Remote working – increasing pushback from employers?

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.

@cougar2

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 5×8 hour days to 4×10 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.

Quite. We all muddled through lockdown but productivity was down in my team due to the lack of childcare.

I mean, it was an unprecedented event, and there was worldwide uncertainty, but sure, it was the lack of childcare that dropped productivity.

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.

Things in life you’re glad you got through before it got harder

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.