Working from home

Redwurzel

Redwurzel

Well-known member
I read this and wondered are the WPP employees just a bit spoilt expecting to be able to work from home for most of the week or is that the most productive way to work with modern networked software and systems?

I am out of normal work so I don't have an answer.

I do feel I have too many distractions at home for me to be as focused as I would be in a structured workplace. I also feel it must be difficult for new young employees to work at home all the time. But I could be wrong.

When teaching I did work from home say to mark work, but found I got most done in school/college when it was quiet, opposed to at home.

 
It's horses for courses, both within an organisation as well as each individual and their respective role.

Amazon have a 5 day RTO mandate as of 1/1, which is crazy given the massively global nature of their business, and so you have people going into the office to hop on video calls with people in Seattle or NY.

However for some businesses that perhaps are a bit more regionally focused there are probably benefits associated with getting everyone together, but with that decision comes that challenge that some people may prefer an alternative approach, and so you may lose talent to attrition through any mandate of a fixed time in the office.

There's no right or wrong answer, despite what the media would have you believe, especially those with investments in commercial real estate.
 
I don’t have any choice, my nearest office is Leeds, been working from home since before Covid, I go to Leeds once a month for a team meeting. You just get used to it though, I have a proper set up, our third bedroom is now converted to an office and is away from any distractions, the firm get more hours out of me, as I tend to start a bit early and finish a bit later, as no commute, I do miss the social side that we had in the office before, so obviously that downside but in terms of being productive, I am very productive working from home to be honest.
 
Angelmatty said:
I worked from home for a few years and have to say it was the most depressing time I have ever worked.
Got absolutely nothing completed and spent all day wanting some banter and a laugh or even a chat about crap on tv.
I know others who love it but it just wasn’t for me
Click to expand...
Don't you like a balance though? I'm basically 50/50 now, though I worked remotely before covid when I needed to anyway. I wouldn't want to be permanently home-based.
 
Open plan offices are pretty much the worst working environment a person could possibly design. As long as you have a quiet, private space to work from home in then I personally think it is more conducive to getting work done.

Offices are in my opinion for the performative types, the all the gear but no idea lot. Obviously that's a generalisation and just my thoughts on the matter.

Far better to let people decide what works best for them, if you can work from home and want to then why not? Dragging someone into an office for no reason other than because you can seems like bullying to me.
 
Can work from home if required but barring a few hours on a morning here and there or a Friday afternoon I don’t bother really. It’s probably about 3 years since I did a full day at home. I’m not a fan.

I know people who love it though.
 
Ours is a young office, and I'm one of the oldest there (top 10 out of 104 staff). More often than not after a 1 HR commute I sit down, do work, have a couple of minutes chit chat, work, go home on the 1 HR commute.....then think "I could have done that from my home office".

Each to their own, but I find I get more work done in the house. Got a proper home office, can shut myself off, crack on.

Couldn't cope with 5 days a week in the office.
 
Redwurzel said:
I read this and wondered are the WPP employees just a bit spoilt expecting to be able to work from home for most of the week or is that the most productive way to work with modern networked software and systems?

I am out of normal work so I don't have an answer.

I do feel I have too many distractions at home for me to be as focused as I would be in a structured workplace. I also feel it must be difficult for new young employees to work at home all the time. But I could be wrong.

When teaching I did work from home say to mark work, but found I got most done in school/college when it was quiet, opposed to at home.

Click to expand...
I do a mix and i find the working from home days the most productive. In an office environment there's a constant stream of distraction, both social and work related, other people on Teams calls, unscheduled meetings etc. Working from home is great if you need some peace to actually work through a document or calculation or whatever it may be.
I'm sure there's the odd person who tries to take advantage of the situation, but that should be apparent through their performance and output.
I also find I actually work longer hours at home and eat into that commute time with work rather than driving.
For me it also aids my enjoyment of the week, especially in the summer, the opportunity to maybe sit in the garden for 15 minutes and eat a sandwich instead of being stuck in an office.
 
Retired early 2 years ago because of the WFH culture.. I was a construction site manager and getting any instant site problems resolved by calling into the engineering office was a nitemare. Used to take an hour with heads round a table, drawings and a PC. Open office discussions. Started to take days due to communications between WFH staff
Jacked it in.
 
I like working from home and I don't mind being in the office. If I lived as close to the office as my spare is then it would take away a lot of the the negatives of being in the office (commute time/cost). I'm fairly social so I like being in the office for that aspect. I would say that productivity is about the same in both. I can do nothing or loads in either environment. I definitely distract fewer people when I'm at home. If they mandated that I had to be in the office I would kick off. I don't mind it now because I have a choice. 90% of my role that involves interacting with others is 1:1 with the other person in my team which is as easy on Teams as it is in the office or it is with other departments who aren't based in my office anyway. It makes absolutely no sense for us all to travel in to offices to then phone someone in another office on a different site.

It saves me a fortune on commuting, eating lunch out, school wraparound care etc. as well.

The one thing that I think is really affected by WFH is that young people have fewer opportunities for learning. You learn a lot just being around people. You attend meetings, observe, shadow, work things through etc and it is a key part of gaining experience. WFH works for people given a set task that don't need to learn what the roles for progression will require but if you want to progress then a big part of that is learning from others. It's easy to say that WFH should be the norm for me because it suits me at this stage of my career but I know I might be depriving the subsequent generation of something.

A balance of wfh and office based is probably best but as businesses office leases run out over time they will downsize to fit what they need and the office environment will be very different. We moved offices just before covid to a "hotdesk" situation and I already thought then that that was going to cause the same sort of problems. It's too small and crowded and forces you to not be social which defeats the point of being in the office. It feels very different taking a phone call when you have plenty of space and it doesn't feel like others are watching/listening compared to the much more spacious setup we had previously.
 
I have to go in at least twice a month on my contract which they changed to more flexible working post Covid. Although the company definitely regret that now, I feel.

Working from home suits me. My job is all deadline based so work ebbs and flows. When I’m not as busy, I can fill the dead time with daft bits that are required at home.

I find the office a huge distraction to be honest. Too many people rocking up at my desk and being a general nuisance.

If we are quiet and I’m in the office, time drags like hell too as I’m trying to look busy or digging around for stuff to do.

It’s ideal at the moment too, as I’ll often start early to take longer lunch breaks on the days I’m running and take a 1.5 hour lunch. Get my run done then back in for a shower / bath and chill before going back to work.

I think Home working is a great thing but it can be taken advantage of. If you’re a worker and in a job where deadlines etc. are worked to, there’s no place to hide.

If you’re a slacker and don’t necessarily have that and your company isn’t great at tracking productivity, then it can be easy skive.

In Covid days it was a nightmare with some people. Internet was always down etc. (especially on Friday afternoons) and the time was written off as they weren’t allowed to attend the office.

Now they sorted the contracts and changed the T&C’s of home working, any missed time due to internet issues has to be worked back if you don’t go into the office. Funnily enough, we barely get any internet issues at all these days. Highly convenient!
 
Work from home 4/5 days. On the other I go into the office which is a 4 hour round trip so I end up doing a 12 hour day. If it shifted to 3/5 working from home it just wouldn't be worth it
 
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