WFH is dead and buried. Right to WFH bill is pointless

More arse waffle from a remote working lobby group who are trying to justify their existence.

The only thing the next programme for Government has committed to in terms of remote work is improving rural broadband. A project which started almost 10 years ago with the national broadband plan. So essentially there's no movement in terms of promoting wfh.

I find online meetings much better, I’ve grown to dislike in person meetings in general but the fact is even when I and others are in the office it’s very rarely we don’t just do our meetings online at our desks as there is always people remote or on other sites joining anyway. You can also work away on other stuff rather than lose an hour if there are parts of the meeting not really relevant to you.

Top management did try a push to get people “into meeting rooms” as part of (failing) RTO mandates but most just ignore it and take calls at their desks.

I don’t think it would be unreasonable for the client who is defacto employing the person to justify the need for him being in the office full time. Given the details and that he was dealing with sites in other time zones I would have major doubts over his need to be in the office. He was likely sitting there on video calls to South America.

OK, well that is where you are clearly ill informed.

Telnet - a terminal emulator used to connect to remote systems, released 1973.

indeed it’s as old as the hills. When my mother started back working in the 80s she literally took the companies books home to work on them. It’s a different ball game when you’re dealing with something that potentially every employee in a company can avail of though.

Legislation in employers' favour but 'claims of death of remote work are premature'

https://www.breakingnews.ie/business/legislation-in-employers-favour-but-claims-of-death-of-remote-work-are-premature-1719142.html

Sorry I meant who said anything about my requests being ad hoc as opposed to anything else. And my point was that during full WFH in Covid, we saw our audit cycle times increase massively whereas with a hybrid, they're a bit longer than previously but an acceptable level that suits everyone. So WFH works for us but not a full WFH - a hybrid solution.

I love when people explain how I should do my job to me when I've been doing it for over 10 years successfully. I do follow up on requests, my point was around the fact that, unlike external audit which has statutory deadlines, internal does not. And the business needs trump our audit needs sometimes so there will often be wait times. That's ok. I factor those in. I don't go nuclear by cracking down as ultimately that gets the team a bad rep as a police force as opposed to a business partner which we are. So it's a fine line you have to walk. And if it's not a WFH problem then please explain the massive increase in audit cycle times during full WFH in Covid versus before (when no one really did WFH) or after when it's a hybrid model? There has been minimal change in the employees that are being dealt with. That's the only change factor. On site audits for us are a couple of days most to get the meeting parts done with everything else then followed up online after. It's a hybrid solution that works but the face to face time does matter.

I get that works for you. Any of the in-person meetings I have or arrange, I try to make sure that there is no one remote on them so that it doesn't defeat the purpose. I often will travel to the offices of the people I meet (all within a 25 min drive from mine). And honestly, I would hate if people were working on something else when they're meant to be in a meeting. Personally I find it a bit rude not to give the meeting your attention when you're on it. I get checking an email if it comes in or looking up something relevant to the meeting, but just continuing to work? Nah.

Thanks for that. And sorry for being snippy - I find a lot of people think they know how my job operates because they know external audit which is vastly different.

We have an overall deadline, some internal ones & a couple of hard ones due to regulations but those are always done well in advance. We work around the business busy times to try to make sure we get the best co-operation. It's usually fine but was startling to see the increase in time when we were all WFH.

Oh I agree with that part completely - WFH definitely works best for some, some need to be in the office and most could probably do a hybrid. I don't like this all or nothing approach that some places are taking as that doesn't make sense for anyone really. Where I am, we can do 2 days a week WFH, there's a core day everyone is to be in the office (where they can with travel to other businesses etc) but ultimately the schedule is down to you & your team. I think that's a good way & I know senior management are very happy with how it's working.

Aside from meeting in small group of 1 or 2 people (usually specific ad hoc stuff) its pretty much impossible to get the wider team into a room any more than a few times per year. We have people in sites abroad, some fully remote, hybrid (myself included) and fully on-site. We also try to limit meetings on certain days (generally the days hybrid people are on site trying to get stuff done).

As for giving attention, its not every meeting you would do it but for example I am involved in regular department level updates to higher management where different parts of the business report their updates, issues on ongoing projects/developments. There is some cross over but in general what most others report is nothing to do with anything I work on but we still need to be on the calls which generally go on for up to 2 hours - it would be an awful waste of my time not to be working away in the background.

With respect you described the process, and like I said audits are not an uncommon process.

Also is not uncommon for some people needing to be put into a room to get them on task.

Not everyone needs that.

Obviously don't know what sector you work in but any dealings we have with internal audit, 99.9% of the time are done over recorded zoom calls and email in order to maintain that audit trail.

It would be very unusual for anyone in IA in our business to arrange in person meetings.