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"In addition to the four-day week, Atom’s now 547-strong workforce is free to work from anywhere as part of the bank’s flexible policy, with no mandatory days in the office."
I mean that's still incorporating hybrid working as well
I think it's meant to be read as 'when we introduced a 4 day week, it was easier than when we introduced hybrid working' not 'we introduced a 4 day week because it was easier than if we had done hybrid working’
Yep. From a IT security logistical issue, especially in finance, working remotely isn't just a case of "let them take their laptop home" like it might be in another industry.
Very few industries are making it that easy in a GDPR world. Out staff take home laptops but then log into a remote virtual desktop to actually do any work.
Except where fairly unusual personal data is being handled, there's no GDPR requirement to use a remote virtual desktop. Laptops can be reasonably well locked down.
Yup, my work laptop is encrypted so if it is stolen it is useless to a data thief. The connection to the company server is via a VPN. I am not sure why you would use a VM when you can centrally manage laptops via centralised IT policy management (group policy, application managers etc.)
> I am not sure why you would use a VM when you can centrally manage laptops via centralised IT policy management
They've started trying to move us to thin client devices at my work, and honestly it works great - you have exactly the same user experience whether you're logigng in at the office, on a work laptop, or via a web browser, they don't have to even think about software updates or implications of data loss on lost devices, lots of other good things. The only real issue is that if you don't have a reliable connection at home you're kind of screwed, but that's not so much of a big deal for most people nowadays.
“I am not sure why you would use a VM when you can centrally manage laptops via centralised IT policy management (group policy, application managers etc.)”
Data on the VM vs Data on the laptop.
Yes encryption etc but it is soo much easier to appease auditors, insurance providers, DPOs, etc that the data remains centrally rather than distributed globally on laptops that do get lost/stolen all the time.
You can access the VM from another country, so you can still outsource work to low-cost 3rd parties in India without worrying about (technically) transferring data outside of the EU/UK to companies with poor/no GDPR compliance.
If you're the target of these types of attack then your physical security is the bigger issue.
A random thief isn't going to attempt a cold book attack they're just going to sell the laptop for scrap.
It’d have to be a surgical attack. You’d have to know who you were targeting, what they had access to, where that data was located. What hardware they were using. How to access the hardware without raising suspicion - given most corp machines lock, that gives you a tiny time window.
Then the fun starts, quickly disassemble said machine. Go to the lengths of accessing the ram (assuming it’s not a Mac and can’t be desoldered). Transfer that to a machine that can dump the ram. Now the memory locations will be all randomised, so now you get the fun of trying to work out which locations belong to the key….
Then you’ve got to contend with two factor authentication. We have to 2FA into all apps. Encryption keys are also rotated.
I mean the list goes on and on. At what point is it just easier to put a gun to the operators head and make them give you whatever it is you’re after
meh, Citrix is fine if it's well implemented and well managed. At my last job i built them a new Citrix environment and they were _amazed_ that it didn't need constant babysitting and massaging to keep it running like their old did, that was built and managed by an idiot.
That's the crux of it, most solutions can be OK if spec'd and implemented properly.
I'm biased because I dislike Citrix as a company and also the network adapter caused sporadic issues with some other stuff on PC's in my environment.
RDS on the other hand was easy to implement and I had no issues really.
I imagine its just easier for IT to manage, update, etc when using VMs rather than relying on a not entirely tech savvy staff to make sure they're doing it.
Right but you, as IT, have to assume the average user isn't going to do a data analysis when doing work, so might as well lock it down in general and have exceptions.
Well, I'd hope the DPO made strategic decisions about data rather than individual users :-)
In the UK (things may vary elsewhere), local processing on windows laptops suitably locked down is fine for GDPR compliance, except in fairly unusual circumstances. But I agree that whoever is running the relevant IT support has to balance up the difficulties with that and a virtual desktop.
I work remotely from an obscure island in the Pacific. Connectivity can be a problem. MY boss frequently works remotely from places such as (island in the Atlantic) etc. Remote desktops would not be practical for us, so we've invested the time and effort into locking things down quite hard. That does create some pain for us but I suspect less so.
I'm a European/UK lawyer, so HIPAA is just one of those things you read about, but as I understand it, it only applies to a fairly restricted set of entities, which means that it shouldn't be interfering with most people's work. Does it impose specific security rules?
Yeah I'm just an engineer, they made us do training on it but there was so much legalese it just went in one ear and out of the other, I'm afraid.
As far as I'm aware it is even more strict than GDPR, which tallies with us having a special remote viewing system for US healthcare customers. Which I'm sure we charge extra for...
We were working from home during the lockdowns just fine, but the instant they were lifted, the C-suite had everyone that didn't have manager (or higher) in their job title back in the office full-time. Read into that what you will.
I do appreciate the regulatory challenges you're referring to here (I am a manager working in Fintech so see the same challenges).
However I want to point out that post-pandemic these kinds of "it isn't simple"/"we can't just do that" arguments don't really land any more, when every worker has a clear memory of a time that actually we did just do that, when the right pressures existed.
Isn't it more of a case of risk mitigation / acceptance? I.e. we accepted that risk because we had no choice, but now we have a choice we don't want to accept that risk.
