Remote working – increasing pushback from employers?

Wondered if anyone else was seeing this, I’m seeing more and more examples of employers demanding more time in office, and there is another article on the Grauniad about it today.

It’s a subject close to my heart as frankly we screwed up during Covid and moved too far away from the city centres, so even two days a week is a bit of a ball-ache.

My last company hired me on the basis of 5 days in 10 but then started pushing for more.

Same is happening with my wife (in both instances we didn’t have a precise number of days written into the contract).

Happily now I’m employed on a fully remote basis and company knows I simply couldn’t do more than a token one day a month as the office is 3 1/2 hours away. I took what was effectively a 10% pay cut in accepting the role but of course that was offset by no commuting.

Thing is, I was quite happy going in to office but as soon as we aspired to owning a small house rather than getting scalped renting in the city, the commuting became a major problem, which I think is pretty much a universal issue. 10 hours a week, costly, unpleasant, unreliable. In the 21st century is it really reasonable to still insist that people endure this?

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.

Are we really going back to a 5 day a week rat race?

Some companies are insisting on 5 days a week, most it’s 2 or 3 which I think works well and seeing people in the office is important. A lot of the noise we’re hearing is people resisting being in the office at all which unless they were employed on that basis is frankly unreasonable.

Luckily were locked in to hybrid working as a refurb of our offices means there aren’t enough desks for everyone to be in at the same time and hybrid works for us pretty well.

We went from 0 to 1 to 2 and now 3 days a week in the office, it seems unlikely they’ll do more but Amazon just went up to 5 (for office staff), and others will likely follow.

I can’t really complain as I’m 2 miles from the office, I think labour are bringing in more workers protection for time in the office too.

Let’s face it…. It was inevitable.

Company’s are archaic and management love the control of seeing you at your desk.

Watched so many folk move off to the countryside 2-4 hours from the office while thinking ….. This is temporary  …..and sure enough they all slowly  moved back into the suburbs.

A very expensive exercise without anything written into contracts to push back with.

A lot of the noise we’re hearing is people resisting being in the office at all which unless they were employed on that basis is frankly unreasonable.

Yeah good point, I think my wife wondered the same in her company, if the policy was really just trying to flush out the hold-outs who weren’t coming in at all because ‘they’d got a cat’ during Covid or something.

I still think, for everyone’s benefit, they should try and define some sort of metric to actually measure the benefits of WFH vs. Office, because I just don’t think they can truly prove it one way or the other?

I still think, for everyone’s benefit, they should try and define some sort of metric to actually measure the benefits of WFH vs. Office, because I just don’t think they can truly prove it one way or the other

They don’t care.

They want bums on the seats they are paying for.

It’s ridiculous. I commute 50 miles to the Midlands  sit on call with people in London, America, Singapore and China.

When I’m in the office everyone sits on headphones, or in calls and the sporadic nature of wfh or office means you’re never randomly in to have those “water cooler” moments the back to to the offices types bang on about.

I do like being in, but only for the ability to get into the plant and see the shop floor guys when I need to – not for all the nonsense on bosses spout.

The biggest productivity aid is my personal phone having a flat battery.

We have nowhere near enough seats left. There appears to be a divide between younger companies that have been going down the flashy new HQ route who now need to fill it and older companies that have spent decades perfecting the art of stripping costs by closing expensive office space. No way we will be going to full time office working.

We (Aerospace) are back to where we were before the pandemic at 80% office working.  You can apply for 60%, but it’s manager discretion.  You can also apply for compressed or reduced hours, but again, manager discretion.  They must have a good case for refusal.

younger companies that have been going down the flashy new HQ route who now need to fill it and older companies that have spent decades perfecting the art of stripping costs by closing expensive office space

100% industry dependant.

In my industry it’s the old companies that are tied into 20-25 year leases wanting the seats sat on.

