Working from home - pros and cons

[malumbu]

I got angry with the Jeremy Vine programme yesterday when many callers were going down the current populist view that if you are working from home you are sciving.  I spoke on the programme last time they discussed this when I was working remotely during lock down, with my positive experience.   I emailed yesterday saying I was insulted by what some had said,

So briefly - working from home can make you more productive, gives you flexibility during your day, and can help balancing work life with family life

Or - working from home leads to social isolation, and for many is the opportunity to bunk off. 

What do you reckon?  I've given more from my own experience below.

Working one day a week from home over a decade ago so I could also volunteer at a community centre for a few hours.  At that point I was hampered by poor IT (I blame TalkTalk, and was forever on the phone to IT support).  I felt that I had to justify my whole day. I felt on call when I was volunteering and the need to take work calls and check e-mails -  I was told to stop trying to do my day job from my volunteer manager; that was the right advice.  Back in the office there was still the common view - oh where is so and so, oh it's Friday so they are off, oh sorry working from home (that was about a sizeable number of people who worked from home on Fridays).

Fast forward a few years and much of the IT had been sorted, changed provider, Blackberry's a thing of the past, the Cloud.   Remote working had become more established, and it was more common for people to dial into meetings (pre Teams/Zoom).  Remote working was being actively encouraged, as part of smart working, paperless office and to reduce office accommodation needs.  Working from home, the tube, cafes etc etc.  But there was still a view of 'bunking off'.  It was seen is discourteous to stare down at your smart phone during meetings. There was a eureka moment when I realised that you can get everything down you need to know on a smart phone presentation rather than printing of reams of documents for a meeting.

I left office work but had a temporary job for a few months during Covid and there had been a revolution.   Teams and MS 365 became the main way of working, interacting through video calls and Teams chats, and working collaboratively through documents in real time was the norm.

Social events worked, and there were regular team catch ups.  I got to know a whole new group of people most of whom I met after lock down.  One of the nicest teams I have worked with.

The down sides:

Excess hours. It felt that you were working 24/7, You'd log off maybe at 17.30 knowing that when you went on line the next day there would be reams of messages. Some colleagues would spend much of their weekend working.  You felt like you were always on call.   This was not discussed during the Vine call-in

Information and technology overload.  You would be in meetings, looking at the Teams chat, taking e-mails, Whats Apps, occasional phone calls, often almost at the same time.  Every advance in technology from the photocopier and word processor to Teams has increased information by many times.  I expect generations before complained about Faxs. Telexs, phones, the telegram, the pony express.....

Social isolation - I thought our team catch ups worked well, and I like being in the direct company of colleagues so in the longer term would never want to have stayed working at home five days a week

Cramped working conditions.  I expect here may have space to some sort of home office but I knew a few working from their bedroom and worse still slumped on their bed on a laptop - dreadful posture.

Overall....  from my perspective productivity was fine, and felt no worse that being in an office.  The ability to take time off during the day to do errands, have your hair cut, whatever is a bonus.  And with sensible arrangements so people know your working times is not bunking off eg taking an early lunch, starting or finishing early to give yourself a longer break during the day.  Normalising being interrupted by young children was good/fun, of course it should not be encouraged!  But it brought down a lot of barriers, when your big boss was embarrassed by the cat coming in.  Your on mute.  Or worse still, please mute.  Ans so family friendly.

There are huge swathes where you can't work remotely and perhaps this is stirred up by the right wing rags, Trumps and various distruptors - oh the wokes in the metropolitan areas can bunk off at home when you are doing a proper job on the construction site, engineer, shop, etc.

Here is one disruptor: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c78wn5qg3nyo

And an earlier version that failed:

https://www.theguardian.com/law/2024/sep/17/jacob-rees-mogg-working-from-home-labour-workers-rights-jonathan-reynolds

Partially because the civil service had given up considerable office space.  As well as being counter productive

[Pugwash]

When I started work for a local authority in 1996, I did a job share 2.5 days a week. At one point I was travelling around the country several times a month. Rather than go into the office to write up my reports, my manager gave me a lap top and suggested that I worked from home, All I had t o do was to give her warning that I would be at home on such a day and give my telephone details. I worked this way for a couple of years, Some weeks I was only in the office one day - usually on team day so could catch up with my colleagues.

Although I have been retired some time, during Covid I kept in touch with my professional ex colleagues. They advised me that one team member a day was required in  the office, the rest working from home. They felt that this was a good compromise.

If I was still working, I would be happy to be in the office on alternate days.

[Moovart]

When I rang HMRC at 9.15am one day and, after 30mins of holding on, got a person on the line who was working from home, I first had to listen to him crunching his cornflakes at 9.45 and then him slurping his coffee.  Then I had to complain that his baby was crying so loudly that I couldn't hear what he was saying.  I asked if he could put the baby in another room and he told me off, saying that was a totally inappropriate request!  Luckily the baby's mother then cheerily piped up "we're going out now. See you later" and took the baby away slamming the door as she went.  I felt like I was in the room with them. This wasn't in COVID and I was trying to get a code to pay money to HMRC.  So I really don't like that kind of WFH!  

 

[Sue]

2 hours ago, Moovart said:

When I rang HMRC at 9.15am one day and, after 30mins of holding on, got a person on the line who was working from home, I first had to listen to him crunching his cornflakes at 9.45 and then him slurping his coffee.  Then I had to complain that his baby was crying so loudly that I couldn't hear what he was saying.  I asked if he could put the baby in another room and he told me off, saying that was a totally inappropriate request!  Luckily the baby's mother then cheerily piped up "we're going out now. See you later" and took the baby away slamming the door as she went.  I felt like I was in the room with them. This wasn't in COVID and I was trying to get a code to pay money to HMRC.  So I really don't like that kind of WFH!  

