Working from home worth it?

[Freefaller]

I loathe doing it full time. However as the senior leadership we've decided to get people back to the office 40% of the time. On average.

Some people aren't happy, but hey you know what your contract doesn't say it's a WFH contract.

I get why the younger generation like it but it's just not effective in my industry at all. We need people collaborating and regardless of tools like Miro or Teams it's just not as good as being face to face to pick up on the nuances. Plus you can have more than one convo in an office.

I declined a job offer that was 100% WFH recently as I just can't deal with it. I need to be in an environment where I can talk to people and ask questions there and then and not wait for an email or a reply to a teams message.

 

[malachi]

Oh I agree. But how often do you meet someone more interested in your clock than your work.

Everyday in office. When someone from management is randomly having a conversation in our room when really they are clock watching you.

 

[peterwalkley]

Just out of interest , what kind of jobs is everyone doing to be working from home? Am I right in thinking a lot of IT jobs will be home based?

Another code monkey here. I've worked from home for over 20 years. None of the customers I work with have been in this country and most of the other developers have been either on site, India or Israel. Going to the office would be an utter wasted journey for the mystical synergies that are being claimed in some quarters.

 

[malachi]

Some people aren't happy, but hey you know what your contract doesn't say it's a WFH contract.

Exactly, if WFH isnt in the contract then the company is free to do what they want. If the employee doesn't like it then there is nothing stopping them collecting their P45.

 

[Freefaller]

Everyday in office. When someone from management is randomly having a conversation in our room when really they are clock watching you.

Sounds awful. Time to move to a more professional environment.

 

[malachi]

Sounds awful. Time to move to a more professional environment.

Yep, thats why everyone is leaving.

 

[Freefaller]

Yep, thats why everyone is leaving.

Not surprised. Toxic management is soul destroying. Good luck with your search (if you are looking!) Sounds like you're too good for that place anyway.

 

[malachi]

Not surprised. Toxic management is soul destroying. Good luck with your search (if you are looking!) Sounds like you're too good for that place anyway.

Thanks, I found a new job which I start in December More senior so I be looking forward to flexing my Azure and cyber security skills on a higher level.

But I dont understand this company as the CEO is 43 years old but hes running the place like an Baby Boomer (and hes knocked up the Head of Staff) But lessons I am learning when I decide to go self-employed in a few years.

 

[Freefaller]

Thanks, I found a new job which I start in December More senior so I be looking forward to flexing my Azure and cyber security skills on a higher level.

But I dont understand this company as the CEO is 43 years old but hes running the place like an Baby Boomer (and hes knocked up the Head of Staff) But lessons I am learning when I decide to go self-employed in a few years.

Some people think the old school ways are the best ways... Good luck in your new role! You'll smash it

 

[jeffk]

Exactly, if WFH isnt in the contract then the company is free to do what they want. If the employee doesn't like it then there is nothing stopping them collecting their P45.

That’s not true from an employment law point-of-view. At an employment tribunal, factors such as verbal agreements and defacto working practices will be taken into consideration.

I think in the next year or two, we’re going to see a lot of WFH cases going to tribunal and the outcomes are going to be interesting.

 

[Freefaller]

That’s not true from an employment law point-of-view. At an employment tribunal, factors such as verbal agreements and defacto working practices will be taken into consideration.

I think in the next year or two, we’re going to see a lot of WFH cases going to tribunal and the outcomes are going to be interesting.

I think it's unlikely, and if it does go to that a simple settlement will sort it out. People aren't going to waste their time with tribunals unless they've been severely mistreated.

 

[Ayahuasca]

Good luck getting anywhere with a verbal agreement too, unless it was in a meeting with several witnesses willing to come forward.

 

[jaybee]

At the moment I work about half my time in the office and half at home. The company I work for enforce this 50% ruling. In reality - despite warnings - people generally don't meet that 50%. In some cases it is as low as 10-20% and seemingly no action is currently being taken to my knowledge.

For my situation, I am bias towards work from home mainly due to my commute. It's long, on trains, then tube into a London office. I don't mind so much the experience of the commute because I typically travel super off peak getting in late, and leaving late. The time loss is large each day I travel, granted, but I try to watch movies/shows on the train and it is a bit of self time I guess. What I do mind is cost...

An annual season ticket into London is about 7K for me. Working 50% of my time in the office is just enough to not benefit from it cost wise with the way train ticketing pricing is done. i.e. I don't save half of 7k. It works out about the same due to the heavy discounts weighted towards annual tickets. If it was to reduce to more like 20-30% of my time in the office I would save a lot more. I also then typically go and buy lunch when in London which adds cost. This is laziness mostly of not taking my own lunch.

