Topic: Working From Home

[Andy @ Allerton!]

An analyst who reports into me lives in Leicester, we hired him during the pandemic and thanks to HR who anonymise the CVs we receive (damn do gooders!) I didn’t know where he lived otherwise I would have double checked with him if he was ready for the commute to London a couple of days a week once the pandemic was over. It’s also not helped by the fact he doesn’t earn very much so he doesn’t want to get a train ticket because it’s a decent chunk of a days pay so he drives to North West London and then jumps on the tube to get to the office and is quite often late in. I’ve turned a blind eye to the fact he’s not coming into the office the two days a week he’s supposed to, but sooner or later the powers that be above me will start asking questions and then it’s going to get awkward.

With all the companies offering remote working, he'd be much better off working for a good company instead.

[redbyrdz]

Because I think companies generally put too much weight on ad-hoc collaboration. They assume that being able to talk through an issue at the drop of a hat is the most productive way to go about it. However I think most people need dedicated focus time.   Or at least when Ive been in offices that seems to be the case.
The people that make these decisions have their own private office and can make that dedicated thinking space or book an off-site room for such tasks. Mere mortals like us have to face constant interruptions.  And maybe for some people that boosts productivity, especially people who do the interrupting .
Also , im sure there is a power trip about having a busy office in front of you .

This is completely spot on in my experience. Worked in an open-plan office for 30, random people sat next to each other, because the boss thought that would encourage collaboration. The problem is, people collaborate when they have common projects, not just because they sit next to each other. Instead there were constant interruptions, and many found reasons to not work in the office. Cue the boss moaning about nobody being in.


Also true about those that love "a busy office" usually have their own, private ones. The other type are those that think you don't need an office at all, and can just work from your laptop in Starbucks. Yeah if your work is doing teams calls all day, maybe, but if you're having an on-site , practical role, you'll likely need somewhere to store all your work stuff.

[redbyrdz]

An analyst who reports into me lives in Leicester, we hired him during the pandemic and thanks to HR who anonymise the CVs we receive (damn do gooders!) I didn’t know where he lived otherwise I would have double checked with him if he was ready for the commute to London a couple of days a week once the pandemic was over. It’s also not helped by the fact he doesn’t earn very much so he doesn’t want to get a train ticket because it’s a decent chunk of a days pay so he drives to North West London and then jumps on the tube to get to the office and is quite often late in. I’ve turned a blind eye to the fact he’s not coming into the office the two days a week he’s supposed to, but sooner or later the powers that be above me will start asking questions and then it’s going to get awkward.

Can they not cover or at least help him with public transport? That is quite common in Europe, employers will cover some of your commute, if it is on public transport.

[The G in Gerrard]

An analyst who reports into me lives in Leicester, we hired him during the pandemic and thanks to HR who anonymise the CVs we receive (damn do gooders!) I didn’t know where he lived otherwise I would have double checked with him if he was ready for the commute to London a couple of days a week once the pandemic was over. It’s also not helped by the fact he doesn’t earn very much so he doesn’t want to get a train ticket because it’s a decent chunk of a days pay so he drives to North West London and then jumps on the tube to get to the office and is quite often late in. I’ve turned a blind eye to the fact he’s not coming into the office the two days a week he’s supposed to, but sooner or later the powers that be above me will start asking questions and then it’s going to get awkward.

Crazy the person does that then to be honest. I decided few years back that my job shouldn't run my life. That kind of travel for the person must be tiresome?

[The G in Gerrard]

Because I think companies generally put too much weight on ad-hoc collaboration. They assume that being able to talk through an issue at the drop of a hat is the most productive way to go about it. However I think most people need dedicated focus time.   Or at least when Ive been in offices that seems to be the case.
The people that make these decisions have their own private office and can make that dedicated thinking space or book an off-site room for such tasks. Mere mortals like us have to face constant interruptions.  And maybe for some people that boosts productivity, especially people who do the interrupting .
Also , im sure there is a power trip about having a busy office in front of you .

I agree. Even though I've heard senior management state themselves how much more productive they are at home I would leave my current role if they pushed for coming into office more often.

Because there are plenty of older workers who want functions to remain as they always have and therefore they equate WFH as not working.