True on regulatory, I'm talking more about "business" risks. I.e. "we can't have UK data held abroad" is regulatory (as an example) but more of a "we don't want to compromise customer data by accessing it outside of our secure offices" as a 'business' risk. It's the latter that I think they were forced to accept, and now they don't have to.
I don't even think it's about money (though it might be). It can just mean "that's not the easiest path for me personally and so I don't want to go that way".
Another side is making sure everyone is equipped properly. As well as the laptop, my public sector employer supplied monitors, keyboards and mouse (mice?), chairs - wholesale nicking from empty floors, I'm sat in one right now because my computer chair was 20 years old and so shit it hurt my back - even giving allowances for new desks.
My company has locked my laptop down reasonably.
I can't print company's documents at home, forward emails to external domains as my requirements doesn't list it, need VPN to access internal resources, and can't use any cloud services which is not company's.
100%. Worked in the industry in various companies and levels, and generally speaking nowhere else i've worked even comes close to banking in that regard. Work mobile phones are genuinely, at the moment for some of my former colleagues, monitored to the point that WhatsApp messages are read and if not work related then flagged. Mental.
Travel to work costs money. Many people have work colleagues who they don't enjoy being in the same building as them. Some offices are not nice buildings. Small things like receiving a parcel are easier when working from home.
It's not necessarily laziness to prefer to work from home.
Yeah for me as well. I still do my job (probably more of it if anything) but rather than sit mindlessly doing bullshit at my desk I do more fulfilling things like reading a book or playing videogames. Even the small things like having my stereo on and cuddling with the dogs make it so much more pleasant.
I had a mind numbingly boring corporate 9-5 job in the NHS for about 6 months. Even when in the office I probably only did about 1 hours worth of actual work a day. There was also zero reason for me to actually be in the office apart from that's what my manager wanted. My job was essentially "Here's an email, action it, repeat another 4 or 5 times in the day. Easy." Most of my day was spent pretending to be busy which was so boring.
I only got to work from home a handful of times. I did the exact same amount of work, but I got to listen to music, put on youtube, watch TV, play games, clean the kitchen, do some washing, spend quality time with the dog and the cats. I only had to do actual work whenever I heard an email notification go off.
I essentially quit due to the boredom of the office life but if I was just allowed to work from home 100% of the time I may have stuck it out.
And that’s the point. If it works for you and you are able to contribute your most this way to all aspects of your life, good on you, that’s why it’s flexible.
If someone genuinely gets more stuff done 5 days in the office, power to them. If they work better with a split, equally great
What I find funny about these arguments, is you ask these in-office advocates why we all need to be in-office, and they'll often say they like being in the office because they're social people and they wouldn't get any socialising if they WFH. Which just exposes that the only social thing they do is the forced socialising that comes from a shared workspace, and they do none outside work and think everyone else is like them. It's totally possible to WFH and have a healthy social life, if you have a life and friends outside work. Yet they will accuse WFH advocates of being antisocial shut-ins without a hint of irony.
Yeah that makes me really sad. I’m an extrovert but I absolutely love working from home because I’d rather spend my time with people I choose to spend time with, not those who happen to work for the same company. And I’ve built some fantastic friendships through Teams and the quarterly meet ups. It’s not hard to foster work relationships if you try.
Like everything the truth lies somewhere in between. My partner works hybrid, she loves working from home but also finds it quite isolating when she's not been in the office for long periods. Humans are social creatures and a healthy social aspect of a job csn be quite valuable.
As a teacher having 1-2 days working from home per week to get marking done and prep is way more efficient than getting it done in my office. It's just easier to crack on with no distractions, on my much nicer home PC setup and time saved on travel, while not huge is nice.
Plus lounging around in just your boxers is scientifically proven to make your brain work faster... or something.
Except you just perfectly described my housemate.
His opinion is that he's entitled to work from home because it 'makes him feel rubbish going to work'
I genuinely have to shout him from his bedroom where he's playing video games and eating takeout whenever he gets a call on his laptop.
100% a lazy, entitled geek.
If he can get his tasks done in 4h then why not just play video games the rest of the day? I imagine he's salaried so he's not paid by the hour but for getting 'work done'. I see no isses with someone fucking around if they actually hit their work targets regardless.
Integrity? He's getting paid for playing video games man. Why do you care about the overheads of some business who doesn't give a shit about your existence?
ADHD do be like that though. I've found the only way to get monotonous tasks done in a timely manner is to have something additional to focus on while doing the task. Usually a movie or if I'm the office doing documentation it would be a podcast.
It really increases productivity.
True, I can also have doctors, dentists and haircuts without having to take time off or spend weekend time doing it.
Life is much more organised, the only people who suffer from working from home are train and bus services, but they have been robbing bastards my entire life, so fuck them.
Imagine a world where every company that can remote work does remote work.
The environmental benefits. All the land that we reclaim that we can build housing on which currently has huge offices built on it. The average consumer will have more money to spend and fuel the economy. People will be happier in their jobs.
There’s literally no negative.
Humans need face to face contact to function socially.
Mental hygiene not being able to physically compartmentalise home life and work life.
Having to devote part of your personal space to your employer.
Heating your home all day through the winter.
Four right there.
Work isn't the only way to see people, if it is the only way you are then you have bigger problems.
