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Covid19 working from home arrangements.

patrafter7

Hi,

How are people coping in general with working from home during the pandemic?

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patrafter7

In my situation unfortunately only office based staff can take flexible leave for additional hours worked. Staff WFH who have no choice because they have been asked to WFH to make space (2m distance) are not allowed take this flexible leave for additional hours worked.

dennyk

patrafter7 wrote: »

In my situation unfortunately only office based staff can take flexible leave for additional hours worked. Staff WFH who have no choice because they have been asked to WFH to make space (2m distance) are not allowed take this flexible leave for additional hours worked.

That either sounds like a contract violation (if the flexi-leave terms are defined there) or a good reason to stop putting in overtime.

beauf

dennyk wrote: »

That either sounds like a contract violation (if the flexi-leave terms are defined there) or a good reason to stop putting in overtime.

I think thats the rule across the Civil service and Public Sector, and probably common in the private sector also.

If you are overloaded at work, but just keep doing it, no one will stop you.

It will only stop once it becomes someone else's problem, that has the power to change things. Or you change it yourself.

dazberry

My o/h works night shifts (7 days), and I'm 9 to 5ish m-f but am in an American company so due to timezones quite often I'll end having to get back online later in the evenings.

Everything is just really really awkward, and there are just so many conflicting things that overlap and compete time wise. During the "on" week - missing the 9am start because someone wants to debrief - creeping around the house trying not to make any noise - maybe trying to get uniforms washed and dried, being the wake up call and inevitably someone wants to chat again - maybe being on dinner duty the odd time. In the meantime trying to work with ppl in the US were we only overlap between 4 and 5pm (subject to daylight savings time) - sometimes having to get back on line later in the evening. Then the "off" week you have someone that's bored, and you get another set of distractions, any after hour work in the "off" week causes huge conflict.

The thing about going to an office was that I could compartmentalise this a lot better, and I was able to maintain a much better routine. This is all a struggle

ongarboy

There is definitely a psychological exit when you left the office building for the day and even the commute home was an unwinding opportunity. I feel that separation and release doesn't exist in the same way by flipping your laptop shut and walking the 6 feet to your kitchen/living room etc at the end of the work day. I actually enjoyed my 30 minute train ride into work in the mornings too as it gave me downtime to read the news, text friends, catch up on social media or just mentally prepare before facing the day's work.

I worked for American multi nationals for years where WFH was allowed up to 2 days a week but I always opted to work in the office as I felt more productive and comfortable there with a proper ergonomic swivel chair, keyboard, printer and two giant monitors and better headsets for the endless conference calls. I only previously WFH if I was expecting a tradesman, delivery or had something special planned for straight after work.

A blend of both is probably the best future state model where employees can opt for as much as or little work at the office as suits theirs and their department's circumstances.

beauf

Some people do a virtual commute. They go for a 10-20 min walk around the block and back before starting and when then when they finish. This seems like a good idea.

Mrs OBumble

beauf wrote: »

Some people do a virtual commute. They go for a 10-20 min walk around the block and back before starting and when then when they finish. This seems like a good idea.

Yes, I do this. Makes an enormous difference to how I feel.

The feeling of getting up, eating some toast and sitting straight down to the laptop is just horrible.

I call it a fake commute.

Even if the weather is horrible I at least walk down the stairs to the front door, open it and look outside at the rain.

jmlad2020

If an employer doesn't offer some degree of WFH in the future then it will be a massive deal breaker for me. I personally can't stand the office environment.

[Deleted User]

dennyk wrote: »

That either sounds like a contract violation (if the flexi-leave terms are defined there) or a good reason to stop putting in overtime.

If it is civil service, it's not a contract violation. Flexi time working does not form part of the civil service terms and conditions of employment.

Basically, within the CS, flexi time is a privilege but not a right, and each department can operate the flexi time scheme to suit their business needs.

CS can still work flexi hours from home, but DPER suspended the ability to accrue flexi leave across the board for those WFH back in April.

beauf

Public sector mirrored that in many of not all also.

[Deleted User]

jmlad2020 wrote: »

Feel sorry for those poor extroverts on this thread who just can't handle the lack of human interaction associated with WFH. Before the pandemic I could not go on much longer working in a bull**** office environment.. awkward water cooler chat, pretending to work and the counting down the hours.

