Amazon WFH Policy

Very true, but because you can't discriminate against people WFH with kids at home, you need to have everyone in the office to avoid folks working from home with kids present.

That's not the fault of the employers though, they don't make the laws.

Thats my point. Not all roles or businesses operate the same way, so there is never a single solution that will be appropriate to every case.

Some businesses will always require staff to be in the office and some will not.

Think you might be underestimating the value of good sales people.

It can, but the contract is usually role based.

If you have 2 people doing the same job, they are likley to have the same contract, regardless of whether they have small kids or not.

You couldn't allow the person that doesn't have kids to WFH and tell the other person that does have kids that they need to be in the office 5 days a week, when they both have the same job role.

In this situation, the employer is likley to have both of them in the office, if they feel the employee with small kids isn't as productive when WFH.

I think turning down promotions or putting efforts into arguing retaining remote/hybrid work rather than chasing pay rises is common these days. I would fall into this category - overdue a pay rise but not wanting to give them the excuse to say “come in 5 days and you can have the pay rise” or similar.

The dell situation was a good example of this:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/06/nearly-half-of-dells-workforce-refused-to-return-to-the-office/

To summarise, to get people back from fully remote to hybrid dell said anyone opting to remain fully remote would exclude themselves from being considered for promotions or applying for new internal roles. The result was almost 50% of people said fine, we will forgo the promotions to remain fully remote. Remember this was not even a full RTO mandate just come in 39 days a quarter which would be likely be a 2 or 3 days a week for most which wasn’t even unreasonable in my opinion given the 5 day RTO mandates elsewhere.

I find it funny.

People who worked in office before the pandemic are making so many excuses in relation to not wanting to return to the office.

Kpi's etc are irrelevant.

If you are told to return to the office, you will be returning to the office like before.

It's not your call. It your employers.

If you don't agree with the companies policy then try another company.

My company has a 3 days in the office, 2 days wfh policy. They have said that this isn't changing anytime soon in either direction. Now if someone has a particular need to wfh more often, they can come to an agreement with their manager but that's on an individual by individual basis. I think there's only a couple of people who have that.

We also have it in our contracts that we cannot be responsible for the care of any dependent (child or adult) during our wfh periods so can't use it as childcare. My son is in senior infants so he goes to an afterschool. On the odd day where he's sick, or afterschool is closed for some reason, I have collected him & looked after him. My boss has been aware. Personally I don't know how you coud do that full time as neither work nor my child is getting the best from me. I can understand with older children in the latter part of primary school might be ok as they somewhat look after themselves.

And yes on my wfh days, I do put on the laundry, clean the kitchen etc. I do it while I'm waiting for the kettle to boil or while I'm taking my lunch. If I was in the office, I'd still be taking that tea break & lunch but I wouldn't be as productive during them.

I could never go back to 5 days a week wfh as I think I'd go insane. I also don't think I could always do 5 days in the office but if that what was mandated, I'd look at it. I don't have a crazy commute though so that does make a difference.

Personally, 5 days in the office doesn't suit me for a host of reasons and I really, really don't want to do it. I'm not sure where I'm more productive if I'm honest but I do believe that managers should be managing outputs rather than attendance.

However, it's my employer's call. They are within their rights to ask me to come back in 5 days whatever I think about it.

execs and senior management are at risk all will be left are the all powerful AI developers, until if course AI doesnt need you any more either 😉

By that time AI won't need humans at all.