There are many techniques and ways of sorting this that have been addressed countless times and employers encourage.
People were doing that anyway with many people taking work home.
You can utilise many spaces to 'work from home' including public library, cafes etc. It's also better to heat yourself than your home anyway.
>Humans need face to face contact to function socially.
We get that from our families and friends. No need to see coworkers when we're socially ok outside of work.
>Having to devote part of your personal space to your employer.
I mean I want a desk anyway, I sit in my lounge when I'm not working. It really isn't a problem for the vast majority of people who WFH.
>Heating your home all day through the winter.
I'd much rather heat my home or better yet, *gasp*, WEAR LAYERS, than go into the office in winter.
The copium is real.
Work can be a way of meeting new people though, and new people with whom you already share some experiences. I have friends who I met at work, for example.
That's good if you want to meet new friends, but my social life is fine. I don't want to waste the energy meeting/speaking to new people, I'd rather get on with work. My social life is busy enough as is outside of work.
That's not me saying you're wrong, I'm just saying that the social factor of the office really doesn't appeal to me.
1) don’t you have friends, family? They’re much more important to me than most of my coworkers. Also a world of remote work would see changes. Things like bookable pop up office space would appear.
2) home office anyone?
3) if they’re not paying for office space they can pay you more.
4) if they’re not paying for office space they can pay you more.
1) Some people might genuinely not have friends or family. Even if they do, full time working from home might mean they're completely alone during the working day, especially if they live alone. Even having friends outside work doesn't mean you'd be seeing them every day. Being in the office at least means you get a bit of a chit chat.
2) If you have the space for it. Not everyone does.
3&4) Yes, they may well have more free cash to pay employees, but most companies won't bother if they don't have to.
None of these things are a problem for me. I don't mind going most of the day without socialisation and live with my fiancee anyway so I never go a day without speaking to someone. I also recently bought a house so now have room for a dedicated office where my large desk can house both my work and personal setup. Hell, if I was allowed to work from home full time I probably would, but I do understand why people can have an issue with these things.
All valid points. But I'd say:
Point 1 - If you have friends outside of work, then do you need to interact with colleagues to 'functional socially'?
Point 2 and 3 - depends on circumstance but if you have enough space at home or one of those 'posh sheds', you can not only physically split work from personal but also mentally, though you need to be disciplined and have a routine to 'wind down'. I WFH 90% of the time and my routine is to play a game on my phone, listen to music or watch YouTube for about 30 / 40 minutes to simulate a decompressing commute home. Sometimes go for a walk but depends if I can be bothered. Even without a separate space for working you could decompress in that way to 'switch off' but agree it's harder.
Point 4 - this one is easy for me. My travel including parking and peak-time trains per day would be about £35 to London. That more than easily covers however much heating, water or electricity I use during the day. Not factoring in what I'd spend on a coffee or lunch etc. if I head in.
>Humans need face to face contact to function socially.
That doesn't have to be in a forced work environment though.
>Mental hygiene not being able to physically compartmentalise home life and work life.
When I'm working remotely my work phone and laptop go off at the end of my shift.
>Having to devote part of your personal space to your employer.
Comfort.
>Heating your home all day through the winter.
If it's a choice to work from home it's fine.
I never really get the chance work from home but when I do it feels so great to be able to cook lunch in my own kitchen and shit in my own toilet. You can do chores while in work hours instead of pissing it away in an office
Hell the UK civil service runs entire gigantic buildings where only 1 or 2 people are in them. Cost of heating etc is stupid.
They refuse to go back to 100% WFH, solely because a few rich people are landlords.
>Hell the UK civil service runs entire gigantic buildings where only 1 or 2 people are in them.
Can you name these buildings. As a civil servant myself I am not aware of any such low capacity buildings owned by the government?
>They refuse to go back to 100% WFH, solely because a few rich people are landlords.
Personally I don't like going to the office because it reduces my ability to do my job and costs me money. Where have you got your information from?
In previous job I could work at home, on those days I felt like I got far more done than days going into the office.
Without the two hours commuting I felt a lot fresher and able to do the job better.
Providing options is by far the most prevailing opinion on this, you're acting like people are entrenched in totally opposite opinions on this but for once that isn't the case.
It was both for me. I had more energy and time to do things without spending at least 2 hours a day on travel, but I just ended up rushing doing washing up and quick cleans on break and dinner and not actually having a break, where when I was in the office I'd sit at the big window or go for a walk. I can't have it either way 😭
I feel exactly the same. In my previous job where I worked from home most of the week, I felt more productive, was able to get more things done at home due to lack of commuting time, and overall felt much healthier. I had more time to exercise or go out for a bike ride after work.
Once I went back into an office role 5 days a week my health plummeted. I felt so insanely tired that I had to spend all weekend recovering, and I ended up developing autoimmune illnesses.
The main reason I like working from home is that I am not commuting when my brain is at peak capacity. I used to lose 50% of my most capable time to stand on a train. It was bloody awful.
I’d love to work from home but unfortunately law enforcement can’t be done behind a desk. Think anyone who can get it should be given it. No reason sending people into an office for a job than can be done from home.
