Abusing working from home

MissChief said:
Were having a similar issue with my new job. The team is half in London who all have laptops and are supposed to be available to take a call if needed but you’d be lucky if we take 10-12 calls a day and they’re usually short. Because they have laptops they can work from home but when they do they can’t take calls.

Then there’s us, without laptops. We use Wyse terminals so can’t work from home. We’ve raised this issue and been told they have no plans to issue us laptops so we can’t work from home. Although it doesn’t happen often when they do work from home everyone else needs to pick up their calls, but again maybe an extra 2-3 each. Compared to having back to back calls previously it’s great and there’s still work to be done in between but we do feel a little aggrieved that they have the option, which they do use, whereas we don’t.
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Cant you have some kind of voip, we have 3CX VOIP which has an app, installed on a phone it effectively makes it a portable extension. Can take calls anywhere.
 
We have an issue with this at our work too. There are some people who can just do what they want.

We had one guy who recently moved house, and not long after had a week working from home to coincide with things being moved etc. That same guy worked from home yesterday, coincidentally the Tour of Britain had a stage just down the road. Hmmmmm.....
 
Shadowness said:
We have an issue with this at our work too. There are some people who can just do what they want.

We had one guy who recently moved house, and not long after had a week working from home to coincide with things being moved etc. That same guy worked from home yesterday, coincidentally the Tour of Britain had a stage just down the road. Hmmmmm.....
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So long as he gets the work done or isn't required to be available at a moment's notice during some specified period then I don't see the issue.

I mean why not go watch the Tour of Britain for 2-3 hours in the afternoon if he can? Just do a bit of work in the morning then a bit more in the evening, why not enjoy life a bit?

The beauty of working from home is that you leave out the commute, you don't really need as much time for lunch either as you're not wandering off to queue up somewhere to get your food etc..

Instead of leaving the house at say 7:30 or 8 you can start working then, if you then need to go to the GP or dentist etc.. for a couple of hours it doesn't necessarily need involve you working too late either, you might well finish about the same time as you'd normally return home anyway.

Generally it is useful to have a mix of both - be present in the office mostly so you're around team mates, get to attend meetings, have face time with people... but work from home when you have some stuff you just need to get through without distractions or because it is simply useful to you temporarily.

I guess if you're technical and established in your field/can work solo and have no desire for further advancement/management positions then working from home full time is viable even, lock in the London salary and move to a much cheaper part of the country.
 
I made a script to press space periodically so my Skype status didn't show away when working from home once..

I don't work from home now unless in an emergency.
 
@dowie Because very few others in the office can do the same. WFH at our office is meant to be for the people who travel internationally a lot (which is something I do a LOT too) on the ODD day if required but I'm in a slightly different category (won't go into it here).

My point is, in our situation, many people on our office WFH if they can't get childcare, are having something delivered etc.... Other people don't/can't use the same privileges so why should they?

It's difficult to explain without explaining in much more detail. Essentially at our place of work, WFH is generally a known pee take.
 
Shadowness said:
My point is, in our situation, many people on our office WFH if they can't get childcare, are having something delivered etc.... Other people don't/can't use the same privileges so why should they?
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I think that's the wrong way to look at it, I don't see the need to drag others down because they have the benefit of WFH, if anything the complaints should be directed at the company not allowing everyone the same (with obvious exceptions for people who need to be present as part of their job).
 
Is this thread a zombie from the 1990s?
I have team members in US, Canada, Ireland and India. I couldn't care less whether they are in an office or at home and it wouldn't make any difference to their day to day activities. Sure, a face to face meet up a couple of times a year is great to work on strategy and do some team bonding, but conferencing tools work just fine these days.
 
I'm WFH today after going into the office yesterday. Why? ... because I'm knackered (I was called out earlier this morning) and frankly I want to get some work done. Whilst it was good to see a couple of people in the office yesterday, the office I work in is full of quite young people who seem to not really understand at times how they should be acting in a professional environment and its very hard to concentrate with their constant load banging around. I don't want a dead silent office but not having missiles being thrown/kicked around, furniture being banged around and general messing around is highly distracting.

The rest of my team is spread across a couple of other sites, I'm the only one on this site, and what with VPN access to work and and VOIP software it really doesn't matter where I am.
 
MissChief said:
Were having a similar issue with my new job. The team is half in London who all have laptops and are supposed to be available to take a call if needed but you’d be lucky if we take 10-12 calls a day and they’re usually short. Because they have laptops they can work from home but when they do they can’t take calls.