There are also management types that believe people need the "energy of the office" (an actual term our office used to to try drag people back in during the height of COVID) to thrive. From my experience those who need "the energy of the office" are hyper-extroverts who spend most of their time engaged in mindless chat.

There are people that do next to nothing at home I do agree with that sentiment but those people need to be managed better. I do great at home and I'm left to my own devices.

It is mindless chat agreed or going away from desk to make hot drinks and gossip.

[rob1966]

It is mindless chat agreed or going away from desk to make hot drinks and gossip.

I used to waste so much time in the office going to get a coffee or water, it was a 100 yard walk there and back. Then I'd go down 5 floors to use the bogs on the 6th floor, as the ones on the 11th were minging. Being at home, I'll start earlier to make up for the interruptions such as putting the kids tea on. At work I'd log on bang on 9, then fuck off to make a coffee, then there would be chatter, especially if there was footy the night before. I reckon I never actually started work before 9:30. The end of day, we'd be looking at the traffic outside the office and then checking google maps, so fuck all ever got done after 4:45

[west_london_red]

With all the companies offering remote working, he'd be much better off working for a good company instead.

We work for a very good public sector organisation, 35 hours working week (with no expectation of working above that), 30 days leave, highly unionised, final salary pension and a whole load of other benefits.

Can they not cover or at least help him with public transport? That is quite common in Europe, employers will cover some of your commute, if it is on public transport.

Our employer covers 75% of national rail and all travel within London is free, the issue with the 75% is that it gets taxed, so a return from Leicester to London is £85, so will still cost him about £40 and he doesn’t want to spend that two days a week but he should have done his homework before he applied, he’s in his early 30’s not a child either, the word ‘London’ appears in our name so it’s hardly a surprise where we’re based.

[afc tukrish]

We work for a very good public sector organisation, 35 hours working week (with no expectation of working above that), 30 days leave, highly unionised, final salary pension and a whole load of other benefits.

Our employer covers 75% of national rail and all travel within London is free, the issue with the 75% is that it gets taxed, so a return from Leicester to London is £85, so will still cost him about £40 and he doesn’t want to spend that two days a week but he should have done his homework before he applied, he’s in his early 30’s not a child either, the word ‘London’ appears in our name so it’s hardly a surprise where we’re based.

plus his boss is named west_london_red and all...

[west_london_red]

plus his boss is named west_london_red and all...

That would have confused him even more as I no longer live in London

[red_Mark1980]

Because I think companies generally put too much weight on ad-hoc collaboration. They assume that being able to talk through an issue at the drop of a hat is the most productive way to go about it. However I think most people need dedicated focus time.   Or at least when Ive been in offices that seems to be the case.
The people that make these decisions have their own private office and can make that dedicated thinking space or book an off-site room for such tasks. Mere mortals like us have to face constant interruptions.  And maybe for some people that boosts productivity, especially people who do the interrupting .
Also , im sure there is a power trip about having a busy office in front of you .

From experience when I'm in the office and other teams have an "anchor" day they get almost nothing done that couldn't be achieved at home and actually disturb those of us in the office who could legitimately still be at home as their entire team works in one of two other locations at least 100 miles away.

Team anchor days are the absolute pits.

[Andy @ Allerton!]

Because there are plenty of older workers who want functions to remain as they always have and therefore they equate WFH as not working.

There are also management types that believe people need the "energy of the office" (an actual term our office used to to try drag people back in during the height of COVID) to thrive. From my experience those who need "the energy of the office" are hyper-extroverts who spend most of their time engaged in mindless chat.

That's pretty ageist? I'm in my fifties. Friends I know that WFH are my age and older up to 70 odd.

When we chat, we all agree we are far, far, far more productive working from home (We work in IT)

I can help up to 5 or 6 people at a time at home while still doing my own work. If I were in the office and I helped someone then it would be literally impossible for me to do my own work as I'd be engaged with them and absolutely impossible to help the other 4 or 5 people that wanted help. If you are in the office and you are with someone then they 100% monopolise your time.

The few times I've been in, my work rate has dropped to (being generous) maybe 5% of what I can get on with at home. Would be probably more accurate to say 2% actually. I just get hassled then sit with someone all day, get nothing done, everything has to be explained in detail and it's absolute shite.

