Working from home worth it?

[rumple9]

I work for a large organisation. We received a business analyst report this morning on Wfh. The report states that across the organisation productivity has increased slightly, sick days have reduced substantially and employee retention has increased, saving on recruitment and training costs.

Also it seems employees are not abusing the system by saying they are going into the office when they are not (They can tell where our computers are logged in from).

However on the negative side, colleague mentoring has reduced which is affecting new employee training and younger staff. The report recommends these employees should go in to the office one additional day per week.

 

[OspreyO]

As people work from home more and also the possibility of the 4 day week, just what is the point of HS2?

Public transport is about 80% of pre COVID.

Number of people who are 100% remote is 10-12% ish. Majority of people still traveling to work for a few days a week.

So the demand for public transport is still there. Of course it's not used solely for commuting.

 

[OspreyO]

I work for a large organisation. We received a business analyst report this morning on Wfh. The report states that across the organisation productivity has increased slightly, sick days have reduced substantially and employee retention has increased, saving on recruitment and training costs.

Also it seems employees are not abusing the system by saying they are going into the office when they are not (They can tell where our computers are logged in from).

However on the negative side, colleague mentoring has reduced which is affecting new employee training and younger staff. The report recommends these employees should go in to the office one additional day per week.

Certainly a case to be made for intensive mentoring for new hires. Perhaps pooling office days and hot desks for those who want to congregate.

 

[HangTime]

Whilst I definitely agree that office time helps new starters / more junior folk I also believe this is influenced by how serious the organisation is about having support structures in place (regardless of remote/in-person).
I worked for an org mostly remotely where you would be assigned a 'buddy' to have informal chats with, ask all the silly questions you have.
You also had a formal Coach that would help with career development and general advice
Then there was a Slack plugin that organised virtual coffee chats with random people across the org who signed up for it.
Training courses on giving/receiving feedback etc etc.
Structured on-boarding processes

If I'm honest having those structures in place was more effective in my book that other jobs I've had where I've been in the office 5 days a week but there has been no support framework beyond "speak to your supervisor / HR".

More generally I think in some quarters simply "being in the office" is deemed as some sort of silver bullet that will lead to success but the reality is without any thought given to how to best co-ordinate and leverage that, the benefits are severely diminished. Well-planned remote working can help new hires develop more than Poorly-planned in person working.

 

[OspreyO]

Never found being in the office was a guarantee of mentorship or support.

 

[Noxia]

I've been off with covid this week and I am absolutely dying to get back to work. I absolutely hate the isolation WFH brings.

Plus no Costa*

 

[malachi]

Plus no Costa*

Bet that's saving money though, unless its free from work.

 

[Noxia]

Bet that's saving money though, unless its free from work.

Yeah tbh I only have one a week if that. We have a 'tea club's where we all chuck in a fiver or so a month and we have all different tea and coffee etc and someone brings in milk.
A medium Costa is £3.25 I think! I just like the building.

 

[rumple9]

Whilst I definitely agree that office time helps new starters / more junior folk I also believe this is influenced by how serious the organisation is about having support structures in place (regardless of remote/in-person).
I worked for an org mostly remotely where you would be assigned a 'buddy' to have informal chats with, ask all the silly questions you have.
You also had a formal Coach that would help with career development and general advice
Then there was a Slack plugin that organised virtual coffee chats with random people across the org who signed up for it.
Training courses on giving/receiving feedback etc etc.
Structured on-boarding processes

If I'm honest having those structures in place was more effective in my book that other jobs I've had where I've been in the office 5 days a week but there has been no support framework beyond "speak to your supervisor / HR".

More generally I think in some quarters simply "being in the office" is deemed as some sort of silver bullet that will lead to success but the reality is without any thought given to how to best co-ordinate and leverage that, the benefits are severely diminished. Well-planned remote working can help new hires develop more than Poorly-planned in person working.

Very well said. It actually amazes me how the workplace has changed over the years (No computers when I Started - typewriters and manual book keeping!)

 

[Grim5]

I wouldn't, but a friend does 4 days home one in the office and loves it. I couldn't live without the inane **** my colleagues talk about. Reminds me how lucky I am

I'm too busy at work to talk anyway so whether I'm at home working and not talking or at the office working and not talking there is no difference

 

[SpellowHouse]

I am a pharmacist that is fundamentally managed by a compulsive liar that does not support their team and is rather selfish. I won't go into anymore details as it does not help, the only point to note is my manager's boss is fed up and so is the rest of the team. So it is not just a clash between two people.

