Topic: Working From Home

[Barneylfc∗]

It's all personal preference, some people prefer to be in the office all week, some part and some like me who are happy to never set foot in the place again. Whatever works for the individual, especially where their mental health is concerned should be every employers main focus.

I'm looking forward to the blended approach being introduced here. Most likely we'll do something along the lines of what GB are doing, 3 days in 2 days at home, or 2 in and 3 at home.

It is a bit shite being at home on days like today. There's only 3 of us doing my role, but the other 2 are off today so no one really to have a chat with whether it be teams messages or on a call.

[stewil007]

My balance is 3 in the office (mon, tues, weds) and 2 at home (thurs and fri).  works for me as it means i get to see people that aren't my family plus it reminds those i work with that i'm still around.......

The office is still social distancing and masks are still worn, 2 LFT a week if you are there all week or 1 prior to attending.

It seems to be striking the right balance for most people

[rob1966]

I'm looking forward to the blended approach being introduced here. Most likely we'll do something along the lines of what GB are doing, 3 days in 2 days at home, or 2 in and 3 at home.

It is a bit shite being at home on days like today. There's only 3 of us doing my role, but the other 2 are off today so no one really to have a chat with whether it be teams messages or on a call.

We're full WFH with the option to go in on a hotdesk when needed, but going in is NOT being encouraged. One fella has been given permission to do 2 days in every week as he has to run his teenage daughter to school now as she was harassed by some sex offender on the bus, but the rest of is will hardly ever, if ever, be in there.

I'm nearly 55 now, had enough of going into offices and being with people I don't like

[Elmo!]

My work are finally talking about a phased return but it will be voluntary and  apparently the vast majority said in a survey they wanted to remain at home or hybrid.

I'm in 2 days a week anyway as not voluntary for IT....

Apparently if you sprad out the cost of our building (rent/bills etc) between the amount of people that are in regularly just now it is costing £10k per month per user.....

[Crimson]

My work mentioned an expectation of three days in, two days home. Works for me, though I expect I'll be home more often when I really need to focus. Have tried going to the office one-two days a week since before the Summer and the conclusion is I'm not getting anything done! Much more efficient at home..

[PaulF]

My work are finally talking about a phased return but it will be voluntary and  apparently the vast majority said in a survey they wanted to remain at home or hybrid.

I'm in 2 days a week anyway as not voluntary for IT....

Apparently if you sprad out the cost of our building (rent/bills etc) between the amount of people that are in regularly just now it is costing £10k per month per user.....

Corporate landlords and pension funds are going to take a massive haircut

[red_Mark1980]

WFH is helping this morning with the ticket sale.

Can't lie 

[rob1966]

WFH is helping this morning with the ticket sale.

Can't lie 

😂

[AndyInVA]

It's all personal preference, some people prefer to be in the office all week, some part and some like me who are happy to never set foot in the place again. Whatever works for the individual, especially where their mental health is concerned should be every employers main focus.

I'd be interested to know how going to the office feels now. If there are only at most 40% of the people there, it will just not feel the same. Is it just younger people going in more often and older people finding every reason to not go in.

[RainbowFlick]

I'd be interested to know how going to the office feels now. If there are only at most 40% of the people there, it will just not feel the same. Is it just younger people going in more often and older people finding every reason to not go in.

the opposite in my experience. feels like a lot of the older people in our business just want an excuse to be away from their partners/kids 

[rob1966]

I'd be interested to know how going to the office feels now. If there are only at most 40% of the people there, it will just not feel the same. Is it just younger people going in more often and older people finding every reason to not go in.

I went in the other week to clear my desk and it was dead, as the company is sticking to pre "freedom day" ways of working, keeping the non essential staff well away from the essential, amazing how a CEO has more nouse than the fucking Prime Minister !!!!!. There was about 15 people on the floor and it was 90% made up of IT staff. Doesn't help though that each floor is 100 yards long at least and its spread over 2 floors. The new offices are a hell of a lot smaller, that'll feel more like normal, especially as its going to be a seelct group working in there on a permanent basis with the odd visitor on hotdesks. IT Support, that's the Helpdesk staff and the lads who look after the hardware, will be based in there and a few other teams who need to be in an office all the time, but the rest of us will be WFH.

Still can't believe the previous board of directors rented 3 and a half floors in this monstrosity

[Crosby Nick]

Is that by the cricket ground Rob?

[rob1966]

Is that by the cricket ground Rob?

Yes mate. Before they built the hotel we could watch the cricket from our top floor corner offices and its was great when the Foo Fighters played, free gig

[red_Mark1980]

the opposite in my experience. feels like a lot of the older people in our business just want an excuse to be away from their partners/kids 

It's a mixture in my building. I've spoken to a few colleagues in their early 30's who have no appetite to stay at home (driven by them potentially living in a city centre apartment not built for a WFH set up) and a few older than me who are enjoying the "normality" of a working day

[Wabaloolah]

What an absolute cretin this bloke is

Working from home: Staff abuse it, says City boss

Andrew Monk, a City chief executive, is not a fan of government proposals for new staff to have the right to ask to work from home.