When I'm at home, people drop me messages and I go and fix stuff for them, or drop a one or two-liner and they work it out for themselves. If you're next to them, they learn nothing, you just end up doing their own work for them.

[rafathegaffa83]

That's pretty ageist? I'm in my fifties. Friends I know that WFH are my age and older up to 70 odd.

I'm sorry if it came across that way but I'm genuinely not being ageist.. From the experience of my employer, the people pushing for employees to return to the office full-time were all overwhelmingly over 55 and I've seen evidence of that in HR surveys. A minority of them vehemently dislike the idea, despite signing up for it themselves.

A few weeks ago we had a big project for which our department head told select employees to just WFH entirely for April rather than 3 days in the office due to the associated workload. An employee in his 60s came into our department looking for someone who was WFH that day. He proceeded to go on an extensive rant about him not being available (i.e physically present) until someone asked why he didn't just contact the person he was looking for via Teams to which he went off in a huff.

In fact this article excerpt could have come straight out of my workplace

Older executives rely on face-to-face communication to get a better sense for what's going on throughout their organizations, Zimmerman said. They also may have more need for those chance conversations to keep tabs on a large number of employees, she said.

"I've worked with a CEO who told me he just liked the energy of the office," said Zimmerman. "There was something about seeing the cars in the parking lot that brought him joy. The fact is, corporate America is likely changed forever. You're making a huge mistake if you're requiring folks back in office full time, because they see the progress most companies have made in the last two years, and they'll ask, 'why?' It feels like micromanagement."
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/08/return-to-office-why-executives-are-eager-for-workers-to-come-back.html

[SamAteTheRedAcid]

Friends I know that WFH are my age and older up to 70 odd.

Should be called Anecdotal@Allerton...

Obviously you're in IT so it's not representative of the workforce as a global or national whole, but the fact remains there will be a significant proportion of the older workforce who prefer the old ways, 'as it was always done' and although part of that is just routine, I'd be willing to wager it's also due to older (or senior) staff being less comfortable with IT, and doing things exactly as Rafa describes in his post, fuming when forced to use Teams instead of just walking round to someone's desk: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/householdcharacteristics/homeinternetandsocialmediausage/articles/exploringtheuksdigitaldivide/2019-03-04

It will no doubt decline over time as 'digital natives' mature and older employees retire, but at the moment there's still a proportion of people who can't get behind doing everything from behind a computer.

[Andy @ Allerton!]

We work for a very good public sector organisation, 35 hours working week (with no expectation of working above that), 30 days leave, highly unionised, final salary pension and a whole load of other benefits.

It's not 35 hours if he's spending 14 hours a week travelling. That's more like a 49 hour week. (Assuming 1/2 hour house -> Leicester Station, 2 hours -> Euston, 1 hour fucking about on the Underground = 7 hours/day of travel)

I would deffo gib it and do something remote if I were him. Just not worth utterly destroying your life for. Been there. Done that. Spent hours and hours and hours parked in traffic, sat on trains, sat in hotels.

It's absolute fucking shite and you'd have to be one bad weapon (or very young/naive) to want to put yourself through it when other companies are offering remote working. When I was doing that in the 80s and 90s and 00s, there wasn't really a choice.

[Andy @ Allerton!]

Should be called Anecdotal@Allerton...

Obviously you're in IT so it's not representative of the workforce as a global or national whole, but the fact remains there will be a significant proportion of the older workforce who prefer the old ways, 'as it was always done' and although part of that is just routine, I'd be willing to wager it's also due to older (or senior) staff being less comfortable with IT, and doing things exactly as Rafa describes in his post, fuming when forced to use Teams instead of just walking round to someone's desk: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/householdcharacteristics/homeinternetandsocialmediausage/articles/exploringtheuksdigitaldivide/2019-03-04

It will no doubt decline over time as 'digital natives' mature and older employees retire, but at the moment there's still a proportion of people who can't get behind doing everything from behind a computer.

To be fair, Teams is pretty shite. Much prefer Slack, but at my place we have the option of both.

Tend to use Teams for Corporate guff and Slack for actually doing work.

[paulrazor]

Why did he make a dick of himself if he didn't want to come in?