Anyway, I have come across a job that is almost entirely WFH, the salary is almost the same, start and end times are quite flexible (Could start some days at 10am and finish at 6pm or 8am until 4pm). So many positives that I shall list them:

+Can go to the gym in the morning before work and not rush my workout
+More free time (Start some new hobbies)
+Can keep an eye on side projects (Youtube, stocks, e-commerce business)
+Quite chilled compared to my current job

However these are the negatives (some of them are more myself than the job)

-Will I miss human interaction? As much as some people at work really **** me off and I find it hard at times to relate with them with their boring conversations about make-up, TV shows etc. Will I miss that element?

-Unfortunately my social circle has reduced in size by quite a bit as friends have different priorities, distance etc. Will I feel lonely? People at work have said that I shouldn't have a WFH job for my mental health, again I don't know if they are just saying that to keep me there.

-Maybe I'm being optimistic about being able to have a "side hustle" whilst WFH?

Any advice would be appreciated, Thanks

I worked from home for a number of years.

It's not a question someone can answer for you.

You need some discipline, so you actually do the work - get up at the right time, don't keep having breaks and so on. The house should be free of people, or it's too distracting. You can't have a partner that suddenly dumps everything on you "because you are at home".

You also need to be a little bit of a loner. There is no doubt that being alone all day takes getting used to. Personally, I loved it.

 

[CREATIVE!11]

I'm currently hybrid but I think if I was fully remote here (relocated) the isolation would be pretty bad, but on the flipside if I was fully remote i'd still be around family + friends.

I want to go fully remote some point and move back but we'll see.

I also find I focus better WFH because of silence + my music, in the office got people having conversations etc. There are more distractions but you definitely need discpline to be like "i'm on the clock crack on".

Long term i'm thinking of trying out the digital nomad lifestyle so I will want to be remote for that of course. But that's a long term goal i've just got my foot in the door into the software dev industry.

 

[ultralaser]

I'm really mixed about it, I'm a lot more productive at home (probably upwards of 25%) due to the lower number of distractions but you have to figure out good ways of working with your teams to make it effective and if you're in a management role it can be a challenge if some folks aren't great with comms.

You need to understand yourself and your teams and figure out how to handle WFH. I've seen a few negative patterns though for sure:

• 'The distracted': Finds it difficult to WFH and will be distracted by anything and everything, typically needs to be non-WFH.
• 'The wont ask for help': Normally folks how don't feel comfortable asking for help and tend to grind to a halt when WFH.
• 'The will plough on blindly': These tend to be high performing but often delivering outside of what's asked, can be managed with difficulty

As well as understanding people it's useful to understand the asks on us and what that means for co-operation and co-ordination. Periods of intense delivery normally benefit from an increase in office time as a team or group, whereas deeper work can be in the inverse where you might benefit from the WFH's more isolating nature to really focus for longer periods of time.

I think some of the negativity around WFH is that we've not really spent time working some of those above issues out and we tend to have a blanket position, in reality we need to be treating people individually (this gets hard when we talk about discrimination though).

 

[Noxia]

I'll definitely appreciate WFH when it's a choice between de-icing my car in the morning or spending the extra time in bed and not having to get up in the cold.

 

[OspreyO]

They won't ask for help sometimes means they asked for help and got none so gave up asking.

 

[Infidelus]

I'll definitely appreciate WFH when it's a choice between de-icing my car in the morning or spending the extra time in bed and not having to get up in the cold.

Certainly agree with the sentiment here though my car goes from the front drive to the garage when it starts getting cold 'cos I hate having to de-ice, and my current car doesn't have a heated front windscreen

 

[Diagro]

I wish I could work from home. However these reasons means I cannot.

1. My house doesn't have room for a location I can work from. Kids and wife have taken over everything. My job requires a need for lots of space.
2. My job requires me to have access to a myriad of hardware. All connected to my local network. A VPN accessed network wouldn't work, has to be local. My house insurance doesn't cover me for 100k+ of hardware just sat around at home. Nore do I want it at my home...!
3. I need to be in the office, listening to the staff I line manage, see what they are doing now and again. Keeping people on task with just my hovering presence. Great fun.