I like being in the office when I'm there, kind of. I like seeing people and doing things in person yes. The office environment is pretty good. Good location. Tbh it's more being in the city generally and the vibe. To be honest the office has become a ghost town most of the time and anyone that is there tends to have headsets on for teams calls anyway. I don't think there is much value in coming in anymore. For mental health, yes.

In terms of actually getting work done in the office vs at home. I am more productive at home. Better setup. More comfortable. Less distractions. Office banter and loud people - on calls mostly - is disruptive. Walk ups etc.

My perfect setup would be to just open it up to what you want perhaps setting a minimum of 1 or 2 days a month that you had to come into office. I'd probably then go in on days when my mates were in or collab days for in person meetings, and just go in a few days a month.

 

[HangTime]

I get why the younger generation like it but it's just not effective in my industry at all. We need people collaborating and regardless of tools like Miro or Teams it's just not as good as being face to face to pick up on the nuances. Plus you can have more than one convo in an office.

I've found it's the younger generation that favour working from the office, because typically:

• Less childcare commitments
• Live near the office (renting a room instead of family home out in the sticks)
• More interested in the social aspect / afterwork socials etc
• Benefit more from mentoring, learning from peers etc, building their network F2F etc early in their careers (older workers have often established this already)

I recently left a small-ish consultancy firm where the demographic was dominated by people aged early 30s or under and employee engagement found that moving to a new swanky office was apparently a higher priority than bonuses

Far fewer remote jobs on LinkedIn these days...have people found a big shift in work policy during the first 3/4 of 2023?

There seems to be a growing number of City firms either encouraging or mandating an expected number of office days per week.
My experience of 'hybrid' has basically panned out the way I predicted, going to the office on an arbitrary basis is largely a waste of time aside from the occasional benefits from overhearing conversations, relationship building in new orgs and obviously the few occasions where planned collaboration is in play (Workshops etc).
I've written in the past that I believe organisations need to put more effort into planning how to exploit / co-ordinate hybrid (just saying "x days per week in the office" isn't enough), like syncing up so that people that need to collaborate are in together, putting the right logistics and management in place for hybrid meetings etc. At my place we don't have allocated desks but there are typically 'home' areas for various functions, the problem is now summer holidays are over in the busy days (midweek) you can't get a seat in that area so you end up sitting on a random desk round the corner and might go the whole day not speaking to any immediate colleagues face to face.

 

[HangTime]

An annual season ticket into London is about 7K for me. Working 50% of my time in the office is just enough to not benefit from it cost wise with the way train ticketing pricing is done. i.e. I don't save half of 7k. It works out about the same due to the heavy discounts weighted towards annual tickets. If it was to reduce to more like 20-30% of my time in the office I would save a lot more. I also then typically go and buy lunch when in London which adds cost. This is laziness mostly of not taking my own lunch.

Yes this is a big problem. As we came out of lockdown rail companies announced to great fanfare their "flexi" tickets allowing 8 return journeys per 28 days but the cost of buying 11 of these a year is on my route over 90% of the cost an annual season ticket allowing travel 365 days a year (useful for weekend trips to London etc) plus other benefits like discounted tickets on other routes. To be in the office 50% of the time (say 10 days a month) it would be more expensive than buying an annual ticket. Even doing 2 days a week I've basically switched to buying single tickets, the return journey is eligible for Network railcard discount and sometimes advance tickets can be had cheaply.

Some orgs have been quite shrewd on this and gone for the carrot approach of paying for train travel to the office (not a loan, actually paying for it but subject to BIK and capped at a certain level but better than nothing) and also free lunch in the office. They've significantly reduced the cost associated with coming into the office, so instead of it costing say £6.5k a year paid from your net earnings it might be a £2.5k tax bill or whatever.

 

[jaybee]

Yes this is a big problem. As we came out of lockdown rail companies announced to great fanfare their "flexi" tickets allowing 8 return journeys per 28 days but the cost of buying 11 of these a year is on my route over 90% of the cost an annual season ticket allowing travel 365 days a year (useful for weekend trips to London etc) plus other benefits like discounted tickets on other routes. To be in the office 50% of the time (say 10 days a month) it would be more expensive than buying an annual ticket. Even doing 2 days a week I've basically switched to buying single tickets, the return journey is eligible for Network railcard discount and sometimes advance tickets can be had cheaply.

Some orgs have been quite shrewd on this and gone for the carrot approach of paying for train travel to the office (not a loan, actually paying for it but subject to BIK and capped at a certain level but better than nothing) and also free lunch in the office. They've significantly reduced the cost associated with coming into the office, so instead of it costing say £6.5k a year paid from your net earnings it might be a £2.5k tax bill or whatever.