The young companies with the flexibility are taking advantage of having the employee pay for their own office space and the heating/leccy/internet

I don’t do well working from home full time, 2 days a week WFH is just about right for my mental state.

I did read something a year or two back that the return to work dictates did not benefit companies, and most likely damaged worker engagement, motivation and retention, but it was a way of leaders to “fake” control and power in the eyes of shareholders.

I think most people (with non-location-based jobs) will end up on some office, some remote. And that seems reasonable to me. Insisting on 5 days of 9-5 is plainly silly in most cases but *never* meeting your work colleagues other than via zoom is also not going to be sustainable long-term.

If I was starting out and wanted the benefits of a really remote life (cheap housing) I’d be angling for something like two consecutive days at the office with a night in a hotel. Make the most of the time, including evening meal with colleagues.

Yes it appears lots of companies are trying to get back to the 5 days working in office.

I think the problem now will be that most of us have tried, and enjoyed, the WFH. So reverting back will be difficult – you don’t miss what you don’t know – but we know what WFH is now.

My own experience is that, in my role, I am far more productive WFH. There are less timely distractions listening to the drama-queen or the office gossip. I am far happier too. I can avoid the cliques and office politics. I don’t want to socialise with work colleagues – I got family and actual friends of my choosing I prefer to do that with.

There are those that like going into the office, and unfortunately their reasons are typically not things that actually benefit the company or increase productivity.

Teams/Zoom can bring work colleagues face to face easy enough – they also enable you to avoid certain office types too.

I don’t think there’s a right or wrong answer. When I started at my current employer I had about 60 reports about 10 direct management/sales (the rest reporting to them)

I’ve never had a role 100% office based, I was field based early in my career before moving to management roles. I’ve always had remote capabilities and bosses that aren’t based in the same buildings so did what I pleased to best get the job done. So I’d been ‘hybrid’ for years.

When I started this role I realised that my whole team were in the office every day. I asked about and “they’d always done this” I was quick to tell them I didn’t expect them to be here just because, but to be were it made most sense, office, home, Costa or wherever. Some adapted some continued commuting.

Then Covid happened and they became furloughed/WFH initially then as things passed I continued the hybrid approach, the only rule I had was there needed to be at least one manager in the building on any given day so the other staff had someone senior to speak to face to face of the need arose. Some roles couldn’t be from home. I felt it important that that the team manner lower down the the pecking order didn’t feel like they’d been abandoned and management (me included) should be visible to those left in the office. Some managers were happy to continue the informal approach that had been working pre-Covid and a massive improvement on the 5 days prior to me joining. Some though wanted a rota for their day in the office like they were doing me a favour, didn’t want to be in anymore than their designated day.
That to me isn’t team work and isn’t in the businesses, customers or colleagues best interests.

Short version there is no one size fits all.

In consultancy we’re not seeing much push back as businesses have worked out that travel is an overhead they’re really not prepared to pay for.

I’ve my first on-site gig next week in over 2 years and that’s with a customer in Saudi who’d I’d expect to need me onsite. But they really are the exception to the rule.

I have a real suspicion that those firms who lack the managerial confidence or competence to embrace a WFH culture are the ones that we’ll either automate into oblivion or will just go bust due to talent sequestration.

I can see that in our customer base: those with endlessly bureaucratic processes where it’s like interfacing with the Vogon Empire to request a pen to fill in the next series of forms, or those where the drones are piloted by a series of demeaning emails with spiralling circulations. The only glimmer of hope is they have at least picked up the phone and brought us in as they acknowledge there’s a problem. But we’re only looking at one part of the business (identity management) there must be countless other areas which are equally awful.

Internally we’ve seen a massive cultural shift. We used to have huge offices for support, outbound sales & renewals, along with satellite offices in pretty much every capital city for general face to face meetings & local admin (at one point we had 5 in the UK alone).  They’re all gone. We’ve a development centre in Düsseldorf, another in Halifax NS, some admin in Cork and HQ in Aliso Vejo. And that’s it. The staff haven’t gone, they’re just working entirely remotely.