He's probably got a job straightaway - like a lot of people in the same boat - for a company that isn't an arse about it. With Brexit, the job market is very much on the employees side. Everyone I know is getting headhunted every single week. Not a week goes by without me seeing 10+ offers from someone or other - all unsolicited as I'm not interested. I'm sure other people are the same.

If you work for a company that's trying to impose crap on you that you don't want to do, then what's wrong with exercising your options.

I'd imagine over time, those with draconian rules will lose staff and those that are pretty decent and understanding will gain staff.

he was in his 60s so he has probably just retired

As I said he was only asked to come in one day a week, hardly that much

I never had an issue with him but he was not a popular man, as i said above with women he was a bully. Id understand maybe if it was back ful time or 3 days a week but one wasnt much to ask for

[AndyInVA]

That's pretty ageist? I'm in my fifties. Friends I know that WFH are my age and older up to 70 odd.
 

I’m in my 50s and love WFH. Own home, food in the fridge and I can control the temperature at home. Home gym. Sorted.

In my 20s it would have been shit. No one to talk to, harder to ask questions of adjacent staff and chat up pretty girls. Hard to do that in the shit shared house I lived in with no desk in my room and a shit kitchen and living week to week on rent and food. I can see why managers want to bring younger staff in who have less experience and are overall happier and hence more productive in a semi social environment.

[thaddeus]

I went into the office yesterday for the first time in 2023 as I wanted to meet somebody face to face.  I quite enjoyed it except for the hour long round trip.

Company policy is still that people can work from where they like and in my old office of around 50 people there were only two of us in.  People voting with their feet.

[Wabaloolah]

Going to be doing my first site-visit since February 2020 on Friday. It's going to be weird seeing people in 3D.

Fortunately this one is only a 15 minute drive from me, another two visits planned in August too and possibly some more between September and March.

[GreatEx]

I've been on a 3-office, 2-wfh arrangement since lockdown ended. Have to say I generally loathe wfh but the precedent has been set and my wife (full time mother) has become dependent on my presence for those 2 days so I'm stuck with it now. Our kids both have ASD and one has type 1 diabetes so I'm well aware of the additional mental health burden I've taken on by trying to multitask a challenging full time job with their many needs. Having said that, there are times when the flexibility helps... I've only just recovered from a 6 week bout of bronchitis (possibly pneumonia, was on the relevant antibiotics) so it was good not to feel any pressure to resume office work. I just wore the same 4 layers of clothing every day and worked to a slightly reduced schedule! It does seem, as others have observed, that wfh works well for slightly older workers with grown up (or no) kids. Overall I reckon my team has been as productive or more productive than they were during the Before Times. My boss disagrees and was recently ranting about people taking the piss; of course this was all based on gut feel rather than empirical evidence. One thing which is av tad frustrating is not being able to talk to colleagues during regular working hours because they've declared themselves off-line for an hour or two for undisclosed reasons. The boss has threatened to install keyboard monitoring software and wants me to micromanage my team "with whip in hand" (his words). Yeah, fuck that!

[PaulF]

I half caught something on the radio saying it's definitely beneficial (for companies) for many people to have office time. The key is people being in the office on the same days .I reckon 2 or possibly one day when everyone is in might be enough.

[Wabaloolah]

I half caught something on the radio saying it's definitely beneficial (for companies) for many people to have office time. The key is people being in the office on the same days .I reckon 2 or possibly one day when everyone is in might be enough.

currently contracting with a London council and that's what they do, 2 days in the office and 3 WFH, I'm 5 days WFH though.

Each team goes in for different days and the council has now reduced the number of floors they occupy in the building

[rob1966]

currently contracting with a London council and that's what they do, 2 days in the office and 3 WFH, I'm 5 days WFH though.

Each team goes in for different days and the council has now reduced the number of floors they occupy in the building

Some people have been slowly drifting back into the office and our CEO has basically said "fuck off, work from home" and they've put tighter restrictions in to stop people going in - they've even kicked a load of permanent office staff out of the building now to wfh - I love it

[Wabaloolah]

Some people have been slowly drifting back into the office and our CEO has basically said "fuck off, work from home" and they've put tighter restrictions in to stop people going in - they've even kicked a load of permanent office staff out of the building now to wfh - I love it

me too, I'd hate to be in an office 5 days a week. Certainly don't miss the commutes either

[rob1966]

me too, I'd hate to be in an office 5 days a week. Certainly don't miss the commutes either

Mine was only 5 miles, but that was bad enough - I love the freedom, I love being able to make the kids tea which has allowed the missus to take an afternoon job, I love being home at 5:30, not taking an hour to battle dickhead manc traffic through blocked yellow boxes. The only downside is that my car being parked all day has meant its gone pretty rusty underneath and I might need to spend a few £k fixing it.