I much prefer it, but of course the office has its place when needed, for myself that would potentially be 1-2 days per week when required, but I suspect a lot of my weeks could be entirely WFH. Good riddance to being a full time office-bot.

I'm generally introverted, but I'd be keen to get back to the office for more social interaction. I'm not the party animal type, but I do enjoy the coffee chats or lunchtime chats that enable getting beyond a purely work-based relationship.

I also this it is fairly awful that employers have done a land grab to take private space from the homes of their employees for work purposes without any payment, but that's a different issue.

qwerty13 wrote: »

However, there’s noises being made by I’d say by far less than 10% or so that they feel so isolated / want a return to office set up. The rest of my colleagues are just willing them to shut up, before they ruin our far better quality of life.

My fear is that the the ‘I need thousands spent to set me up at home’ small % of my workplace are going to scare my employer in case they get sued, and the rest of us have to give up the best workplace change that we could ever have imagined. There would have been some (reluctant) wfh before COVID, but it is working so well for most of us, and we’d have had to fight for this for years on end without the virus. Long may it continue (the wfh, not the virus!)

I'm one of those small percentage, but I'm not trying to get anyone else forced back to the office. I am expecting that my employer will revert to providing office space for me at the earliest, reasonably safe opportunity. The fact that I will be very much in the minority will make it easy enough to achieve social distancing in the workplace.

It's not an either/or scenario.

[Deleted User]

qwerty13 wrote: »

I personally don’t miss the office chit chat at all. I have a bit of an extra chat before a few Skype calls.

However, there’s noises being made by I’d say by far less than 10% or so that they feel so isolated / want a return to office set up. The rest of my colleagues are just willing them to shut up, before they ruin our far better quality of life.

You know this is probably one of the most selfish things I have heard. You have no idea what is going on with your colleagues that want to get back to the office. Did you ever think maybe the isolation is getting to them? Not everyone copes the same way with being on their own 24/7. Also ever stop to think that maybe they are in an abusive relationship and getting to the office is their only saving grace? Please have a think about it before making comments about how they are going to ruin things for the rest of ye that are content to work from home.

qwerty13

Littlefinger wrote: »

You know this is probably one of the most selfish things I have heard. You have no idea what is going on with your colleagues that want to get back to the office. Did you ever think maybe the isolation is getting to them? Not everyone copes the same way with being on their own 24/7. Also ever stop to think that maybe they are in an abusive relationship and getting to the office is their only saving grace? Please have a think about it before making comments about how they are going to ruin things for the rest of ye that are content to work from home.

Equally, why don’t *you* stop to think that there might be people working from home who are terrified of being forced back into an office environment as they’re protecting a loved one by having far less contact with people than normal. Or people whose anxiety is through the roof at the thoughts of being pushed back into an office setting. Or those who have always found the daily ‘banter’ and interaction with others a bit of a stress, and are thriving working from home. Or people whose family life and relationships has improved through less commuting time, and more interactive family time. Or those who can’t drive and would worry about getting public transport. Or those who were being bullied at work and and grateful for a bit of distance working from home.

Works both ways kiddo.

[Deleted User]

qwerty13 wrote: »

Equally, why don’t *you* stop to think that there might be people working from home who are terrified of being forced back into an office environment as they’re protecting a loved one by having far less contact with people than normal. Or people whose anxiety is through the roof at the thoughts of being pushed back into an office setting. Or those who have always found the daily ‘banter’ and interaction with others a bit of a stress, and are thriving working from home. Or people whose family life and relationships has improved through less commuting time, and more interactive family time. Or those who can’t drive and would worry about getting public transport. Or those who were being bullied at work and and grateful for a bit of distance working from home.

Works both ways kiddo.

Kiddo? Seriously there is zero need to be patronising. You are coming across as incredibly self entitled in your posts . Like I said everyone's situation is different but you do not get to say that people who want back to offices are ruining it for everyone else. By your logic you ruining it for them by wanting to stay at home.

qwerty13

My point was that we can both come up with outliers of extremes as to why people want to work from the office, or at home. I just quoted the wfh outliers right back at you. Your list of outliers doesn’t give you some sort of moral high ground, and neither does mine.