It varies but from my experience in developing engineering systems WFH is a massive pain when trying to get people to engage in solution development.

2 days together around a white board is far more valuable than weeks sat on Teams calls.

The number of times I’ve asked people in the remote calls questions or their views to get back “Sorry, can you repeat that?”, “What? I was doing x, y, z” or they are just not paying attention is getting ridiculous.

WFH should be an option but a few days in the office regularly or as the needs of the project demand is not unreasonable. I have some colleagues I haven’t seen in over a year.

The other thing that is suffering is the grad/early career development. Feedback we are seeing is the grads are missing the general learning from osmosis you get from close contact with colleagues. They are often isolated for days/weeks at a time and aren’t learning the behaviours expected or how to deal with others behaviours that make them well rounded people. They are also less likely to call someone for help and we aren’t there to see that they are struggling and need help.

The Council i work for has always promoted flexible working, mainly so they can rent out parts of the office to get some money in.    We are now committed to moving to new offices in a couple of years and we’ll have roughly half the number of desk spaces we have now.  Two days a week in the office is required (but many don’t do it), and I’m sure that just won’t work when we move.

@oldschool if you insist on one manager being present at all times then surely you need a rota for that…

Tbh I think it shows the difference between progressive and regressive companies. If I were building a company now I’d look for a small local office with sufficient hot desks and the best talent nationally rather than this fixated idea that the company is the office, not the workers.

Alan Sugar had a melt down during COVID because his vast property portfolio in London was hugely devalued because no one worked there, the street were empty. In my trade (convenience retail) the ones that went tits up very quickly were those that catered for office workers, they haven’t regained pre-covid sales yet. A large proportion of our economy requires office work, and those with/controlling money demand it.

I also don’t think I know anyone who has returned to 5days a week in an office.

2 days together around a white board is far more valuable than weeks sat on Teams calls.

That’s fine though, that’s a scheduled meeting, not just sitting at a deskin the office for the sake of it. People objecting to that are an issue. Expecting people to come in and just sit at a desk is less justifiable. I work with a team across the whole of the UK, no-one is based in my office, so I go in and spend the entire day on teams calls anyway. Big projects and staff management calls are usually confidential so it’s off to a meeting room on my own (blocking up a useful facility) when I could be at home in an office with a decent speaker system.

This …

The other thing that is suffering is the grad/early career development.

however is really important and why I do try and make the effort despite it not benefitting me.

Learning by osmosis gets rolled out a lot where I work. As far as I can tell it is utter bullshit. I WFH one day a week to get reports done without distractions. For the majority of the rest of my time I’m at our operations site. On the rare occasions that I do visit the office, the senior managers are behind closed doors or in meetings with each other. Everyone else is either on Teams calls or, like me, listening.to music whilst working.

I note that most of the bosses demanding a five day week are older people. They will have grown up with a five day week and are simply resistant to change. If your job involves working from a PC for the majority of the time then you can do that from anywhere. The sooner that’s embraced, the better.

I personally prefer working from our Ops site where the lions share of the work happens. However, I fully understand that not all roles can be undertaken remotely and that not all people, including me, want to work remotely.

I just wish business leaders would stop coming up with bullshit excuses and just state that they want bums on seats because they’re in charge so there!

The issue seems to be crap management though. If managers can only ensure teams deliver by constantly standing over people’s shoulders then they aren’t effective. If staff need that to motivate themselves then your recruitment is wrong. It is a different management skill set but companies should be providing training and support to managers and embracing the opportunities presented rather than reverting back to an inefficient old approach requiring huge areas of real estate.

And as for working in offices being more efficient, the concept of “water cooler moments” should show that to be nonsense. The social interaction is important but there is non productive time and distractions throughout the office day.