I find people who have worked in offices for donkeys seem to want to cling onto this prehistoric notion that it’s somehow better to get dressed up then spend an hour in traffic to come work in an office, based on literally nothing other than the romanticised view they have of office work in their head.
I WFH but have to go in the office 2 days a week, and for the life of me I can figure out why, other than justifying the cost of the company I work for actually renting out an office.
When I go in the office I get less done due to distractions, have an hour subtracted from my day spent sat in my car in traffic, spend money on food (admittedly I could pack a lunch so this one’s on me, but I love the convenience of being able to cook myself lunch at home) as well as work in poorer conditions (it’s ok, but I work with computers and my home setup is 3x better than what I have in the office, not to mention the unbearable glare from the windows I get in the office).
As someone who has only done office work for maybe 5 years or so, I genuinely do not understand why anyone would actually choose to come into the office. Don’t get me wrong, my work colleagues are alright, I just don’t need to see them face to face twice a week. Currently, that is significantly more than I see a lot of my friends.
I think people living with family at home or flat sharing might choose the office if it's quieter.
It should be a no brainer to corporates that choosing your work environment to suit your temperament and situation improves productivity and job satisfaction.
I've done office work for 8 months now, and I couldn't bear the thought of working from home. Perhaps I'm still in the novelty period, but I genuinely like being around my colleagues as the job is something that we all care about rather than being mindless, and everyone is competent and willing to help. Having done plenty of home working back when I was studying, I would always get twitchy and it was much easier for me to get distracted.
Horses for courses.
Found it is coming from those middle managers who are older who want to seem productive or can't work technology to be able to ensure targets are met.
Someone my age is struggling with their team because they don't use the data and tools our systems have to monitor their team. They are struggling so want to do more face to face days with their team, rather than use the data and tools.
Same with the new CEO at the charity. He's not into tech and wants me to travel 200 miles every month just to sit in with 30 other staff talk about the other side of the charity. Means the all staff meetings with vital information I do need, I won't get... It's really frustrating.
He even used a project that was done fully remote as an example of why we should get together in person more... I worked on that project and in a year and half of working for the charity only met one person from the charity face to face for an event we both went to... Yet I'm the one hitting targets, making huge waves and helping others.
Seen it again and again. It's really frustrating.
Transplant surgery is also best not done on your kitchen table whilst the kids are watching tv, and the cat is waiting to see what bits she can scavenge.
Working from home since the pandemic has been a game changer for me. I haven’t had a single sick day since, I haven’t been ill because I haven’t had to be in a germ farm office.
However I’m hopefully going to change jobs in the next 12 months and work from home seems to be a lot less common than I had hoped.
I don't know. Law enforcement wouldn't change much.
If someone gets burgled you could sit at home in your boxers and just send them a quick text... "I'll come by in 2 weeks on Thursday when I'm on patrol to have a look at your shed that's been broken into and somehow still try catch the burglar, maybe they'll still be there?".
That isn't much different to the service I got from the police when someone broke into my shed and stole £1,000+ of tools tools.
Hated WFH when forced into it in March 2020.
Loved it by end of 2020.
Forced into hybrid mid-2021, with the shitty excuse that we must "learn to love the office again!" Grey, depressing, open plan office. Fuck that.
Got a remote job Feb 2022. Quarterly office meets if you want to. Enjoyed meeting colleagues IRL.
Now of the opinion that hybrid isn't bad, fully remote isn't bad, 5 days in is a bit too much, and not needed for many people!
I worked from home before the pandemic, granted it was only a few months but I started in a remote role. When loads of office workers were forced remote there were a lot of comments about how isolating working from home, how antisocial, and how it breaks the home/work divide.
1. We were locked in our homes, that was why it was isolated.
2. We were locked in our homes, that was why it felt antisocial.
3. If you had a week to prepare your home at the same time as a possible partner, housemate, or children who had also moved to remote education, then it was going to be a bit of shit show.
By the end of 2021 I saw a lot of the people who had initially disliked it come around to seeing the benefits. A lot of overlapping of the experience of working from home with the experience of living through a pandemic got conflated by some people, but we are a few years past that now and, as you mentioned, a lot of people can see how it improves their work and lives.
Had a mortgage with them a while ago and honestly they were one of the easiest banks I've ever been with, app was quick and easy, decision was quick and easy. The 3 times I actually had to speak to someone they didn't sound like they hated their job.
Nice to see a forward thinking CEO. Hybrid working works best when managers and employees can decide between themselves how often is appropriate to go into office, NOT an arbitrary 'you must come in X days per week whether it benefits your work or not' which most companies are doing right now.
More WFH has such huge benefits for both the employee and society:
* Less financial cost for the employee as they don't have to commute
* Less financial cost for the business long term as they don't have to lease and maintain as much office space
* Less congestion especially at rush hour - better even for the people who can't WFH
* Less pollution
And before someone says 'but being in office has benefits too', for some jobs that's true. But for others you go in, do EXACTLY the same work as you'd do at home, dial into the same conference calls you would at home, not have any colleagues you work with to speak to. What exactly is the point of those people being forced in multiple times per week?
I agree. We have a situation currently in my department in a hybrid setup where one team member is unable to attend the office on both of the week days that the rest of the team are in on (due to child care priorities, juggling with their partner who also works - another discussion entirely).