"People abuse it," and are less productive, at least in financial services, he told the BBC.

His view is that a lot of people who ask for flexible working want to work part-time but on a full-time salary.

The government, however, says that allowing flexible working makes businesses more productive.

It is proposing that from the first day of employment new starters can request flexible working, rather than having to wait at least six months, as is the case at the moment.

Under the proposals people can request flexible working such as job sharing, flexi-time, or working from home. Employers won't have to agree to the request.

Staff to gain right to request flexible working from first day

Nevertheless, any legislation is "setting a tone that is almost making people think they can do part-time work but on full-time salaries", Mr Monk told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

He is chief executive of investment firm VSA Capital, which employs about 20 people in the City of London.

"Pretty much we are all back at work, because I think that's what we need to be in our particular industry," he says. "Obviously it varies from industry to industry, but in financial services it's more important to be in the office because its a very live industry".

Some big firms, including accountancy giants PwC and Deloitte, have gone the other way from VSA Capital, however, and have embraced flexible working.

Paid to work hard
Mr Monk said: "What you'll find is that audit work is taking significantly longer than it used to take, and of course when things take longer, it means they cost more as well, because these people tend to charge by the hour."

"Actually, although they are all working from home and say it's all fine, it's not fine."

Mr Monk said the time it takes for firms to set up a stock market flotation has jumped from three months on average to six.

"London is very lucky - we have a financial centre that is the pride of the world, and you have to work long hours," he said. "But we're also paid very high salaries, and so you can't expect to be paid a good salary and then not work hard."

The number of people working from home jumped dramatically during coronavirus lockdowns in the UK, and may businesses are gearing up to let employees work from home at least some of the time.

However, some big City firms, such as Goldman Sachs, are opposed to working from home, with its boss David Solomon labelling it as an "aberration".

Chancellor Rishi Sunak has also warned that working from home can damage young people's careers.

However, Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng has said: "Empowering workers to have more say over where and when they work makes for more productive businesses and happier employees.

"It was once considered a 'nice to have', but by making requests a day one right, we're making flexible working part of the DNA of businesses across the country."

Stephen Warnham, head of content at UK jobs site Totaljobs.com, earlier told the BBC that firms competing for staff needed to trust people "to work in the way that best gets the job done".

As part of a survey of 200,000 staff worldwide, published in March this year, Totaljobs found that nine in 10 employees wanted partial flexibility to choose where they work.

"From a legislative perspective this is long overdue as a third of employers we speak to are already doing this anyway, so it is a really critical change," said Mr Warnham.

No distractions
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy also said that flexible working leads to a workforce that is more productive and highly motivated, pointing to a 2017 study by HSBC.

There have been a number of studies which indicate that employees are more productive if they are allowed to work flexibly, including a remote working experiment in China.

Some people find it easier to focus without distractions from colleagues in the office.

More recently, a University of Southampton study of work during Covid lockdowns suggested that 90% of people thought their productivity had stayed the same or improved by working from home.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58662455

[Kashinoda]

He's a bellend who runs a brokerage in the City of London with 20 employees. Not sure why BBC thought it was news worthy. I'm sure his employees on seven figure salaries arent spending 2 hours + on the commuter belt each day.

It's good enough for Delloitte who employ 20,000 in the UK.

[keano7]

I'd be interested to know how going to the office feels now. If there are only at most 40% of the people there, it will just not feel the same. Is it just younger people going in more often and older people finding every reason to not go in.

In our place it’s 95% younger people who go in on Optional days. I suppose the big difference is that if you’re 40+ married, house, kids you’d have more incentive to work from hoke as you’re ‘set-up’ whereas youngsters will be in rented accommodation working on kitchen tables and more likely to be by themselves.

[red_Mark1980]

Well as someone who works in financial services for a firm slightly larger than 20 employees I can say our CEO and the higher management absolutely don't agree with this weirdo

[I've been a good boy]

I personally hope I never have to go back in the office. The job I had before this was fully office based and there was no in between. It was either middle aged women shouting and swearing when something goes wrong or a deathly silence like someone just died. Everyone used to be scared of the manager as well which I found surreal. No-one would dare ask him anything. Anyway, working from home is, for me, a blessing. Get so much more done now during the day and I don't end up feeling exhausted from commuting and sitting in a crap chair for 8 hours.

Do sometimes miss the jokes we had in the office. People still joke around on team calls but it's not the same when half the people are on mute so you just end up laughing at your own joke.

