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

id agree its no good for someone to commute for 3.5 hours, but that doesnt mean its not better for a business to have people in an office environment.

eh read a few posts up 😉

Except that poster you referred to said otherwise.

My perspective is pretty similar, though I note that WFH takes more, not less, manager time to make it effective.

But people need to live within "reasonable distance": 3 weeks ago, a colleague's laptop developed a problem that needed to come on-site to fix. She was told to come in - but it would take minimum 4 hours to get there, by public transport from suburbs of Dublin to an industrial estate in Galway. IT even offered "well this is how you can connect with a personal laptop" but she doesn't have one (most homes don't any more). So there's 20% of the working week wasted.

Also, my observation is that the level of reading comprehension displayed by many WFH advocates is in fact a factor against their personal suitability for WFH.

Absolutely, outside of retail quite a high number of jobs that are unsuitable for WFH are shift work - factories, healthcare etc or teaching (which is done remotely also at 3rd level quite regularly but not for undergrads generally since covid ended).

Shift work gets a bad name but to be honest most people I know working shift wouldn't go back to working mon - friday 9 - 5 due to all the extra time off they get and mid-week time off also. Shifts are longer but you are only working 3 or 4 days a week and then have 4 of 5 days off in many factories. Healthcare generally are 3 or 4 days every 7 also and teaching you have the significant additional holidays.

Remote places manage fine, you just get a laptop couriered rapidly to her next day shouldn't be an issue. Even if not living too far away probably half the day is lost going in and out anyway. My brother is fully remote project manager and his laptop failed a few months ago, he had the new one the next morning - obviously not perfect but far from the end of the world to manage for an afternoon using teams and email on his phone.

I don't think it takes any more managers time either, managers should have their own work for doing not spending it monitring their day to day workers - I managed a team in my previous role and it made no different to me managing them the days I/they were on site or remote. What forced RTO did is p@ss them all off though and overall producitivy (including my own) decreased due to people no longer willing to push as hard, work a few extra hours etc and in generally motivation dropped. People were working to rule essentially.

I am now almost fully remote in my new role (on average less than a day per week), I have one meeting with my manager per week done online and that's the bulk of my interaction with her aside from a few emails.

"around 94% of households in 2024"

That's internet access, and households. Most people have it on a phone or tablet, which is sh*t for working on an app designed for a 15" screen + a keyboard to type casenotes on. And one student in a household having a laptop for study is no use to their parents for work.

I'm in team that provisions "stuff" for a company of about 100 professionals / allied-professionals in social-care, financial and legal-type roles. Most have been working 10+ years (ie not fresh out of college). In the cohort we hire from, having internet in the house is guaranteed. But a working PC or laptop is now rare, Even 5 years ago, it wasn't. But it is now. (It's likely to be different among boards users from the general population).

People are expected to be in-office 3 days a week. We don't discriminate on address (IMHO we should on environmental grounds, but that's another story). Except that you must have an address in Ireland or NI (Revenue require it). So yes, some people live in Dublin and stay with family or friends for a couple of nights a week.

With 100 people, computer issues are more like 1 a month than 1 a week. But they happen with with a population like this (again, possibly more than with boards user types of people). Company policy is not to courier for breakdowns, because, hey, you're expected to be in 3/5 anyway. Which is fine for people who live in reasonable distance and can adapt their in-days easily.

Of course one of you will come back with a claim that this is all made up. I won't bother answering: I've got zero incentive to make stuff up. And I do have significant real-world experience in managing these issues, unlike some posters here.

I do not think that hybrid is great: I acknowledge that it suits some, and is a recruitment tool. Its best feature is that it makes business continuity delivery a lot more robust. But it still comes with significant risks, and takes a lot of management.

We have a citrix desktop - but its no *** use when a person can't get into it because of a conflict between the latest CAW and a person's machine.

Don't know where you dreamed up the two day productivity hit. If a person cannot get in one day, they can the next day.

As as the first computer was invented someone spilt a coffee on it, dropped and smashed it, had it stolen from the car. It's normal to have to fix or replace them..

My relative would absolutely not do any paid work on their own device, (A) there could be legal issues with doing this, (B) work is work and home is home.