From my workplace, over 90% have in an anonymous staff survey said that they want to continue to working from home, acknowledging that their presence may be required for training, occasional meetings etc. Some people have said they’d like the option to do 1 to 2 days a week max, when we come out the other side of the pandemic.

My issue is that where I work, there’s a lot noise coming from a very small number of people about preferring to be back 5 days a week in an office when we get through Covid times (and they don’t just mean “when it’s declared over”. This stuff started in the summer). Sure we can both quote outliers for either scenario, but the small % are rattling cages about it at the moment, and my friends and I are really hoping that it’s not going to get to a situation where flexibility gets eroded, and we’re all back to a long commute and the rest 5 days a week, ie losing the gains in a flexible wfh culture that would have taken years if not a decade more to achieve.

Antares35

Littlefinger wrote: »

You know this is probably one of the most selfish things I have heard. You have no idea what is going on with your colleagues that want to get back to the office. Did you ever think maybe the isolation is getting to them? Not everyone copes the same way with being on their own 24/7. Also ever stop to think that maybe they are in an abusive relationship and getting to the office is their only saving grace? Please have a think about it before making comments about how they are going to ruin things for the rest of ye that are content to work from home.

While I agree the post could have been worded better, I personally know people who just have nothing going on at home and miss the incessant gossip and idle chit chat, something which reduced my own productivity at times when I had to listen to it.

Are we all meant to trudge back to the dreary, insane commute which for some people represents an extra working day per week, in case other people are suffering domestic abuse?

Ever stop to think that families, especially those with the responsibility of young children, are actually better off because they have some semblance of a life and work/ life balance now? Are we meant to go back to dumping our kids in crèche ten hours a day because other people need a distraction?

Mrs OBumble

Antares35 wrote: »

Ever stop to think that families, especially those with the responsibility of young children, are actually better off because they have some semblance of a life and work/ life balance now? Are we meant to go back to dumping our kids in crèche ten hours a day because other people need a distraction?

It sounds like you need to find a job which is a better fit for your lifestyle.

Even if you're WFH, your kids need to be in creche, or in the care of another adult, while you are working. You may have gotten away with not doing this during the public health emergency, but companies are not going to allow you to be distracted during the working day in normal circumstances.

Antares35

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

It sounds like you need to find a job which is a better fit for your lifestyle.

Even if you're WFH, your kids need to be in creche, or in the care of another adult, while you are working. You may have gotten away with not doing this during the public health emergency, but companies are not going to allow you to be distracted during the working day in normal circumstances.

Excuse you, who do you think you are telling me what I "got away with" during the pandemic? Not that it's any of your business, I was on maternity leave, so I "got away" with having my baby and looking after her. Now we are both back working and we manage quite well with our childcare arrangements and our jobs. And I know quite well what my company will allow people away with when it comes to working from home because I wrote the working from home policy. You think just because I'm not throwing my child into crèche at 8am and collecting her at 6pm and sitting in traffic for ninety minutes each end of that run, that I'm slacking? Maybe you need to change jobs if you think that's normal.

qwerty13

Antares35 wrote: »

While I agree the post could have been worded better, I personally know people who just have nothing going on at home and miss the incessant gossip and idle chit chat, something which reduced my own productivity at times when I had to listen to it.

Are we all meant to trudge back to the dreary, insane commute which for some people represents an extra working day per week, in case other people are suffering domestic abuse?

Ever stop to think that families, especially those with the responsibility of young children, are actually better off because they have some semblance of a life and work/ life balance now? Are we meant to go back to dumping our kids in crèche ten hours a day because other people need a distraction?

This. So much this.

I shouldn’t have said that I wished the people campaigning for a return to the office would shut up. I should have expressed myself better.

However! When you have 92.7% (I checked) in my workplace saying that they want to continue wfh as their primary location, and a small but v noisy % going on about the company paying for refitting their box room, refusing existing office chairs being shipped to them and demanding newer high spec ones, complaining about the ergonomics of their kitchen table ... and you can just feel the bristling at that from HR / management on group calls. We in my workplace just have a bad feeling that management are going to turn around and say right then, everyone back in the building when it’s remotely safe to do so, because the small % are causing so many issues / “concerns”.