 

😮

That's completely unprofessional.

I would have complained to HMRC.

[malumbu]

3 hours ago, Moovart said:

When I rang HMRC at 9.15am one day and, after 30mins of holding on, got a person on the line who was working from home, I first had to listen to him crunching his cornflakes at 9.45 and then him slurping his coffee.  Then I had to complain that his baby was crying so loudly that I couldn't hear what he was saying.  I asked if he could put the baby in another room and he told me off, saying that was a totally inappropriate request!  Luckily the baby's mother then cheerily piped up "we're going out now. See you later" and took the baby away slamming the door as she went.  I felt like I was in the room with them. This wasn't in COVID and I was trying to get a code to pay money to HMRC.  So I really don't like that kind of WFH!  

 

I'd be pleased to get through so quickly. Seriously, they have shed so many staff you can't get hold of anyone easily.  Why did you not say anything at the time, "I'd be grateful if you don't eat whilst you are on a business call.

Anyway I've thought of an issue.  We used to have a minimum number of staff over the Xmas working days.  It was a lot of fun, as colleagues were in a light hearted mood, in the days where you'd still have a beer at lunchtime on the odd occasion.

The in recent years most people would work from home as there was no longer the necessity to be in the office during the festive period.  The office became soulless, and you'd just end up clearing a backlog of paperwork and e-mails.  As there was no buzz, you'd just be demotivated.

 

[Sue]

I also recently waited 30 minutes to speak to someone at HMRC.

First of all, they had indicated the wait time from the outset.

Secondly, it is a very busy time for them,  with  the 31 January deadline looming.

Thirdly, I might be confusing them with some other organisation, but I think they gave other options including for them to phone you back if you didn't want to hang on.

Anyway, my main point is that I don't know whether the person I spoke to was working from home or not, but there was no background noise, she was incredibly sympathetic and helpful, and to my utter disbelief she extended the deadline for me to the end of March 😮 

The reason was that I couldn't do my online return due to  my laptop meltdown, and had been told repair could take up to 28 working days. She thought that a deadline of the end of February might not be long enough 

I was fully expecting to be told that it was my own fault for not getting the return in before.

So credit where credit's due, basically.

I've previously found HMRC staff very helpful in patiently  explaining in simple language stuff in the rules which I couldn't understand.

As for working from home, I'm long retired from working for others, but I have both on occasion worked well into the night/over weekends to meet critical project deadlines,  and also on occasion skived.

But in the first job I was being paid a lot, and in the second job I wasn't 🤣

[Kipper_1972]

Some managers never reach adulthood and don't have a sufficent level of maturity to understand the difference between a technical role where you are constantly producing output for deadlines, and their own role which is reading (but never responding to) emails and talking crap all day.

I used to sit in the office (surrounded by chitchat) & pointless meetings getting nothing done so I'd go to bed when I got home & set my alarm for 2am to do my work. This went on for about 10yrs before COVID. I'm an introvert so I don't have any WFH negatives....

[Earl Aelfheah]

I am not a 'highly motivated self starter' as people like to say in job interviews. I need the office to ensure I actually focus / get some work done. Otherwise I spend too much time arguing with Rockets on the forum 😉 

[malumbu]

It's good to hear different views and there is certainly not one size fits all.  A number of people I know were dead against remote working before Covid but views very much changed.  I'm looking at this from a rosy perspective, and not sure what I would think now when we aren't in the same boat (100% remote working), and being in a team when at any one point a third or more aren't there in person.

I also need people to 'bounce off' and worked best in a campus type environment where you are interested in what everyone else is up to, and get a lot of cross-fertilisation.  But even there there is a balance as I am sure we have all worked with people who just talk too much (what?  me??)

I like the point of spending too much time 'debating' on EDF, and note that there is more discussion during the working week on here than at weekends.  I have an unusual work pattern, but even for me I am neglecting jobs around the house at the moment.  Many years ago there were telephone chat rooms where you could discuss anything eg current affairs, and I called in once.  It was very juvenile, and most people seemed to be at work, at times they would go quiet when the boss walked in. 

I think most recognise that younger people suffer more from remote working as the office is much of their social life.  Sadly I lost a colleague and friend many years ago in a motorcycle collision, and it dawned on me I saw more of this person than most other people in my life.

As well as your preferred way of work, it must also depend on the job you do.  Are you working on isolated work, or part of a team.  And even in the latter some would rather get on with work rather than spend all day in meetings.

Before I switched Jeremy Vine off due to the rabid LBC type conversation this encouraged (I'm sure I could say the same about some of 5 Live call ins) he commented that he always has a chat with call centres - what's the weather like in Nottingham?  Which part of India are you based in and are you enjoying the cricket.  I sense it's nice for many to have a short chat.  I rarely got a push back.

 

[Sephiroth]

I've been WFH for almost 9 years now - full time, not hybrid

Combination of office relocation impacting commute + no others in my team working in London meant it was pointless losing 5-6 hours a day on a commute (It had been 3-4 hours max which was fine) made me take the leap

I spend less time on EDF and other distractions since - Mal has highlighted the downsides very well above, but for me it's a net win all the way. I get more work done, My annual reviews are better (so my managers - and there have been several in different parts of the world) all happy with my output

It's not for everyone but I'll be raging if I have to give it up