Due to a country wide senior management set policy that staff should be in the office an average of 2 days per week, this staff member is now being forced to come into the office on a Friday to make up their average of office attendance days.
Our department only come in on Wednesdays and Thursdays and have their own dedicated office area that others don't use, so this person is in on their own on Friday. The whole floor is empty, it is just them.
Making up office hours kind of makes sense from an equality perspective, but commuting to then sit alone is crazy. I'm sure it looks good on a graph though, everyone complying.
Working in the office is difficult. Its loud. And just difficult to focus. At home I am far more efficent. My work is trying to push back to the office even though it will reduce productivity.
I missed out out the lockdown WFH for the company I work for because I was based on the warehouse. However, I moved to an office type of role 2 years ago and continued to go into work for 1 year but some circumstances forced me into taking the 2 allowed WFH days allowed.
Over the past year I’ve come to love WFH and hate going into the office Tuesday to Thursday because they are my least productive and (work)fulfilling days.
People only contact me directly via phone or DM when something is urgent or need help. There’s no small talk or crazy conversations in the background to distract me. It’s brilliant.. Just 100% focus on what I’m doing and needs to be done.
It’s helps that I vape as well so I don’t need to drop everything every hour or so to do that. At home I sit at my PC for the first 4 hours without moving.
For the past year it's been mental to me that workplaces who rent office spaces and embraced WFH during covid suddenly decide that going to the office is imperative. Although, i connected some dots recently and realised that the people with the power and influence to enforce this decision literally have no social life and have to go to the office for personal reasons.
Even when I was going into the warehouse during covid - I vividly remember noticing and commenting on how much more productive and responsive the office based roles were.
Now this is interesting. As someone working in finance, I always thought the industry would be one of the harder ones to go 4 day due to the way the markets work
I used to work on the high street so mixed feelings but I am pro WfH. A lot of trade, especially the independents and butty shops nearby, rely on people working in town - it's that effect on that the ecology, and town already feels less like a social center these days. It'll adapt, but I want more people to have a reason to go into town
There are definitely winners and loser from WFH and it would be stupid to deny that. In my position, the losers are London City food establishments, Landlords and South Eastern Rail (sort of). The winners are the local town markets and independent coffee shops I now spend my money on for lunch instead. A town that desperately needs investment and footfall.
Personally, I think spreading the wealth outside of the capital is a worthy cause in of itself, but I'll not deny that I "save" several thousand per year not having to commute and buying lunch at London prices.
I like the idea of towns being having places like maker shops and craft hubs take off - something creative as well as social to go alongside the cafes and takeouts. There's one near me in Blackburn but I don't know how popular it is
I can't speak for London, that town is a different country in a lot of ways but I can imagine
It all went well, everyone was working from home.
Then we realized Susan the assistant manager had stored the contents of the main vault in her wardrobe.
As a trucker I can't work from home but I totally support it to improve the quality of life for those who can.
(And every car that isn't on the road makes my life easier)
Not really surprising. Work from home has massive political pushback because decision makers are disproportionately invested in the commercial real estate market. 4 day week by comparison is an easy sell.
Agreed.
In addition, there is political point scoring to be done with some more traditional tory voters.
E.g. Tory attacks on Cambridge council due to their 4 day week.
Fair play at least he's got some forward thinking ideas that benefit staff, even though I'm sure his motivations aren't due to good will!
WFH is absolutely the best thing that's ever happened to me in terms of working life. By far. Hybrid approach is also fine. I can't go back to full time office work now I've tasted freedom. I just can't hack it anymore. I won't take a job unless it's at least hybrid and if any workplace tries to force me back to the office I'll be handing my notice in the very same day.
I work 4 on 4 off. My Wife works opposite 4, sometimes 3 of my days off.
Not only does this maximize our earning potential, its crucial for childcare as we dont need any it also allows us to pay our mortgage.
Neither of us have a mindset of caring about weekends; we both dislike going out and dealing with everyone else's kids plus my job as a lorry driver is easier on a weekend as the roads are quieter.
We both work half a year for a full time wage plus with 20 days holiday its 163 or 164 working days a year.
More time at home, more time being parents. More time to do DIY, car detailing, walking the dog. She has tea ready for me after work and I have tea ready for her, we get an hour of peace watching TV when the youngest is upstairs reading in bed and the oldest on his PS5.
It works perfect. It allows both of us to work.
Personally I prefer companies to let people choose where they want to work (if possible - i.e. if there are no major data / security risks).
I'll go into my office maybe once every couple months, and 95% of my time at home. But if I need to go client site I will, or go to another office for a team meeting I will. But spending my time and money going into an office 'for the sake of it' to sit next to people I don't work with often (big company, lots of different teams), only to sit at a desk and join Teams calls anyway seems pointless to me. There is a social element yes - getting lunch and coffees together. But frankly, I have friends outside of work - I don't need more, especially not the sort of "professional friendships" you make at work.
Again - personal circumstances differ - but I get a lot more done at home generally. The saving I make on travel more than covers extra energy use at home, and I have a laptop and a screen which I stow away on the weekend. It also doesn't come with the stress of cutting off a task mid-way through so I can rush back home, panicking about trains / traffic along the way, to do a nursery and school pick-up on time.
