Working from Home….

[COYBL25]

WFH 2 days a week.... the whole thing harkens back to control based management and thinking people are good workers because of how many hours they sit at their desk (she is always here when I am - first in last out, etc) rather than true productivity and value they bring to the enterprise (USS).

Every office I‘ve ever worked in, has aways had at least one of these - gets in before the boss and leaves after the boss. For no other reason, that they think it’s some kind of badge of honour.

The net result was, they end up working two plus hours a day for nothing, for a boss who generally doesn‘t care.

They also tend to be the office grass and not to be trusted at all.

 

[Daveysgingerlovechild]

Personally I think those who want employees onsite have at least one of these things going on:

A) an extreme extrovert who has to have folk around to chunter on at
B) A bloody bad manager / leader who has no idea of how to manage or lead unless they can literally see people and pester them.
C) utterly redundant and the fact staff crack on highlights this. Linked to B) they need staff present to show their worth / 'manage'. It is their own guilt or fear that inspires this behaviour.

 

[Rob17896]

Indeed bud. When we went into first lockdown I had to take on 30 staff in prep for EU Exit.

Trying to get 30 people, who has never met each other or me, in person, then try and get them to understand quite complex law was quite a challenge.

we still experience the knowledge gap now with hybrid working. Funnily enough my manager is having a meeting right now to inform front line staff that they’re back in the office full time. This issue is causing major problems

A knowledge gap caused Brexit in the first place. If anybody finds the dividend please let us know.

 

[Daveysgingerlovechild]

Only PrOpEr MaNaGeR* penny pinchers and obsessive controlling tories are complaining. Wonder why?


* do eff all except nag their employees to give them a hard time, using the word "accountability" a lot.

Sean Dyche would defo have his team in every day if he was an office manager.

 

[cooperman]

Sean Dyche would defo have his team in every day if he was an office manager.

Haha. Insisting everyone was at their desk not a second after nine

 

[Dixieslaces]

So Covid originally drove this but now seems to be part of life. However it may end up being not quite so clever…..

“ The boss of electronics and white goods seller AO World has warned that staff working from home could find their jobs outsourced overseas.

John Roberts also told the Bolton-based retailer's 3,000 employees that 'hybrid working', when staff come into the office only intermittently, was banned.

'Working from home, you might as well be working abroad, which is only a step away from outsourcing,' he said, warning that cheaper workers could be sourced in places such as Bangalore in India.”

Anyone here wfh….

3 years this March gone, hated at first, still not 100% on it, miss the interaction and socials but does allow me freedom on doing stuff during the day that would have been done after a day's work.

From the company perspective a time and motion study has shown an increase in productivity from 83% office based to 94.8% wfh, so they were all in on it and happy for it t9 continue.

Opposition to it is low, we have 2 very large Offices that house over 3500 staff in each and only 400 per week at one are using and up to 800 at the other, I sense a recent shift with the appointment of a new CEO to encourage a more fluid approach from the workforce but this been firmly rejected.

I have adapted and accepted and now embraced but you do miss so much socially, about 20 colleagues have left or passed or retired in last 3 years and all without any recognition of such events.

On the plus side for me, I can browse GOT every second of the day, should I desire, quite often this is the case, please don't tell anyone , lol

 

[Dixieslaces]

Any chance I can come and use your photocopier?

At the same time?

 

[JimmyJeffers]

Sean Dyche would defo have his team in every day if he was an office manager.

Heating on full blast whilst he walks around farting all day in tight trousers. Staff all have pink eye.
Office Christmas parties is basically him downing Glens vodka, playing naked rodeo on the photocopier.

 

[Nymzee]

Heating on full blast whilst he walks around farting all day in tight trousers. Staff all have pink eye.
Office Christmas parties is basically him downing Glens vodka, playing naked rodeo on the photocopier.

He'd be Todd Packer from US Office fame.

 

[Armaghtoffee]

Currently doing 2 days a month in the office and I find it pointless. My office days are spent talking to people socially more than work stuff and I end up having to play catch up at home next day.

I also can’t crank my music up in the office either and they insist on me being fully dressed.

 

[samcdavies94]

The three of one, two of the other balance is the one for me.

Pros to being in the office include: Ease of collaboration/ using people as a soundboard without phoning them up + actually interacting with real people.

Pros to being at home: Being able to get your head down and do work with less distractions + control over the radio selection/playlist.

For management worried about productivity, that's all about motivating, valuing and trusting the employees. I work hard in whatever environment because I'm happy in my job. But if I was tapped out, I wouldn't put so much effort in. Really is that simple.

 

[john jako]

My company I work for employs over 2k people in the UK. 80% have company cars with fuel cards. They’ve saved an absolute fortune making people WFH with fuel. I don’t think they will ask a lot back until the price of diesel goes down 50p a litre.

 

[DualityNSNO]

The three of one, two of the other balance is the one for me.

Pros to being in the office include: Ease of collaboration/ using people as a soundboard without phoning them up + actually interacting with real people.

Pros to being at home: Being able to get your head down and do work with less distractions + control over the radio selection/playlist.

For management worried about productivity, that's all about motivating, valuing and trusting the employees. I work hard in whatever environment because I'm happy in my job. But if I was tapped out, I wouldn't put so much effort in. Really is that simple.

I work in IT - what gave you this mad idea I want to either see or interact with people?!

Management can do one - old job had a "WE ALL HAVE TO BE BACK" kind of manager until she saw she can also shout at us via WFH.

Current cut off our wfh privileges and we're now on a shift basis thing that I absolutely despise. No reason to do so as well - we used to be week at office, week wfh because we were enough people. Now we've added more people but we've removed the WFH because of "management reasons". What's fantastic about that is that we're the department obviously responsible for WFH situations and we get any WFH issue sent to us, while not having any WFH shifts.

Except the managers, last time the big boss called from a mountain resort on a Wednesday afternoon, no doubt there on business matters and defo not skiing or something lol

 

[Nightman]

I'm fully remote. Play 9 holes a lot of mornings when the weather's nice or I like to have a lie in when I'm hungover.

Current client has stupid software on their laptops that show you offline after 5 mins of inactivity. So you need to plug in a mouse and wedge it between a wall and something that vibrates.

Will only take meetings in the PM.

 

[Charro]

I’am a civil servant who works from home. I have extra sick days due to asthma and have full flexi to use whenever I want.

Also went 12 weeks without any work during the pandemic.

Thoughts @peteblue