[I've been a good boy]

I don't know what it is about BBC but they seem to hate the WFH concept. Every few weeks they run a story of some no-mark voicing his opinion about how working from home is the devils work and we should all return to the office like zombies.

[rafathegaffa83]

Participated in a focus group yesterday. Other than the one comment about people wanting to do no work and get paid for it the vast consensus is most want at the very least a WFH hybrid option. The sense I get from the structure of the session is that the company already knows what it is planning to do and that this is mere lip service.  But the tension is palpable and some participants were absolutely furious that a hybrid option hasn't been formally announced by now.

Kept seeing the same comments

- People finding they are less productive on the days they go into the office and that morale would hit the floor if people were required to go in everyday
- People realizing they spent no time with their kids/significant others prior to WFH
- The company will lose employees/find it hard to recruit if a hybrid option isn't offered
- A sense that there are many old school managers/executives who still think work only occurs in a cubicle
- Work-life balance was vastly improved when fully WFH and it gives employees flexibility to arrange appointments and after-school activities
- At the very least the company should allow employees (whether or not they take up a hybrid option or not) to WFH during periods of inclement weather rather than having to decide whether to drive in or take a day off

[Wabaloolah]

Participated in a focus group yesterday. Other than the one comment about people wanting to do no work and get paid for it the vast consensus is most want at the very least a WFH hybrid option. The sense I get from the structure of the session is that the company already knows what it is planning to do and that this is mere lip service.  But the tension is palpable and some participants were absolutely furious that a hybrid option hasn't been formally announced by now.

Kept seeing the same comments

- People finding they are less productive on the days they go into the office and that morale would hit the floor if people were required to go in everyday
- People realizing they spent no time with their kids/significant others prior to WFH
- The company will lose employees/find it hard to recruit if a hybrid option isn't offered
- A sense that there are many old school managers/executives who still think work only occurs in a cubicle
- Work-life balance was vastly improved when fully WFH and it gives employees flexibility to arrange appointments and after-school activities
- At the very least the company should allow employees (whether or not they take up a hybrid option or not) to WFH during periods of inclement weather rather than having to decide whether to drive in or take a day off

Are you UK based or elsewhere?

[PaulF]

He's a bellend who runs a brokerage in the City of London with 20 employees. Not sure why BBC thought it was news worthy. I'm sure his employees on seven figure salaries arent spending 2 hours + on the commuter belt each day.

They are probably in first class, working and expensing the ticket.

It's going to be interesting to see how they handle middle career professionals who are 'needed' in the office to mentor (not supervise or manage) younger ones.

--EDIT-- also be interesting as to how young people just starting at work gauge how much of the 'working' day is spent working as opposed to talking about love island \ posting on Rawk.

[rafathegaffa83]

Are you UK based or elsewhere?

Outside the UK

[Jwils21]

What an absolute cretin this bloke is

The take way from this article should be exactly as above. His only intention in making those comments is to make his firm seem like "hard workers" and to present himself as some sort of WORK guru. I bet his LinkedIn page is full of completely fabricated bollocks like "today I met a man with no job. I gave him a chance and hired him. Turned out he was my father." He'll also be one of those who will send a few emails at 11:30pm to make him look like a serious grafter.  Get loads of money but the only thing he has time to spend it on is the odd coffee on his commute to work.

Most firms seem to be adopting a "hybrid" approach and this should be the way. If you're able to work from home, you should have the option. If people take the piss then you deal with that case by case, but you can't tar everyone with the same brush. A lot of people at my firm have applied for (and been accepted for) full home working. The pandemic has been an eye opener.

[Kashinoda]

They are probably in first class, working and expensing the ticket.

It's going to be interesting to see how they handle middle career professionals who are 'needed' in the office to mentor (not supervise or manage) younger ones.

--EDIT-- also be interesting as to how young people just starting at work gauge how much of the 'working' day is spent working as opposed to talking about love island \ posting on Rawk.

Juniors are very difficult to manage in a WFH environement, we've always utilised several hubs where we go to train them. We employ around 120 people and have 2 or 3 small hotdesk style offices for use with stuff like this. Fundamentally we've always been a WFH company (apart from client visits).

It's been harder with the pandemic of course, we've had several juniors who I frankly thought were taking the piss. I'm not sure how you manage it, luckily I'm doubdling down on development rather than management - sod that

[BobOnATank]

I started a new role 4 months ago, still have never physically met anyone nor been at any office but it hasn't been a problem. My place started at everyone must do 3 days a week in the office, general feedback was no thanks from everyone which they considered. Then they realised how they could save by closing a site which put us to 50% of the previous office space so 3 days a week was out the door. Added to that they are currently only allowing 50% occupancy of the the remaining offices we are now down to 1 day a week if useful or more days is you want or not at all as long as it works for the team you are in - which is the right answer if you ask me. I do see some personality types who are desperate to show how "committed" that were rushing to the office but even they are waning when they don't have people to perform in front of in the office. For the vast majority its definitely a "nah not unless its beneficial for the task at hand" answer.

