Remote working – increasing pushback from employers?

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.