The osmosis thing does happen, I see it in my own job. We can only provide training on so much of the product and if you’re not shadowing a consultant you’d not see the various areas where it could trip you up by being either illogical or buggy. Buy you can do that over teams and we have a good culture for sharing our individual experiences of glitchy software.

Our dev shops still exist. I’m not sure whether that’s an engineering thing where engineers should sit together and ruminate over problems or a managerial thing where inadequates lord over their minions like Bill from office space.

Personally I think there are benefits to seeing people in the office, for me and the company. I think the collaboration thing does have some value. I also think it’s good for me to get out of the house sometimes, so I’m quite happy to go to the office one or two days a week. I’m a software engineer and I think I’m quicker to turn to colleagues to talk something over if we’re in the same room than I am to get on a call with them for instance. I’m more likely at home to persevere on my own which isn’t always best.
That said I think stuff like that is a long way from an argument for going to the office 9-5 five days a week – that seems pointless these days and I’d assume the motivation for that is something other than genuine concerns about productivity.
We’ve downsized our offices now anyway on the assumption most people will only come in for quarterly social type things.
Also my commute is usually a pleasant 30 minute ride along the canal. If I had to sit in a car for hours I’d probably have a different view.

If you have worked from home for a while you could argue “custom and practice”  Your other arguement is “I am more productive at home – have you any indication I am not”

Neither are sure fire arguments tho but if you argue custom and practice then the boss has to give a good business reason why it cannot continue

Join a ruddy union!

My employer recently introduced the ability to work from anywhere 2 months a year, so I can work from the Canaries. My contract specifically states that my work location is homebased. I try to get in a couple of times a month but I’m not obligated to do so.

If they enforced office I’d leave.

My previous role (council) downsized office space dramatically to save money, there’s nowhere near enough desks for everyone.

They actually said it was better to have hybrid working as it enabled them to recruit the best people for the role (nationally) rather than relying on local people with the necessary qualifications.

It was supposed to be 2 days a week, most people were doing 1-2. It was never enforced.

Can we spare a thought for the surgeons, cleaners, care workers, teachers, chefs etc. who have to be there.

A huge chunk of these are state employees. In the long term there will have to a financial rebalancing where these roles are compensated for the need to be onsite.

Looking at it from the outside i can see that lots of what is done from an office can be done from home. But learning the a role from home must be a night mare. I’m envolved in professional development. It’s crazy how much of it seems to be looking over some ones shoulder or having a chat.

I think the likes of Amazon and now Asda are doing it as a form of redundancy by stealth. Wouldn’t be surprised if good performing employees continue with more WFH on bespoke arrangements. Surely even the most archaic businesses recognise that it’s better to keep hold of your best performers regardless of which chair they sit in.

For the media it guarantees clicks. Chrome seems to recommend me a new article on the subject every few days, implying things are changing. But in reality I believe the data shows not much change in office occupancy rates or commuter traffic over the last couple of years.

The other thing that is suffering is the grad/early career development. Feedback we are seeing is the grads are missing the general learning from osmosis you get from close contact with colleagues.

This and, as a city based company with a lot of young non-home owners, having a workspace in the home x4 in a pokey flat share was a real challenge during lockdown. We were back full time as soon as restrictions were lifted.

We’ve a sort of flexible policy on WFH to support those with young kids and facilitate the odd day when you really need to focus, or go to the dentist etc., our work is highly collaborative and reactive so face to face is massively more productive. We seem to be an outlier in that most of our 60 odd staff like each other and are happy to come to the office.

Horses for courses..

Can we spare a thought for the surgeons, cleaners, care workers, teachers, chefs etc. who have to be there.

Why? Nobody is forced to do a particular job. You know full well when you enter those roles that you need to be there in person.

Look at it another way, the cleaner gets to spend all day walking around while I’m chained to me desk – does that give me the right to demand that I’m also allowed to walk around all day?