Then there’s us, without laptops. We use Wyse terminals so can’t work from home. We’ve raised this issue and been told they have no plans to issue us laptops so we can’t work from home. Although it doesn’t happen often when they do work from home everyone else needs to pick up their calls, but again maybe an extra 2-3 each. Compared to having back to back calls previously it’s great and there’s still work to be done in between but we do feel a little aggrieved that they have the option, which they do use, whereas we don’t.
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Well, well well! The London based staff members were apparently on contract, something I didn't know. And were told yesterday their contracts, due to finish in December, weren't being renewed. My company appears to be 'decentralising' quite a bit of its work force away from London to reduce staffing costs. We were actually discussing it between ourselves that all the roles would likely come up here eventually and within half an hour we got told this.
 
1: People not asking for permission and just working from home when they feel like it

Why would you need to ask for permission?

2: People giving extremely poor excuses for working from home

Why do you need an excuse?

3: People not doing much work when working from home and disappearing/going quiet for long periods

That's an issue.

4: People not communicating as much from home

What communication systems do people have available when working from home? Slack? Skype? MS Teams?

5: People communicating/doing too much from home (possibly trying too hard to ensure they are viewed as doing enough work)

Does that not conrtradict #3

6: People feeling they cannot leave their computer in case they are skyped/emailed with something urgent and appear to be slacking off when not available instantly.

Does that not contractict #4?

7: People strategically booking appointments for days when they DO NOT normally work from home, and then taking those days as work from homes days in additional to their normal designated home working day.

You have designate work from home days?

8: As above extending holidays by taking additional days as "work from home" when in reality they just want an easy ride for a couple of extra days.

You're either working or you on holiday - which is it?

9: Using any travel delay - even minor - as an excuse to work from home

That's exactly when working from home is useful.

10: Missing vital events, collaborative efforts and meetings by prioritizing home working first.

That's an issue.

11: Major issues occurring with minimal staff on site to be able to speak to someone first hand

That's an resourcing issue, not a wfh issue.

12: People having really poor microphones/comms setup at home if at all, causing a lack of communication for any meetings or team conversations for that day.

Dooes the business not provide headsets for remote workers?

13: Response speed during major incidents taking longer

Is this quantifiable or does it just feel this way?

14: People blaming remote connectivity issues on their poor broadband speeds

Most businesses only allow working from home if there is a suitable connection - what does your wfh policy state?

15: People having powercuts and "broadband" issues seemingly all the time

Again - is this quantifiable?

16: People using work from home to prevent sick days totting up by stating that they will work from home whilst ill. In reality they are in bed doing nothing. i.e. Genuinely ill sometimes.

That's a benefit to a business - do they get more work out of employees when they tke 100% of the day off or when they work at 25% capacity when 'a bit ill'?




TL:DR - most of the above sounds like a culture issue, not wfh in itself.
 
Agree with a lot of the points above however:

amigafan2003 said:
1: People not asking for permission and just working from home when they feel like it

Why would you need to ask for permission?
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see your own answers to 10 and 11

10: Missing vital events, collaborative efforts and meetings by prioritizing home working first.

That's an issue.

11: Major issues occurring with minimal staff on site to be able to speak to someone first hand

That's an resourcing issue, not a wfh issue.
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and to some extent 7 can affect 11

7: People strategically booking appointments for days when they DO NOT normally work from home, and then taking those days as work from homes days in additional to their normal designated home working day.

You have designate work from home days?
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Some companies practice hot desking even and save on office space by staggering one planned WFH day per week per employee.

If you have a designated day per week then no you won't be asking for permission to work from home on that day but for other days you might well need to check/ask permission.

Joe is already WFH as it is a Wednesday and that is Joe's regular WFH day when the cleaner comes round or he needs to pick up the kid from nursery etc.. and Janet has just called in sick, Dan is on an internal training course etc... James calls up the manager to ask if it is OK to work from home that day, he forgot about an amazon order arriving until the last minute and is told it isn't because they do need one team member present in the office for [reasons]...
 
All that matters is the following: Deadlines are meet/exceeded, no conferences missed, employee is just as contactable at home as they are at work.

As soon as the above three arent fulfilled, no more WFH.
 
Most of these complaints are due to poor management and not having metrics around productivity.
Its noticeable how little its mentioned.
 
If working from home is stopped because it is being abused, then the issue is handing down group punishments rather than addressing the specific individuals who are abusing working from home. I'm not sure why you feel it's your job to police your colleagues working from home though. Generally my work from home days are the relaxed days, where I've crammed a lot of work in on the previous 4 days so I can have a day where I basically just catch up with a few emails and chill. I still have to hit all my deadlines and ensure everything is done for the week, so if I do that I don't see the problem in having a relaxed day at home. I'm paid to do a job, not to appear to be busy all the time.
 
Working from home doesn’t work in my sector (law) but we still have a policy for it. Various members of my team wfh and are less contactable, less visible in the team, complete less work abs generally drag the rest of the team town. The powers that be still think it’s a good idea so im stuck covering for these people in the office.

I’d therefore say wfh is subjectively ok but in many cases you lose the benefit of someone physically being in the office interacting with the team.

I work from home rarely and only when it absolutely makes sense to the situation.
 
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