses and not answering the phone is a problem. Sitting at the phone when we’re shut not actually speaking to people is a problem.
I’m aware not all roles are like this but that’s what I’d was saying on page 1. There is no easy solution. But, just because it works for me doesn’t mean it works for all my staff. Some of my staff wfh more than me and some less. It’s just the way the cookie crumbles.
9/10 staff are good, but there are the 1/10 that feel they should get wfh to suit themselves and to hell with the business.
I’m not against wfh/flexible working, I said on page 1 I told people they could be more flexible soon as joined this employer as I believe flexibility is key. But we all have different benefits to our roles, whether that’s place of work, stress levels, pay, hours etc etc. we can’t all have all the benefits all the time.
9/10 staff are good, but there are the 1/10 that feel they should get wfh to suit themselves and to hell with the business.
you could equally apply this to working in a office.
I made very sure that my contracted place of work is my home, so I'm on the clock and on expenses whenever I leave it...
I took what was effectively a 10% pay cut in accepting the role but of course that was offset by no commuting.
when employees stop chasing after bigger salaries and remember what matters in terms of job, work life balance, commuting costs, living location etc the difference between a full time in the office and full time at home role is probably >10%. When employers realise they can get happier staff and pay less, smart businesses are going to adapt.
I think what annoys me most is that every company I hear about who insists on increased office working seems to fall back on the same flimsy reason, e.g. ‘collaboration’. You can’t measure or quantify it, you could argue that collaboration looks different in every role, and why couldn’t it happen remotely? I just think it’s a buzz word because employers have nothing better to fall back on.
they write the cheques, I don’t have an issue with anyone saying we think collaboration works better when people are face to face: it almost always does. If you believe it’s unnecessary - set up you own “virtual” organisation in completion and save money on office and salaries etc - I’ll bet though that you will start to say things like “we need to get everyone together” and “that wouldn’t have happened if you two were just talking to each other”.
Are we really going back to a 5 day a week rat race?
actually I think that is a totally different question. The rat race still exists at home; some employers have found 4 days works for them…
Are we really going back to a 5 day a week rat race?
It's great that this thread is running in parallel.
mean, it was an unprecedented event, and there was worldwide uncertainty, but sure, it was the lack of childcare that dropped productivity.
Edit - Sorry is that because reality doesn't fit your narrative ?
Are you really that unaware of the world ?
... are you?
I'm not disputing that providing childcare may interfere with productivity. I'm just pointing out that laying productivity loss solely at the feet of that during a once in a lifetime global pandemic might be stretching the narrative a bit.
Software engineer/architect - can't see them every mandating going into the office. I often don't work with anyone at my local office (Bristol - 60 miles away). I end up working with people all around UK and europe
I have been going into London once a month at the request of a new client which makes a nice change.
I love the flexibility of WFH but sometimes find it isolating. If i was starting out i don't think i'd enjoy WFH
were you working through the pandemic.
Countless interruptions and abandoned meetings from errant toddlers with parents trying to cover both aspects - We cut ALOT of slack during covid to allow for it.
but back in the real world I think its fair to say that trying to work effectively/accurately AND parent a toddler responsibly will impact on anyone's productivity in a 40hr a week job.
Eyes on task mind on task.
I would challenge anyone who thinks WFH means no child care for infant children.
There are plenty of vaild reasons i would support but that isn't one of them.
were you working through the pandemic.
Yes, but probably my experience is different. I've been working fully remotely since 2013.
Countless interruptions and abandoned meetings from errant toddlers with parents trying to cover both aspects
As I say, I don't disagree that doing dual duty affects the ability to work effectively. I'm just saying that it's unfair to say that it's the one and only reason that productivity was down during the pandemic.