I can’t help wondering if some of the ‘back to office’ directives might get hobbled by discrimination lawsuits. My occupational therapist tells me that the wfh trend from covid has been the biggest help in her lifetime of getting disabled people into meaningful careers.

Have seen this with both my current place (“more than 50% in the office”) and with a few other places I have spoken to in recent months. My current place has said there is no issue with the quality of the work being done, but they feel that the energy and creativity has been lacking since Covid. I’m a 2hr commute away and have said I am not going to come in that often, boss knows this, boss accepts this.

Other places have said 3 out of 5 in the office, no exceptions and, in one case, started a conversation with “max 3 in the office”, then changed their mind and said “minimum 4”.

I get that some places need to have people in the office or in town (consultancies for example), but it’s rare that I need to be physically in one place and, since I work with people spread out across the whole country, can actually be limiting if I am at just one office.

Office politics is very hard work with teams being remote. COVID came along and suddenly majority work from home and guess what the world didn’t end. Senior Teams very happy for employees to work from home then. Now we are back to normal Senior Management want to see people back in the office.

I’m a Consultant in Risk & Compliance and COVID was a 100% panic moment for Banks but memories are short. It’s telling most banks still have travel bans in place but don’t mind employees commuting. Probably same in a lot of industries.

It’s happening everywhere it seems and I feel really sorry for people that moved further from the office/took jobs further away and are now seeing rubs things change.

I’m not sure if we will go back to 4 or 5 days in the office everywhere as many organisations don’t have the office space anymore,  but 3 days a week or more seems to be the new norm.

I think if you’ve made a deliberate move to situate yourself somewhere remote from employers then you really need to find yourself a sector or an employer that wants or needs  remote, home-based employees. (thats what I’ve been doing for the last 15 years so that kind of work and life exists for some)

If you were in office based employment prior to covid then its a fair indication that having an office, and having people in it, is fairly central to how that business operates and that norm is going to be what that business will want to correct to. If it genuinely benefitted the business to have their workforce operating remotely then that would be more than obvious to them by now. It won’t just be nostalgia thats motivating them bring people back under one roof.

So whatever arguments you can offer in relation to your own productivity, custom and practice, or whatever, to the the contrary you’re ultimately not going to turn that tide

ou can apply for 60%, but it’s manager discretion. You can also apply for compressed or reduced hours, but again, manager discretion. They must have a good case for refusal.

This last part is critical.

For most full-time workers, Flexible Working is a legal right and one you can apply for on day 1 of the job. This includes but is not limited to WFH. It’s not at “manager’s discretion” at all, it is a HR issue. The company can refuse but it has to be one of a defined set of reasons, “the boss doesn’t you to” is not good enough.

https://www.gov.uk/flexible-working/print

Employers can refuse an application for any of the following reasons:

extra costs that will damage the business
the work cannot be reorganised among other staff
people cannot be recruited to do the work
flexible working will affect quality
flexible working will affect performance
the business will not be able to meet customer demand
there’s a lack of work to do during the proposed working times
the business is planning changes to the workforce

Of course, theory and practice are two different things. But I expect there will be a legal case raised by someone eventually. People who were WFH just as productively during Lockdown as they were in the office could prove difficult to argue against.

This and, as a city based company with a lot of young non-home owners, having a workspace in the home x4 in a pokey flat share was a real challenge during lockdown. We were back full time as soon as restrictions were lifted.

This is the flip side – not just for young or urban employees. My neighbour has just changed jobs and the new role is work from home – with young children in a modest mid-terrace. ‘Working from home’ for him is having to pay to rent a room in someone else’s house and work there while they are out during the day – at work. 🙂

“a workspace in the home x4 in a pokey flat share was a real challenge during lockdown.”

Some homes are not suitable. I had a converstion with my insurance company where I could barely hear what was said because of traffic noise. When I asked about it he said he was working from home and lived beside a busy road. Windows open due to heat.

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.