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

Not much in this world is sensible. Unfortunately.

No idea, sorry. Everyone in my organisation has access to blended working, if they want it. I know it can be refused if you're in a role that requires a physical presence, or is otherwise customer facing, e.g., where there's a public office. Best check with Fórsa or AHCPS.

There are lots of people working from home looking after kids. I know someome being paid for wfm and not only does she look after 2 kids of her own but she looks after 2 kids for her sister too. No law against it and why not, it save her sister a fortune.

Alternatively we can not engage with someone who has already been banned from one such thread.

Trolls. Don't feed 'em!

Employers who do blended and WFH should have a fairly solid process in place in relation to office ergonomics checks on employees work locations and on fairness any responsible person should be taking great interest and care in hour their desk/chair etc is setup.

Was on a Teams meeting recently where one of the participants was on a treadmill while in the meeting.

Nothing wrong with it so long as the job was getting done.

It all depends on the role.

If you spent your time in 2019 travelling to various meetings or sitting in the boardrooms of your company, it doesn't matter now because you are connecting on Teams for those situations.

If you spent your time in 2019 visiting customers, nothing much may have changed, except for those customers who accept virtual visits.

If you spent all your time in 2019 dealing at the coalface with people (teacher, nurse, sales assistant, etc.) then you are back to where you were.

It would blow your mind if you knew what I get away with.

I pop out to get haircuts around 10am when it's quiet and work the time back through my lunch.

I step out for any appointments or shopping in the morning and work through my lunch.

If I don't have any meetings I step out for 15 minutes for the school run and work a bit later in the evening.

This is all agreed with my manager and when a favour is needed such as a very late meeting,I have no bother logging on because of the way I am treated.

Imagine two adults making life easier for each other while getting the expected work done each week.

I know your story is made up, but if someone is working and minding four kids then that company has far bigger problems then their work from home policy.

bit wild to be on it during a meeting haha

Yes I agree where you can both be adults and make life easier for you and your manager.

I would do anything at all my manager asks, where other managers I wouldn't go above what I need to do.

My manager preferred when I was fully remote because I get more done, obviously nothing can be done when higher ups want people in two days a week.

Ideally it would be up to the manager to decide if the employee works better at home or in the office.

Although if I got moved to a manager who needs to look at you in person to track your work, then I would probably think differently.

Hybrid model is the only way forward. Employers can't implement a full back to the office scenario or would be foolish to do so.

Currently employees are working from home sick ,when kids are sick and obviously when there are storms. If employers aren't reasonable then employees will follow suit.

It certainly would not blow my mind to know what you get away with, as you call it. It would actually bore me to tears as it is everyday life for some people including some friends of mine, and is fair enough to all concerned. However I am more concerned with those who abuse the system for whatever reason, be it other distractions such as looking after kids, addictions to social media, alcohol, gambling or whatever, other chores, plain old laziness or lack of motivation or whatever. In the real world there are people of all types, not just people of your high calibre or the perfectly high calibre of most of the posters here it seems.

Hushed hybrid is definitely a thing, its going on wholesale in my work place anyway. About a year go we had a directive from C-level (based in the US) that everyone in the company must return to the office 5 days per week except those with remote or hybrid contracts which is probably close to 30% of the workforce. So this RTO immediately went down like a lead ballon as you could have two colleagues doing the same job but one has hybrid in their contract and the other doesn't.

I have continued to do my two days from home all through and I would say this "hushed hybrid" term fits well to describe it. It's not allowed but its not being enforced by my manager as he is rarely onsite himself and isn't really in agreement with the RTO anyway. I also allow the team I manage to WFH when they want to and I know this is also happening in other teams - there is a very small number of "by the book" managers enforcing it also though and this has already resulted in people leaving. There is very little talk about it from high level management either for the last few months - I think they know it's gone down very badly and while they haven't change the policy not sure they are makign a lot of noise about enforcing it either.

I don't know to be honest, as I said there has been little noise about it for months now. There was loads of pushing at the start (which is coming up on a year ago) and another big push over the summer but it's been all quiet for some time now. Why I don't know, there was massive push back on it for sure and as I said people leaving over it so whether its been quietly dropped or just being left on managers to enforce it without any more high level noise I don't know.

I should add I am in a fairly senior role and my manager would be near the top of the Irish side of the business so its not that this is just a thing going on at junior or mid management level. It really depends on the site you are on and if the most senior people on that site are watching for it or not.

Alot of the full time return to offices is being pushed in the US Multinationals from the US side and management in Ireland is afraid to rock the boat given the current uncertainty with Trump being elected. The government here had a great opportunity during covid to introduce legislation to allow some form of hybrid working laws but we are too reliant on the USMNCs and corporate tax to allow any risk of these companies upping sticks and moving to some other locations. While it important for companies to have people in offices for a few days a week its bonkers to have people commuting to offices 5 days. If there was legislation that you can avail of 2 days per week WFH it would solve alot of problem e.g help reduce the housing\high rents in Dublin, rejuvenate rural towns\villages as commuting to cities 2/3 days would be manageable. Also it may allow for families to have more children and reduce child care costs. The benefits are huge yet many companies are back to the pre covid arrangements only now their employees are more disgruntled.