Is this the end of WFH?

[Deleted member 29109]

So the fun and games are starting.

Emails from admin asking for people to confirm whereabouts and daily diaries being required with an hourly breakdown.

Shorty followed by on of our contact guys handing in their notice and one of my team telling me they will be looking for another job.

Great first hour of the week ?

 

[road2ruin]

Emails from admin asking for people to confirm whereabouts and daily diaries being required with an hourly breakdown.

Such a ridiculous attitude to have. Either trust your staff and have them working from home or don't and have them all come into the office. It's easy enough to see who isn't pulling their weight WFH without asking everyone to fill in time sheets etc. You're just going to alienate those who probably are working just as hard and now having their attitude queried.

 

[Deleted member 29109]

Such a ridiculous attitude to have. Either trust your staff and have them working from home or do and have them all come into the office. It's easy enough to see who isn't pulling their weight WFH without asking everyone to fill in time sheets etc. You're just going to alienate those who probably are working just as hard and now having their attitude queried.

And this is exactly the response we are getting.

 

[Beezerk]

Re the mention about council workers a few pages back.
I wonder if their sickness rates have been reduced drastically throughout the WFH times or if it has stayed woefully high ?

 

[Mudball]

We have a compulsory office based training day on the first friday of the month. it is the only way we see each other nowadays.

This Friday, i went into office and spent 5 hours on Team calls with various clients and external people. Glad that lunch was provided though i spent about 15 quid worth of Diesel to get it..

 

[IanM]

Poor leaders continually find new ways to be rubbish!

 

[Springveldt]

I'm still WFH with no intentions of going back to the office. Like a lot of others my company only took out 70% of the floor space when the lease expired and now we have hybrid working and can go in whenever we want.

Since I'm a software engineer I don't really have a need to go into the office. There is only 1 other guy on my current team there the rest are in London, Amsterdam and Hamburg.

There are still other software engineers in the office (who also all WFH) but the teams got shuffled during covid. We did talk about going back in one Friday every month just to meet up and have our old pub lunches again. Even then, I still speak to the same guys I always did in the office but just over Google Meet almost daily and still play golf with my direct manager twice a week.

 

[Mudball]

The downside of WFH...
.. I have a big Sales meet coming up in the US. Under normal circumstances, we would have flown down. Met the client, presented, get p*ssed, stay the weekend and sneaky round of golf, collected airline miles, some duty free shopping.

now all of that will be rolled into a Zoom call in my PJ and a Jacket. What is there to like about WFH.

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

So the fun and games are starting.

Emails from admin asking for people to confirm whereabouts and daily diaries being required with an hourly breakdown.

Shorty followed by on of our contact guys handing in their notice and one of my team telling me they will be looking for another job.

Great first hour of the week ?

German workers councils wouldn’t entertain a bosses idea of close, almost minute-by-minute, monitoring of whereabouts of staff - may still be the case that presence/status traffic lighting that such as MS Teams and Skype provides are a non-starter. Certainly used to be the case when some years ago I worked with some of our German teams. Now if only the UK had an effective equivalent…?

 

[IanM]

Not strictly true. We had this on our version of Lync at Airbus EADS as far back as 2011. It was approved by the workers councils in France and Germany without issue, once it was proved that they couldn't record time on pc data.

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

Not strictly true. We had this on our version of Lync at Airbus EADS as far back as 2011. It was approved by the workers councils in France and Germany without issue, once it was proved that they couldn't record time on pc data.

Ah right. Maybe it was just my companies German workers councils. But the basic concern such workers councils have seems then to be in respect of recording and hence monitoring and tracking an employees time active on a PC - which for many workers will be deemed to be indicative of their ‘active’ working time.

I certainly knew how to set my status appropriate to what I wanted to be doing when WFH. But bottom line was that my bosses trusted me to do what I had to do. I was never once asked why I was showing as Off-line; Away; or Do Not Disturb.

 

[Wilson]

I was in our London office yesterday, trains and tube much busier than when I've been in previously.

