The Work Thread 2 - Get back to work!

My work have been having us go in twice a week for a couple of months, it's amazing how quickly it becomes normal which is my worry.

My other worry is they will ramp us up to more days a week as time goes on.

If the company says come in I dont see how anyone can really say no.

I totally get some people want to be at home and people should totally be allowed to request to stay at home and make a case etc. but ultimatly if the company wants people to be in the office well thats up to them, they set the policy and staff should follow it.

Granted I would be pissed if work said we have to come in x days a week but that their call not mine and I suspect I would leave and find another place to work.

I realise I am now going to get a tonne of hell sent at me for saying this but it needs to be said, the company can decide how it wants to do business. In the long run companies that do it will get hurt because they will be less attractive but it is their call.

Errkal wrote:the company can decide how it wants to do business.

I don't think anyone disputes this.

People just recognise how bloody obvious it that WFH is beneficial in terms of productivity (for both parties) and employee morale and are rightly annoyed when companies ignore these real benefits just for the optics and no material gain of having people populate an office.

Have you never heard of collective bargaining? A company can decide how it wants to do business but its employees can ultimately just disagree with that en masse if they want to try to improve working conditions.

Yeah do you really think a company is going to instil changes that will benefit employees but cost them money? I don’t want an expensive office building with its own gym and catering, it’s not my problem they’re wasting money on infrastructure.

WFH will be the norm soon either through protest or people leaving for jobs that allow it and make them happier until the tipping point occurs and it’s just the done thing. Although I fear it might be a while yet. I fully think the next generation of young adults do not give a strawberry float about wanting to work in an office and will job hop until they find what they want.

I hope the above all happens anyway

I can see hybrid working rather than fully remote WFH being the norm within a year or so as resistant companies continue to come up against a workforce that increasingly realises it holds the cards.

Next up it will be the 100:80:100 four day working week.

Cuttooth wrote:Have you never heard of collective bargaining? A company can decide how it wants to do business but its employees can ultimately just disagree with that en masse if they want to try to improve working conditions.

I agree, employees on masse can, but the company can still say don't care this is how we do it.

This was about lagas heffa rant post where they said he needs to come in and that he was being unreasonable etc. etc. and it sounded like they had a point.

For the record I thing employees should get to pick where they work if it is possible because happy employees is good. But at the same time if I work for company x and company x doesn't want to do that I can't really argue it because they pay me they decide, I can leave if I don't like it or I could work with a union but I can't make the company do what I want.

I guess my point is you as a worker can say "I want to do this" but I don't think you can or should say "I refuse to come back to the office" and by so doing you are being unreasonable and probably breaching some policies as they are the boss, they pick, what they say goes.

Who is heffa?

Laga**

Errkal wrote:
Cuttooth wrote:Have you never heard of collective bargaining? A company can decide how it wants to do business but its employees can ultimately just disagree with that en masse if they want to try to improve working conditions.

I agree, employees on masse can, but the company can still say don't care this is how we do it.

This was about lagas heffa rant post where they said he needs to come in and that he was being unreasonable etc. etc. and it sounded like they had a point.

For the record I thing employees should get to pick where they work if it is possible because happy employees is good. But at the same time if I work for company x and company x doesn't want to do that I can't really argue it because they pay me they decide, I can leave if I don't like it or I could work with a union but I can't make the company do what I want.

I guess my point is you as a worker can say "I want to do this" but I don't think you can or should say "I refuse to come back to the office" and by so doing you are being unreasonable and probably breaching some policies as they are the boss, they pick, what they say goes.

Nah, strawberry float that bootlicking. The more people that make a stand against unreasonable demands like Laga, the more chance we have of moving society forward and improving people's lives.

Errkal wrote:I realise I am now going to get a tonne of hell sent at me for saying this but it needs to be said, the company can decide how it wants to do business. In the long run companies that do it will get hurt because they will be less attractive but it is their call.

You could make the same argument about holiday allowance couldn't you? Yet by law we have a minimum holiday entitlement.

I don't think in of itself "a company can decided how it wants to do business" is a strong argument, there are plenty of legal restrictions on how a company can do business.

I think a "work from home" entitlement (properly accounting for jobs that can and can't be done from home) would be a positive thing to bring in.

Accepted a job offer this morning. Was head hunted by a rival company. Was deliberating it for days and days though, but I think a change will do me good. Been here for 10 years now.

£3k more a year. Finish at 4pm every day. No more weekend shifts.
And a 4x4 pickup truck as a company vehicle :datass:

Grats Lewis!

RE the other discussion, if your job can be done at home and you've been doing it well there should be no obligation for you ever to have to go to the office. Thinking otherwise is just ridiculous.

LewisD wrote:Accepted a job offer this morning. Was head hunted by a rival company. Was deliberating it for days and days though, but I think a change will do me good. Been here for 10 years now.

£3k more a year. Finish at 4pm every day. No more weekend shifts.
And a 4x4 pickup truck as a company vehicle

Congrats!

Watch out for the company vehicle. It's a taxable benefit so it can play havoc with your tax code if you don't let HMRC know straight away.

https://www.gov.uk/tax-company-benefits ... mpany-cars

If you don't tell them your employer will at the end of the year when they submit their P11D form, which means you will have under-paid tax.

Congrats Lewis!

I'm with Lagamorph tbh. I like my work, and I currently meet my team, who are geographically all over the place, at one of the company offices about once a fortnight. But if they asked me to go in more than that for no reason, I'd be immediately on linkedin finding a new full remote role.

LewisD wrote:Was deliberating it for days and days though...

£3k more a year. Finish at 4pm every day. No more weekend shifts.

Sounds like a no brainer to me! Congrats!

I probably wouldn't mind so much if I didn't live 75 miles from the office.
I've always lived that far, but when I took the job it was a 4 on 4 off shift pattern so 12 hour shifts made the commute worth it since even on a normal shift your day was gone anyway with the 90 minute each way drive. Plus the 7am/11am start and 7pm/11pm finish meant no traffic to deal with.

But it changed to Monday-Friday so the advantages got taken away. I initially had 2 days per week from home and 3 on the office but it was expensive even then, working from home full time (more or less) is just such an incredible improvement. Not just financially but the mental health improvements are amazing. No getting up at 5:30am to make a lonely and boring 90 minute drive, not being so tired, having free time on an evening, these are all things that hugely improve your mental state.
The entire day before going to the office just fills me with anxiety at knowing I've got that lonely drive for zero purpose to just do what I could have done at home, and losing £30-40 in the process. It's no different from just taking the cash out and setting it on fire in my opinion, I end up with the same thing to show for it at the end, sweet strawberry float all.

Winckle wrote:I'm with Lagamorph tbh. I like my work, and I currently meet my team, who are geographically all over the place, at one of the company offices about once a fortnight. But if they asked me to go in more than that for no reason, I'd be immediately on linkedin finding a new full remote role.

Finding a full remote role at least for me has been quite difficult, but thankfully I'm doing ok at my current job and don't need to leave. Currently where I am it's 100% remote and they've said it can stay that way so I guess I got quite lucky.

I got a recruiter sniffing around today where they said "You'd come into our office in either Manchester or Warrington once a week".

Well which is it? If it can be either then surely the team is still going be split over two sites and we'll be using video calls for meetings anyway, rendering the whole thing pointless.

The Work Thread 2 - Get back to work!

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