[red_Mark1980]

Some people have been slowly drifting back into the office and our CEO has basically said "fuck off, work from home" and they've put tighter restrictions in to stop people going in - they've even kicked a load of permanent office staff out of the building now to wfh - I love it

Not sure that sounds great to be honest.There's a number of reasons people may be choosing to go into an office.

If a company doesn't want people coming into the office, then maybe they need to have a discussion with some of its employees and downsize the building they occupy

[PaulF]

I was thinking today there's definitely some gains being missed out on. Today, for example, I discovered an add in so I can split my browser in two. Really handy for some of the work I do.  In an office, I can imagine a colleague finding it out, other people seeing it and the knowledge being shared.  It might be because I'm self employed with no real contact with peers who might have shared in a more regular teams session. Bit you get the idea.

[thejbs]

One thing you hear little about in the WFH debate is disability. I’m only 42. In the past three years, thanks to a benign tumour on my auditory nerve, I’ve lost 90% of hearing in my right ear. The remaining 10% is distorted and unusable. And my hearing in my left is bad enough to require a hearing aid - it was always far worse than my right.

WFH and going on teams or phone calls for meetings actually allows me to better hear what’s going on. I work in a sound-dampened studio which is a more pleasant than an open, echoing office space. I feel more in control and less lost in online meetings.

For people with mobility disabilities I’m sure WFH is a godsend.

[PaulF]

One thing you hear little about in the WFH debate is disability. I’m only 42. In the past three years, thanks to a benign tumour on my auditory nerve, I’ve lost 90% of hearing in my right ear. The remaining 10% is distorted and unusable. And my hearing in my left is bad enough to require a hearing aid - it was always far worse than my right.

WFH and going on teams or phone calls for meetings actually allows me to better hear what’s going on. I work in a sound-dampened studio which is a more pleasant than an open, echoing office space. I feel more in control and less lost in online meetings.

For people with mobility disabilities I’m sure WFH is a godsend.

And that's before factoring the commute must be a lot harder on those with mobility disabilites.

[rob1966]

Not sure that sounds great to be honest.There's a number of reasons people may be choosing to go into an office.

If a company doesn't want people coming into the office, then maybe they need to have a discussion with some of its employees and downsize the building they occupy

That's what they did   They sent around a survey during covid, massively in favour of wfh, so they moved out of this, where we occupied 2 floors, 100yds long at least, 400 people in there



Into a single floor in this, capacity around 120/150 something like that



Its set up with permanent staff who they say need to be there, they take the majority of the space and hot desks, but some staff were turning in all the time, tying up the hot desks. We're heavy on teams meeting, mental health first aiders who ring people to chat and teams can use the meeting rooms for catch ups

[red_Mark1980]

That's what they did   They sent around a survey during covid, massively in favour of wfh, so they moved out of this, where we occupied 2 floors, 100yds long at least, 400 people in there



Into a single floor in this, capacity around 120/150 something like that



Its set up with permanent staff who they say need to be there, they take the majority of the space and hot desks, but some staff were turning in all the time, tying up the hot desks. We're heavy on teams meeting, mental health first aiders who ring people to chat and teams can use the meeting rooms for catch ups

Obviously circumstances change and I know I've heard in our place some people are using the office due to increase in energy costs.

It's a nightmare balancing it though. While the majority of people may want to permanently WFH, again I know there are instances where people in our place choose to come in more often than they were previously doing say around a year ago.

[rob1966]

Obviously circumstances change and I know I've heard in our place some people are using the office due to increase in energy costs.

It's a nightmare balancing it though. While the majority of people may want to permanently WFH, again I know there are instances where people in our place choose to come in more often than they were previously doing say around a year ago.

I was freezing during winter and was so tempted to go in - the company actually paid us £750 last year to help with the cost of living.