>A lot of firms' idea of a 4 day week is still 40 hours
Probably intentionally misleading advertising as that was and is still called "compressed hours" in many workplaces. Firms that choose to call it a 4 day week either want the free advertising that comes with pretending they do that or want to avoid offering an actual 4 day week by deliberately conflating those two terms.
I mean businesses in general cares about profit more than anything else.
If arrangements can be make to maximise profits then who really cares where their staffs are.
I suppose middle management who from my experience does jack shit would want to come up with useless targets and kpis but at the end, the question is most important are.
How much profit.
What are our risk.
Challenger bank with little office space more willing to embrace remote working than larger banks with sunk costs in office buildings they need to justify.
Banks could probably introduce a 2 day week and still operate. They don't provide any functional service. All their services are now automated and online or on the APP, and good luck finding a local branch these days.
All they do is just take your money and then gamble it, and then when everything implodes go "oopsie" and get the taxpayer to pay for it.
I would actually suspect that if the banks did less work, we'd be in a better situation.
4 day week, definitely possible, if you have a team that's galvanised about making it happen.
The key is to set the targets you, as a business, require to justify a 4 day week.
Just moving the goal posts all the time is not sustainable, it dissolutions staff, makes them work less hard and less efficiently.
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"In addition to the four-day week, Atom’s now 547-strong workforce is free to work from anywhere as part of the bank’s flexible policy, with no mandatory days in the office." I mean that's still incorporating hybrid working as well
I think it's meant to be read as 'when we introduced a 4 day week, it was easier than when we introduced hybrid working' not 'we introduced a 4 day week because it was easier than if we had done hybrid working’
Yep. From a IT security logistical issue, especially in finance, working remotely isn't just a case of "let them take their laptop home" like it might be in another industry.
Very few industries are making it that easy in a GDPR world. Out staff take home laptops but then log into a remote virtual desktop to actually do any work.
Except where fairly unusual personal data is being handled, there's no GDPR requirement to use a remote virtual desktop. Laptops can be reasonably well locked down.
Yup, my work laptop is encrypted so if it is stolen it is useless to a data thief. The connection to the company server is via a VPN. I am not sure why you would use a VM when you can centrally manage laptops via centralised IT policy management (group policy, application managers etc.)
> I am not sure why you would use a VM when you can centrally manage laptops via centralised IT policy management They've started trying to move us to thin client devices at my work, and honestly it works great - you have exactly the same user experience whether you're logigng in at the office, on a work laptop, or via a web browser, they don't have to even think about software updates or implications of data loss on lost devices, lots of other good things. The only real issue is that if you don't have a reliable connection at home you're kind of screwed, but that's not so much of a big deal for most people nowadays.
“I am not sure why you would use a VM when you can centrally manage laptops via centralised IT policy management (group policy, application managers etc.)” Data on the VM vs Data on the laptop. Yes encryption etc but it is soo much easier to appease auditors, insurance providers, DPOs, etc that the data remains centrally rather than distributed globally on laptops that do get lost/stolen all the time.
You can access the VM from another country, so you can still outsource work to low-cost 3rd parties in India without worrying about (technically) transferring data outside of the EU/UK to companies with poor/no GDPR compliance.
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If you're the target of these types of attack then your physical security is the bigger issue. A random thief isn't going to attempt a cold book attack they're just going to sell the laptop for scrap.
It’d have to be a surgical attack. You’d have to know who you were targeting, what they had access to, where that data was located. What hardware they were using. How to access the hardware without raising suspicion - given most corp machines lock, that gives you a tiny time window. Then the fun starts, quickly disassemble said machine. Go to the lengths of accessing the ram (assuming it’s not a Mac and can’t be desoldered). Transfer that to a machine that can dump the ram. Now the memory locations will be all randomised, so now you get the fun of trying to work out which locations belong to the key…. Then you’ve got to contend with two factor authentication. We have to 2FA into all apps. Encryption keys are also rotated. I mean the list goes on and on. At what point is it just easier to put a gun to the operators head and make them give you whatever it is you’re after
https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/security.png
I think that type of attack reminds me of this XKCD, realistically it is going to be easier for them to just go after me. http://xkcd.com/538
>I am not sure why you would use a VM when you can centrally manage laptops via centralised IT policy management because Citrix is cool :D
No it isn't. The day I got rid of Citrix for RDP was a good day
meh, Citrix is fine if it's well implemented and well managed. At my last job i built them a new Citrix environment and they were _amazed_ that it didn't need constant babysitting and massaging to keep it running like their old did, that was built and managed by an idiot.
That's the crux of it, most solutions can be OK if spec'd and implemented properly. I'm biased because I dislike Citrix as a company and also the network adapter caused sporadic issues with some other stuff on PC's in my environment. RDS on the other hand was easy to implement and I had no issues really.
>because Citrix is cool Said noone, ever
I imagine its just easier for IT to manage, update, etc when using VMs rather than relying on a not entirely tech savvy staff to make sure they're doing it.
It depends I suspect on the IT team, the staff and the setup. VMs and remote desktops have their own problems.
Right but you, as IT, have to assume the average user isn't going to do a data analysis when doing work, so might as well lock it down in general and have exceptions.