The 8 day flexi thing was such an anti climax of an announcement. It will suit some people, but it's quite a specific demographic for reasons I won't go into as it can get complex comparing ticket types.

On my route you can go in super off peak after 10pm and do the railcard discount thing. I'd probably arrive at my desk for lunch.

 

[jaybee]

My experience of 'hybrid' has basically panned out the way I predicted, going to the office on an arbitrary basis is largely a waste of time aside from the occasional benefits from overhearing conversations, relationship building in new orgs and obviously the few occasions where planned collaboration is in play (Workshops etc).
I've written in the past that I believe organisations need to put more effort into planning how to exploit / co-ordinate hybrid (just saying "x days per week in the office" isn't enough), like syncing up so that people that need to collaborate are in together, putting the right logistics and management in place for hybrid meetings etc. At my place we don't have allocated desks but there are typically 'home' areas for various functions, the problem is now summer holidays are over in the busy days (midweek) you can't get a seat in that area so you end up sitting on a random desk round the corner and might go the whole day not speaking to any immediate colleagues face to face.

Totally. Similar at my place.
The problem is if they start saying "members of team X all come in on Thursdays" for example, people will not like that as it's not flexible. People have literally built life routines now around never being in the office on certain days of the week. WFH is being utilized to the max, almost exploited sometimes. We effectively have had people at our places say things like "sorry I can't attend that workshop as I don't work Mondays". etc.
It's become a sort of no mans land situation now, where mandating X number of days as you say is just annoying. There is no true benefit and it is adding huge unnecessary commute cost where people are more productive at home anyway.

 

[jaybee]

In my office today - ok it is Friday but still - I can see maybe 20 odd people. We can house 300. Monday and Fridays are nice days to commute now and noticeably quieter. Thursday nights in London are the new Friday nights, at least inside the square mile. Buzzing in the bars as people just cba to work Fridays so don't come into the city.

 

[Freefaller]

I've found it's the younger generation that favour working from the office, because typically:

• Less childcare commitments
• Live near the office (renting a room instead of family home out in the sticks)
• More interested in the social aspect / afterwork socials etc
• Benefit more from mentoring, learning from peers etc, building their network F2F etc early in their careers (older workers have often established this already)

I recently left a small-ish consultancy firm where the demographic was dominated by people aged early 30s or under and employee engagement found that moving to a new swanky office was apparently a higher priority than bonuses

I don't know it seems more the other way for me and what I've experienced, however, what you say makes a lot of sense. My kids are both at school now so it's easier to deal with - but that would have an impact if they were still at nursery etc...

I find it is the older gen x that are all pushing harder for being in the office.

There seems to be a growing number of City firms either encouraging or mandating an expected number of office days per week.
My experience of 'hybrid' has basically panned out the way I predicted, going to the office on an arbitrary basis is largely a waste of time aside from the occasional benefits from overhearing conversations, relationship building in new orgs and obviously the few occasions where planned collaboration is in play (Workshops etc).
I've written in the past that I believe organisations need to put more effort into planning how to exploit / co-ordinate hybrid (just saying "x days per week in the office" isn't enough), like syncing up so that people that need to collaborate are in together, putting the right logistics and management in place for hybrid meetings etc. At my place we don't have allocated desks but there are typically 'home' areas for various functions, the problem is now summer holidays are over in the busy days (midweek) you can't get a seat in that area so you end up sitting on a random desk round the corner and might go the whole day not speaking to any immediate colleagues face to face.

Yep 100% agreed. What's the point in going into the office to be on teams all day - there has to be good organisational reasons for being in the office. However, as you mentioned in the previous paragraph, the vocational learning, socialising, mentoring and actually sharing ideas in person is far more effective.

Arbitrarily saying 2 days a week basically means that 2 days will be too busy and mondays and fridays are likely to be empty!

 

[HangTime]

In my office today - ok it is Friday but still - I can see maybe 20 odd people. We can house 300. Monday and Fridays are nice days to commute now and noticeably quieter. Thursday nights in London are the new Friday nights, at least inside the square mile. Buzzing in the bars as people just cba to work Fridays so don't come into the city.

Yeah so I've contemplated whether I should do office days on Mondays and/or Fridays for these reasons (less cramped train, don't have to queue for the Drain etc) but then if the office is sparsely populated it kind of defeats the whole point of going in to begin with. Another issue with midweek is the price of hotels, it's hard to find cheap rates these days.
Thursday has been the new Friday in the square mile for ages, even 10 years ago when WFH was much less prevalent it was the main day for socials in my experience.