And then 92.7% of our workplace have lost out, as we want to wfh, albeit with a sacrifice of a not ideal office type setup. In my particular job, no one absolutely must be in the premises to deliver services. And that’s why the very noisy 7.3% are jeopardising it for everyone else: they want perfection wfh, whereas the rest of us are delighted to have wfh which we’d asked for for years, and we don’t want to give it up. The 92.7% are willing to compromise, as the view seems to be that overall, our quality of life and work/life balance is better. My issue is with the 7.3% who either want perfection from a wfh environment, or else they want full time back to the office.

I fully acknowledge that some people find it dreadfully isolating wfh. But it has to be equally acknowledged that some people hated being in an office environment, and found it cliquey, exclusionary or bullying.

beauf

qwerty13 wrote: »

....But it has to be equally acknowledged that some people hated being in an office environment, and found it cliquey, exclusionary or bullying.

You seem to be suggesting they'd prefer to keep the 7%...

qwerty13

beauf wrote: »

You seem to be suggesting they'd prefer to keep the 7%...

Eh?

beauf

You seem to be suggesting they will listen to the 7% and ignore the rest.

Therefore the 7% opinion (and people) are worth more than the other 93%. We can infer they don't care if they leave if WFH is withdrawn.

qwerty13

I’m saying that there’s a proportion of the 7% who are very noisy, and want it all: perfection in wfh setup, or else they want full time in the office.

Not sure what you mean about leaving.

beauf

If they go with their minority opinion (which is what you are suggesting) then they are more important.

qwerty13

Oh what I was trying to say is that there’s a very noisy small % in my workplace who seem to want utter perfection wfh, and if they can’t have that, then they want to be back 5/5 days in the office.

It’s not that I think they (the 7%) are MVP, they are just really bloody noisy about wanting perfection wfh. Whereas the 93% are pretty much hoping that no one rocks the boat or ruins it, cos it has been at least quite good for most of us. I’ve saved 2.5 hours per day commuting. And people with kids tell me how it’s not necessarily easy, but they’ve got into a tag team of hours/routine that saved on costs, and how they get to see their kids more.

I really do think the unprecedented acceleration of employers accepting wfh is a huge boon. And I guess me, and a huge proportion of my colleagues, want to keep that going.

Our feeling in my workplace is that they still have full office space - so if things really kick off with the 7%, that our employer will just think feck this, it’s not worth the hassle - so everyone back to the office. And in so doing 93% of our work populace will lose out. So that’s why I feel very strongly about it.

beauf

qwerty13 wrote: »

....so if things really kick off with the 7%, that our employer will just think feck this, it’s not worth the hassle - so everyone back to the office.

Makes no sense. Just pointing that out.

qwerty13

beauf wrote: »

Makes no sense. Just pointing that out.

??? Of course it does!

If my employer feels that they have to tailor their working practices to multiple groups of people, with varying expectations, and deal with hassle from those that disagree ... then they’ll just revert to the system of old: a 5 days a week gig in the office (the building that my employer is still contracted to pay for anyway)

I’m not trying to fight with you, but how can you not see this?

Mrs OBumble

qwerty13 wrote: »

.... some people hated being in an office environment, and found it cliquey, exclusionary or bullying.

If the people you work with are like this then their behaviour during WFH is likely to be similar. The only difference is that you have no idea that they are having private zoom calls to discuss issues behind your back, for example, because you cannot see their behaviour.

qwerty13

@MrsOBumble: I don’t (thankfully!) have that issue, in an office building or from home.

My comments arose from a poster quoting various worst case scenarios of how people might be feeling re wanting to get back to the office, and I was trying to illustrate that there’s equally worst case scenarios possible if someone had to be physically in an office.

beauf

qwerty13 wrote: »

??? Of course it does!

If my employer feels that they have to tailor their working practices to multiple groups of people, with varying expectations, and deal with hassle from those that disagree ... then they’ll just revert to the system of old: a 5 days a week gig in the office (the building that my employer is still contracted to pay for anyway)

I’m not trying to fight with you, but how can you not see this?

Your theory is that they'd prefer to have hassle of 93% complaining than 7% complaining.

It won't come down to staffs opinions anyway. It's not a democracy. I assume.