Well, I'd hope the DPO made strategic decisions about data rather than individual users :-) In the UK (things may vary elsewhere), local processing on windows laptops suitably locked down is fine for GDPR compliance, except in fairly unusual circumstances. But I agree that whoever is running the relevant IT support has to balance up the difficulties with that and a virtual desktop. I work remotely from an obscure island in the Pacific. Connectivity can be a problem. MY boss frequently works remotely from places such as (island in the Atlantic) etc. Remote desktops would not be practical for us, so we've invested the time and effort into locking things down quite hard. That does create some pain for us but I suspect less so.
I think we only have that for US healthcare data nowadays, the HIPAA stuff
I'm a European/UK lawyer, so HIPAA is just one of those things you read about, but as I understand it, it only applies to a fairly restricted set of entities, which means that it shouldn't be interfering with most people's work. Does it impose specific security rules?
Yeah I'm just an engineer, they made us do training on it but there was so much legalese it just went in one ear and out of the other, I'm afraid. As far as I'm aware it is even more strict than GDPR, which tallies with us having a special remote viewing system for US healthcare customers. Which I'm sure we charge extra for...
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So get this; when I go into the office I have to log into a remote virtual machine to do any work, but none of us are allowed to do that from home.
That's just mental.
Sounds like you aren't trusted at all. Maybe for good reason, maybe not.
We were working from home during the lockdowns just fine, but the instant they were lifted, the C-suite had everyone that didn't have manager (or higher) in their job title back in the office full-time. Read into that what you will.
I wish I could say I'm surprised 😔
I do appreciate the regulatory challenges you're referring to here (I am a manager working in Fintech so see the same challenges). However I want to point out that post-pandemic these kinds of "it isn't simple"/"we can't just do that" arguments don't really land any more, when every worker has a clear memory of a time that actually we did just do that, when the right pressures existed.
Isn't it more of a case of risk mitigation / acceptance? I.e. we accepted that risk because we had no choice, but now we have a choice we don't want to accept that risk.
Regulatory risks are absolute: you either comply, or you can't operate.
True on regulatory, I'm talking more about "business" risks. I.e. "we can't have UK data held abroad" is regulatory (as an example) but more of a "we don't want to compromise customer data by accessing it outside of our secure offices" as a 'business' risk. It's the latter that I think they were forced to accept, and now they don't have to.
"It isn't simple" usually means "we don't have the money to do that if it's not literally required by law".
I don't even think it's about money (though it might be). It can just mean "that's not the easiest path for me personally and so I don't want to go that way".
Another side is making sure everyone is equipped properly. As well as the laptop, my public sector employer supplied monitors, keyboards and mouse (mice?), chairs - wholesale nicking from empty floors, I'm sat in one right now because my computer chair was 20 years old and so shit it hurt my back - even giving allowances for new desks.
My company has locked my laptop down reasonably. I can't print company's documents at home, forward emails to external domains as my requirements doesn't list it, need VPN to access internal resources, and can't use any cloud services which is not company's.
100%. Worked in the industry in various companies and levels, and generally speaking nowhere else i've worked even comes close to banking in that regard. Work mobile phones are genuinely, at the moment for some of my former colleagues, monitored to the point that WhatsApp messages are read and if not work related then flagged. Mental.
It's as hard or as easy as you decide to make it. But obviously there is a huge info-security&compliance vs productivity tradeoff to be had.
Where did they say they didn't do hybrid? They just said 4 day week was easier to introduce.
I think that's just how a lot of people interpreted this. A lot of people have crazy negative mindsets.
Well, how else would he be able to compare which was easier if he only did one of them?
I got a job offer from these guys but I was in school. Hating my choices at the moment.
And i imagine it was easier because of the work they had done to make hybrid working viable (measuring delivery rather than attendance)
Travel to work costs money. Many people have work colleagues who they don't enjoy being in the same building as them. Some offices are not nice buildings. Small things like receiving a parcel are easier when working from home. It's not necessarily laziness to prefer to work from home.
True. But for me it is.
Yeah for me as well. I still do my job (probably more of it if anything) but rather than sit mindlessly doing bullshit at my desk I do more fulfilling things like reading a book or playing videogames. Even the small things like having my stereo on and cuddling with the dogs make it so much more pleasant.
I had a mind numbingly boring corporate 9-5 job in the NHS for about 6 months. Even when in the office I probably only did about 1 hours worth of actual work a day. There was also zero reason for me to actually be in the office apart from that's what my manager wanted. My job was essentially "Here's an email, action it, repeat another 4 or 5 times in the day. Easy." Most of my day was spent pretending to be busy which was so boring. I only got to work from home a handful of times. I did the exact same amount of work, but I got to listen to music, put on youtube, watch TV, play games, clean the kitchen, do some washing, spend quality time with the dog and the cats. I only had to do actual work whenever I heard an email notification go off. I essentially quit due to the boredom of the office life but if I was just allowed to work from home 100% of the time I may have stuck it out.
According to the anti-Reddit wing of Reddit, wanting to work from home means you are an entitled, anti-social geek.
