Being forced to move back to dublin to work from the office 4 out of 5 days.

So the company wanted people to come in for at least one day a week.

You and others ignored that extremely reasonable request.

They are now taking a stricter line, most likely due to the non adhering to the previous policy.

The issue seems to be in the mirror.

Happening in a lot of places certainly.

Pity they don't spend as much time on productivity metrics as they do on presenteesim.

But you have to work with the system you're given.

Have to agree though with others though that if the corporate will is to get people back on the office playing the discrimination card will not a be a good long term play.

Positive discrimination is not illegal, only the negative discrimination is. Don't be jealous ;) In your case, it doesn't effect you that someone else in the company can work home more days. That's none of your business and just the heads up that you shouldn't discuss it with anyone within the company as it's unethical. Your work place is as stated in the contract. If you don't agree with that, you should consider changing the employer to something closer to your home place, or move closer to your work 😉

Obsessively focused on things that have nothing to do with productivity says all you need to know.

Trade unions are bad for our economy. Employees should work more and complain less. If an employer expects the employees to work in office, so that's what they should do, but instead they are being nosy and gossiping around about who has exceptions, even though it has nothing to do with them directly. If they don't like the request, it's time to look for another job.

If the union gets the employees access to better terms and conditions it has everything to do with them.

That's true and appreciated. But it's way too often when I see unions being too greedy in regards to wanting more weight and power. It has to be a healthy balance. I have little respect to unions as they make feel employees immune from being let go, even if it would themselves at fault of something... This makes a company which should focus to making business, partly a social club trying to accommodate everyone and being way too cautious about everyone's feelings trying to keep relationships between the employees and the employer good. This makes employees lazy and too sensitive, instead of focusing to work, efficiency and improvement.

Does this actually happen, or are we talking about 1980s stereotypes from UK sitcoms? I'm not aware of any situations were unions have developed an immunity for staff from being fired. What kinds of organisations do you this happening in?

Ha, ha. I've you'd ever done any actual productivity measurement you'd know that it's far from simple.

The company has developed a KPI which gives credit for correctly working out leads/cases that will never show a profit and closing them fast, and credit for effectively resolving the very profitable ones, even though they can have some big legislative delays which look unproductive. They believe it's the best performance measure they've ever had . I don't really understand all the calculations behind it - and neither do the case-handlers, which is causing some problems in applying it.

Ironically, they've also found that % of assigned cases with an update each day gives a close-enough proxy for the fancy KPI. This is absolutely activity, not productivity - but it's quick to calculate, and transparent Leads to some interesting discussions.

I know a place that have enforced working from the office, a group of them got together and all of a sudden productivity took a nose dive, but on the odd days folks were permitted to work from home they were like 200% more productive...so now it's between 2-5 days a month in the office for the majority...

OP how often did you do the 1 day a week in the office or did you ignore it completely since it was brought in? We have a specific day they want everyone in on as it's easier to do any group meetings & to try to get some company culture back after so long with everyone remote. There's a recognition that that day isn't always possible for everyone (I do meetings in other offices for example so won't always be able to be in my home office), however they want you there more than not. At first it was only that day that you had to come in but now we have a 3 in the office, 2 at home policy. Some have negotiated other arrangements with their managers but that is on an ad hoc basis if their managers are willing.

Look it was a gamble to move so far away from your office in the hope you could work permanent from home but realistically you should have maybe had that conversation with management before this came in. There's someone in my Dublin office who moved a good distance away during Covid (back to family area with their own family) but at the time of moving, had a discussion with their manager about what the setup would be when normal office work resumed. They do 2 days max in the office now but that was sorted long before everyone came back.

Lots of us have retained WFH and I intend to keep it that way.

There are plenty of companies offering hybrid or fully remote work. If my company tried to force us back into the office I'd leave and get work elsewhere - so would many of my colleagues.

Maybe if you and your colleagues hadn't rolled over you might be enjoying a similar level of flexibility.

Because..almost every job that it was ever possible with during the pandemic has accomodated the concept and allowed a blended approach. Nearly everyone assumed that this would happen, with full office time or wfh time most unlikely. Which is exactly what happened. So maybe that's why?