Working From Home Megathread

stateofflux wrote: »

As much as remote working is the hot topic & is suiting some people with long commutes etc, the government 'right to request' announcement means nothing really. Only Lip service.

The only constant is supply and demand. I can't see anything changing unless it suits the companies bottom line, or the employees are in a union.

If enough companies do offer WFH then employees will probably find it easier to just leave and go somewhere else than bring a case to WRC.

If a company struggles to hold on to staff they might change their tune. Supply & demand indeed.

Ahhh Zoom quizzes, they were great craic...
for the first 2 weeks.

H8GHOTI wrote: »

What about the other 70%? Well-being stayed the same or improved?

Nice - just throw 30% of your colleagues under a bus without a care. It's not a zero sum game, where the 30% having difficulties are balanced out. If 30% of your employees are having difficulties, that's a problem.

Deleted User wrote: »

I don't know what your department is doing, but in mine we still have to use the online flexi clock and clock in and out, morning, lunch and evening, so all of the above is recorded and tracked in exactly the same way as it was pre-covid.

The only exception is "other breaks" - which I assume you mean the morning 15 minute break, which was never formally recorded even pre-covid - not in my current dept or any government dept I've ever worked in.

Clocking doesn't apply to all grades or all posts.

namloc1980 wrote: »

They could do that in the office just as well.

Does you manager stand over you when you eat your sandwich at lunchtime, you know, to monitor your break? Very weird thinking in this thread. I'd absolutely hate to work where you guys do as everything appears to be monitored. Horrible work environment.

A decent manager doesn't need to stand over you eating your sandwich to recognise a problem. A decent manager will notice if he's seeing you in the canteen for long lunches on a regular basis, and THEN can make a decision to monitor things a little closely. He won't be able to do that when you're WFH.

Bambi wrote: »

I assume you've seen this "but sure your man..." scenario play out in the WRC?

Nah course, you havent.

The level of theoretical contortionism going on here is fairly impressive.

No, not at the WRC - but I've seen these scenarios play out in HR departments that avoided issues going to the WRC with good records and good line management.

RacoonQueen wrote: »

Depends on your role and what sort of day to day interaction you have with your manager. I could see one of my guys was taking a long time to get through some work, taking a long time to respond to me, showing as 'away' a lot on teams and it was coming up for long periods as away. In their role there would be no reason for them to ever be away from their PC for long enough for it to show away for more than their lunch hour time. So I monitored closer, identified there was definitely a problem and tackled it.
There is no role in our company that isn't producing 'something' that can be monitored, regardless a good manager should know if there is a problem with productivity or not.

Teams goes 'away' pretty quickly. Like getting a cup of tea, answering the door, talking to your coworker (spouse), going to the bathroom, reading a document while not touching the mouse, getting some water, thinking, stretching, phone call, eating a snack, looking after a pet, looking after a child, helping them with their schoolwork, cooking their lunch, getting them a snack

Shawn Sparse Sunstroke wrote: »

A decent manager will notice whether or not a staff member is delivering their work, on time to the required standard. That should be all that matters.
If the only way a manager realises there's a problem is by noting how long someone spends eating their lunch then they need to review their management skills.

The Working Time legislation disagrees with you about what matters.

Deleted User wrote: »

And they never did, even before Covid happened. This is not a change in practice.

We've been down this road before, Andrew. You're problem with working from home is not even a little bit altruistic, even though you try to dress it up as such.

You posted on another thread back in November complaining about how WFH doesn't suit you have to use your spare room as an office and now have no where to go to sulk after a row with your missus, and you'd gained 7kgs due to having all day access to your fridge.

Do yourself a favour, and as I advised you in that thread, request a transfer to a role that requires physical attendance in an office, and let the rest of us get on with WFH in peace.

When this is all over, there will always be roles that will need to be done from a physical office. I'm sure something will be found for you, and anyone else who wants those roles. Knock yourself out.

I've never claimed to be altruistic, but it is obvious that you and others are quite happy to throw 30% or more of your colleagues under the bus just so you can avoid your commutes. Unfortunately, you don't seem to have picked up the point that it's not a zero sum game. My getting back to the office does not require you getting back to the office.

Let me try that again: My getting back to the office does not require you getting back to the office.

beauf wrote: »

I don't find MS Teams status that reliable. Often doesn't switch back to available.

Does no one else have team meetings with task lists and where schedules and tasks completed. Does it not become obvious to the whole team if someone on the team isn't hitting any deadlines.

Also we aren't in normal times. If anyone has kids, or other commitments they might not be able to keep to a regular schedule. Or simply a busy house if they are sharing and there's a bunch of people working off the same kitchen table. Life is not simple for many people

Somebody told me that if you put your optical mouse on a mirror it keeps you 'active' though I haven't tried it yet.

a_squirrelman wrote: »

No need for mirrors. Mousejiggle software will sort out your problems.

Nice idea, but who has admin rights to install software on their work machine?

a_squirrelman wrote: »

I guess the MNC I work for is doing something wrong. I better uninstall Zwift before I get sacked.

For many companies, especially those that store customer data, security is priority no.1 as their reputation is at stake if something goes wrong and reputation is money.
Where I work you cannot even download .exe file, let alone install it and all USB ports are locked except for things like a transmitter for your wireless mouse etc.
:rolleyes:

I need to get myself a decent quality chair.

I would spend 12hrs at my desk but the kitchen chair isn't working for me!

I'm all for giving people the choice, if they are in a role that can facilitate full WFH or partial WFH, however there are still no dout many challenges with it - some of these are caused by Covid, and others are longer term challanges. The challenges would differ from person to person, and role to role, as well as what point one was in in their career.

I do think it is really difficult to spin up a new employee remotely - no matter that job/role they are in. In a non covid world, there would be an opportunity to get that person on site for a portion of the time.
It's also much more difficult for remote folks to play the game, get to know people, senior people and make a greater impression that may not be directly "work" related.

Now there are answers to these challenges and lot of 100 percent remote companies manage to resolve these issues, although granted their whole culture is based around remote work.

The points raised above are true in that a lot of the mental and physicl healt issues that some WFH people are experiences are probably moreso related to the Covid context and not necessarily reflective of the possible WFH environment in future.

It has been a great eyeopener for many (in as great as it can be in context) but there are obviously many jobs that aren't appropriate for WFH (far less than people thought a year ago mind) but that may suit those that don't like the whole WFH concept in the first instance.

In a tech role since the trun of the millenium and a portion of my workload has always been WFH or indeed out of hours WFH in some cases. Some roles had more or else of it.
I am in a slightly different role now, that many would have said was impossible to do in a WFH context, but here we are almost a year later, still being as productive, granted my background in tech and previous WFH has made the transition relatively smooth.
However when the opportunity arises I have no doubt the organisation I am in will ask that we come back into the office full time to do our jobs. The culture is that way, and won't change for a while.
Personally for me, for the role itself, I would prefer some time in the office, at least 3 days a week, with the ability for at least 1 day to be WFH - but its not a deal breaker for me either.

There are many interesting outcomes from this that will take a while to play out. WFH has some major positives for a few different areas but some major negatives in not so obvious areas too, if continued on the scale that is it currently.