They used covid as an excuse to get rid of loads of property, they closed 300 branches and the offices and they do not want that expense back. I love wfh, get way more done even when pissing about on here, we're currently in our daily scrum, I've given my update so have 30 mins to fuck about. In the office I was getting constantly interrupted, being asked how do you do this/that, people stopping to chat etc and some days I'd get nothing done. The downside is I've been banging weight on recently due to not moving all day, torn cartilidge hasn't helped.

I expect some people want to go back in now for the day to day contact, it's not easy being on your own all day, they need to interact with people, companies should try to accomodate these people if they can.

[GreatEx]

I guess with these people who used to interrupt and ask you how to do this & that, you always have to wonder, if I'm not hearing from them now, does that mean they're figuring stuff out for themselves, or just not doing anything? And if figuring out for themselves, are they doing it the right way or wasting a load of time? It's probably been a mixed bag with my team. I have managed to get a few of them to expand their repertoire and they are becoming more autonomous. But there are still days where it appears they've been spinning their wheels or just not been arsed.

[rob1966]

I guess with these people who used to interrupt and ask you how to do this & that, you always have to wonder, if I'm not hearing from them now, does that mean they're figuring stuff out for themselves, or just not doing anything? And if figuring out for themselves, are they doing it the right way or wasting a load of time? It's probably been a mixed bag with my team. I have managed to get a few of them to expand their repertoire and they are becoming more autonomous. But there are still days where it appears they've been spinning their wheels or just not been arsed.

They're having to follow procedure (I don't have a company mobile) and raising tickets, the support team are picking them up and when they get stuck, they then ask the dev team. I still get messages on teams from one who used to be a tester, as she knows I'll know the answer, but I don't mind as we've always had a good working relationship and she's helped me out in the past. One of the support team tends to try and ask me or we get an invite to a team huddle rather than try to work it out himself, he rang me the other afternoon on my personal mobile at 5:10, I rejected his call as I was trying to organise a release of a bug fix for 6pm and system downtime, he didn't ring back so I assume he eventually sorted it out.

[red_Mark1980]

There's a massive element of knowledge in a similar job lost.

We've got a similar ticket/request system and it makes the job so much more difficult. At times you can spend an inordinate amount of time finding the correct ticket to raise (staff will straight bat to you an outdated confluence page).

Years ago you'd be able to ask 20 people sat around you. Now you're option is a message on teams that most people have on ignore.

[Crosby Nick]

That last bit about not being arsed probably happens in the office too on bad days.

[Buck Pete]

Going to be doing my first site-visit since February 2020 on Friday. It's going to be weird seeing people in 3D.

I did my first site visit a few months ago.  Over the Pennines at a government building right in Leeds City centre.

Really enjoyed getting out and about. Choice of hundreds of different, cafes, pubs and places to get lunch, or even for a quick fancy-ass coffee.  All within walking distance.

Wouldnt like to do the journey every day though.  Off to the same site again next week for Go-live.

Love WFH but its really good to get out and do some face-to-face time.

[Crosby Nick]

You still at Pear Tree Productions Pete?

[LuverlyRita]

I love wfh, get way more done even when pissing about on here, we're currently in our daily scrum, I've given my update so have 30 mins to fuck about. In the office I was getting constantly interrupted, being asked how do you do this/that, people stopping to chat etc and some days I'd get nothing done. The downside is I've been banging weight on recently due to not moving all day, torn cartilidge hasn't helped.

I expect some people want to go back in now for the day to day contact, it's not easy being on your own all day, they need to interact with people, companies should try to accomodate these people if they can.

I loved working from home in the latter stages of my career. Like you I got loads more done (mainly due to fewer interruptions) and the lack of a commute was bliss, especially in the winter. But I was working from my own comfortable, warm house and already had a long list of established friends and colleagues. It would have been a nightmare when I first started work. I was living in a single glazed rented flat with no central heating and I didn't know anyone in the town. I made most of my friends through being in the office and many marriages started there including my own.

[Kalito]

That's what they did   They sent around a survey during covid, massively in favour of wfh, so they moved out of this, where we occupied 2 floors, 100yds long at least, 400 people in there

Looks familiar that.

I had a business meeting with Optimal Solicitors there back in 2019.