Ultimate irony is that in a hybrid way off working the office is a v poor environment to work in. Had a number of teams meetings when someone needs to contribute in the office and you are trying to make out their comments over one or two other conversations happening behind them - PITA.

[rob1966]

In the new office today as we get it all set up - only in for today and while its been nice meeting up with people, I've hardly done any work !!! Far more productive at home.

Office is modern, 100% better than the last shit hole, but when the rest of the other departments are in it will be a nightmare of noise and stupidity.

[gazzalfc]

Our work has now cut flexitime accrual for anyone working from home in a bid to 'encourage' people to come back into the office.

As someone who works the majority of the time from my place of work, I can see how people are taking the piss with their flexitime accrual WFH (waking up at 7, logging in then going back to bed or shower and have breakfast before actually starting work at 9 then staying logged in until 7 at night). But I can also see how parents use the flex time to take kids to school, help elderly relatives, get an quieter time to do the food shop etc. Even being home for Amazon deliveries has been nice.

Can't see it sticking as we are a unionised work place and we still don't have the capability to have everyone back on site full time. Literally 3 mins after we got the announcement email we got a separate one from our union rep saying it's bullshit and they will deal with it...

[Elmo!]

We had day 1 of phase 1 of reopening today. Entirely voluntary apart from us in IT and facilities.

No one came in apart from the  few regulars who had been coming in anyway (previously had to get clearance from HR).

[Crosby Nick]

No social distancing in our offices now, still have to book a desk if you want to come in so chances are you can’t get to sit next to people you work with.

Very much a ‘what’s the point’ in going back feeling amongst our team.

[Elmo!]

No social distancing in our offices now, still have to book a desk if you want to come in so chances are you can’t get to sit next to people you work with.

Very much a ‘what’s the point’ in going back feeling amongst our team.

Yeah my boss insisted we need to have 2 people from IT there all this week just in case, even though it was clear as day no one was going to show up. Sure as shit, we were sat there all day with nothing to do that specifically required us to be in the office.

[thaddeus]

We're trialling a day in the office later on (as in, arriving after rush hour and leaving before rush hour).  I'm well up for it as always struggled to draw a line between home and work since this all started.

The funny thing is that in our big open plan offices the desks are all set out as banks of six but only one desk on each bank is set-up.  A throwback to the distancing requirements.  They've lifted the distancing requirements but don't have enough kit to set any more desks up as everyone took kit home with them.  Just for our sub-team of five people we're going to be spread out across about 20m 

I'm not sure how they get around that as they certainly don't have the money to kit out around an extra 2,000 desks and it would go down like a lead balloon if they said to people working from home that they would have to bring everything back in.

[PaulF]

Yeah my boss insisted we need to have 2 people from IT there all this week just in case, even though it was clear as day no one was going to show up. Sure as shit, we were sat there all day with nothing to do that specifically required us to be in the office.

Going to trot out the sterotypes here, but 'bosses' are often the more social interactive type, and often have to make decisions on gut\experience, not get into lots of detail and are able to flip between tasks more than many 'workers'.  I wonder if that's why they are keener than most to drag people into offices.
Obviously good bosses understand the value of focus time so will see the benefits of not coming in.

[Alf]

No social distancing in our offices now, still have to book a desk if you want to come in so chances are you can’t get to sit next to people you work with.

Very much a ‘what’s the point’ in going back feeling amongst our team.

Same situation with my place. I work on a team of 2, the other fella is currently sick yet they’re still banging on about me going back to the office to sit on my own with a load of strangers. I’d told them last month if I go back it’s for collaborative purposes not to tick a box.

[Wabaloolah]

Still WFH, no real prospect of going back travelling this side of Christmas.

We are having a "Team" get together ata venue to be decided at some point in November.

Our office is open and has a regular crowd of around 15-20 who go in most days.

I have no real interest in going back full-time as we can do what we do remotely so why waste in excess of 40 hours each month traveling to locations far and wide.

New owners though so that may change.... 🤨

[.adam]

Well, it was good while it lasted. The call back to the office has started.

Expectation is that we'll be in the office for at least 50% of the week.

Luckily my company has offices in Manchester and Bolton so I can visit the one which is easier for me to get to.

[redgriffin73]

Two of us in today, took till 11am for IT to get us up and running on the system. Might as well have stayed at home. 

[PaulF]

An hour to turn it off and another hour to turn it back on again?

[redgriffin73]

An hour to turn it off and another hour to turn it back on again?

You may jest, but one of the suggestions from our esteemed IT was to restart my laptop