 

[IanM]

I was shocked how business focused the Workers Councils were when I went to work there. They were not opposed to productivity measurement systems as they could use improvements to negotiate pay rises and demonstrate where they were under resourced.

I was also amazed about their political stance on several issues too.

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

I was shocked how business focused the Workers Councils were when I went to work there. They were not opposed to productivity measurement systems as they could use improvements to negotiate pay rises and demonstrate where they were under resourced.

I was also amazed about their political stance on several issues too.

My experience of them was limited to struggling to get them to allow me to get German engineers working on a couple of public holidays…IIRC I failed.

 

[Mudball]

Ah right. Maybe it was just my companies German workers councils. But the basic concern such workers councils have seems then to be in respect of recording and hence monitoring and tracking an employees time active on a PC - which for many workers will be deemed to be indicative of their ‘active’ working time.

I certainly knew how to set my status appropriate to what I wanted to be doing when WFH. But bottom line was that my bosses trusted me to do what I had to do. I was never once asked why I was showing as Off-line; Away; or Do Not Disturb.

i think it comes down to what kind of job you do... Most of the German white collared cannot use pc data as they have to do other thigns. May be different if you are say a Crane Operator. I still cant see the timesheets our German teams provide

 

[Neilds]

I went into the office on Monday as part of our fortnightly trip in to say hello. Think i actually got less done during the day for the following reasons:
Getting a cup of tea took about 10-15 minutes (twice) as I had to queue at the coffee bar. At home takes 2-3 minutes each time.
Chatting with colleagues as part of the catch up. WFH have to make a conscious effort to Skype them but can talk at random times, about random things, face to face.
Toilets are further away so takes longer to go, and can get distracted for a chat on way.

Those who try to say WFH doesn't work/is for lazy people/etc need to measure how much work is done, not the hours people are woring

 

[Marshy77]

I went into the office on Monday as part of our fortnightly trip in to say hello. Think i actually got less done during the day for the following reasons:
Getting a cup of tea took about 10-15 minutes (twice) as I had to queue at the coffee bar. At home takes 2-3 minutes each time.
Chatting with colleagues as part of the catch up. WFH have to make a conscious effort to Skype them but can talk at random times, about random things, face to face.
Toilets are further away so takes longer to go, and can get distracted for a chat on way.

Those who try to say WFH doesn't work/is for lazy people/etc need to measure how much work is done, not the hours people are woring

Plus traveling time. I was in yesterday, mainly for us as a team to be together plus we have our weekly meeting. Our meetings over teams have been taking 30 minutes max, yesterday closer to 70 minutes.

I understand what people who don't/can't WFH say but do think this change of working/hybrid is definitely more productive from what I've experienced. Slackers will always find a way of slacking.

I definitely got less done yesterday than at home because of similar distractions you mention above.

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

Plus traveling time. I was in yesterday, mainly for us as a team to be together plus we have our weekly meeting. Our meetings over teams have been taking 30 minutes max, yesterday closer to 70 minutes.

I understand what people who don't/can't WFH say but do think this change of working/hybrid is definitely more productive from what I've experienced. Slackers will always find a way of slacking.

I definitely got less done yesterday than at home because of similar distractions you mention above.

For a while I was working on a critical project for the BBC at BBC Broadcast Centre top of Wood Lane in London and I had to be on site every day. It could easily take me 2hrs commute each way…I did it back then but these days if still working - no thankyou.

 

[Springveldt]

My experience of them was limited to struggling to get them to allow me to get German engineers working on a couple of public holidays…IIRC I failed.

It's the same with my team colleagues in Hamburg. They complain about UK operations raising issues on a Sunday and wanting them fixed that day when they said they are only allowed to work 4 Sunday's per year by law. Kinda blew my mind.

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

It's the same with my team colleagues in Hamburg. They complain about UK operations raising issues on a Sunday and wanting them fixed that day when they said they are only allowed to work 4 Sunday's per year by law. Kinda blew my mind.

I was able to get the guys (in a Nuremberg data centre) to work a weekend but the BH Monday was a total no-no even though they were willing.