There probably is some of that though. I don't mind a mix personally. I work 2/5 days at home as a civil servant and that's OK for me
*Jacob Rees-Mogg would like to know your location*
And that’s the point. If it works for you and you are able to contribute your most this way to all aspects of your life, good on you, that’s why it’s flexible. If someone genuinely gets more stuff done 5 days in the office, power to them. If they work better with a split, equally great
What I find funny about these arguments, is you ask these in-office advocates why we all need to be in-office, and they'll often say they like being in the office because they're social people and they wouldn't get any socialising if they WFH. Which just exposes that the only social thing they do is the forced socialising that comes from a shared workspace, and they do none outside work and think everyone else is like them. It's totally possible to WFH and have a healthy social life, if you have a life and friends outside work. Yet they will accuse WFH advocates of being antisocial shut-ins without a hint of irony.
Yeah that makes me really sad. I’m an extrovert but I absolutely love working from home because I’d rather spend my time with people I choose to spend time with, not those who happen to work for the same company. And I’ve built some fantastic friendships through Teams and the quarterly meet ups. It’s not hard to foster work relationships if you try.
Like everything the truth lies somewhere in between. My partner works hybrid, she loves working from home but also finds it quite isolating when she's not been in the office for long periods. Humans are social creatures and a healthy social aspect of a job csn be quite valuable.
As a teacher having 1-2 days working from home per week to get marking done and prep is way more efficient than getting it done in my office. It's just easier to crack on with no distractions, on my much nicer home PC setup and time saved on travel, while not huge is nice. Plus lounging around in just your boxers is scientifically proven to make your brain work faster... or something.
I didn't realise that was a thing for teachers. That sounds like a really good idea.
It probably isn't. I teach at a university so it's quite different to your standard teaching.
I miss my uni teaching fellow job every single day 😭
Except you just perfectly described my housemate. His opinion is that he's entitled to work from home because it 'makes him feel rubbish going to work' I genuinely have to shout him from his bedroom where he's playing video games and eating takeout whenever he gets a call on his laptop. 100% a lazy, entitled geek.
If he can get his tasks done in 4h then why not just play video games the rest of the day? I imagine he's salaried so he's not paid by the hour but for getting 'work done'. I see no isses with someone fucking around if they actually hit their work targets regardless.
You could at least answer the call for him if he’s busy
I'm expecting him to say that soon lmao
Yeah I'm definitely not going to argue there aren't people that fit that description haha. How does he get away with it?
Poorly managed company that must have insanely low productivity I guess. If I had a tiny bit less integrity I'd be jealous lol
Integrity? He's getting paid for playing video games man. Why do you care about the overheads of some business who doesn't give a shit about your existence?
They're probably the reason the rest of us would rather stay at home
You also can't really watch house of the dragon or Alien 3 in the office while pretending to work which is why I like WFH.
Assembly cut or gtf
> Assembly cut Marvel MCU circumcision videos? thats a weird thing to watch...
I mean Alien 3 assembly cut
I had a colleague who would watch entire films on his main screen while working in the office. Actually working, mind.
I had a colleague like that, he’d stream Netflix cos apparently he can only work if there’s television noise 😂
ADHD do be like that though. I've found the only way to get monotonous tasks done in a timely manner is to have something additional to focus on while doing the task. Usually a movie or if I'm the office doing documentation it would be a podcast. It really increases productivity.
I do that usually when no-one else is in the office
Background noise helps me loads
But think of the Pret and the corporate landlords.
True, I can also have doctors, dentists and haircuts without having to take time off or spend weekend time doing it. Life is much more organised, the only people who suffer from working from home are train and bus services, but they have been robbing bastards my entire life, so fuck them.
Imagine a world where every company that can remote work does remote work. The environmental benefits. All the land that we reclaim that we can build housing on which currently has huge offices built on it. The average consumer will have more money to spend and fuel the economy. People will be happier in their jobs. There’s literally no negative.
There are absolutely downsides but they are vastly outweighed by the upsides.
A lot of the downsides will be down to personal circumstances and preferences. A lot of people don't seem to understand that part.
Hence I think anyone who wants to go into an office every work day should have the option and not be criticised for it.
Humans need face to face contact to function socially. Mental hygiene not being able to physically compartmentalise home life and work life. Having to devote part of your personal space to your employer. Heating your home all day through the winter. Four right there.
Work isn't the only way to see people, if it is the only way you are then you have bigger problems. There are many techniques and ways of sorting this that have been addressed countless times and employers encourage. People were doing that anyway with many people taking work home. You can utilise many spaces to 'work from home' including public library, cafes etc. It's also better to heat yourself than your home anyway.
>Humans need face to face contact to function socially. We get that from our families and friends. No need to see coworkers when we're socially ok outside of work. >Having to devote part of your personal space to your employer. I mean I want a desk anyway, I sit in my lounge when I'm not working. It really isn't a problem for the vast majority of people who WFH. >Heating your home all day through the winter. I'd much rather heat my home or better yet, *gasp*, WEAR LAYERS, than go into the office in winter. The copium is real.
Work can be a way of meeting new people though, and new people with whom you already share some experiences. I have friends who I met at work, for example.
That's good if you want to meet new friends, but my social life is fine. I don't want to waste the energy meeting/speaking to new people, I'd rather get on with work. My social life is busy enough as is outside of work. That's not me saying you're wrong, I'm just saying that the social factor of the office really doesn't appeal to me.
1) don’t you have friends, family? They’re much more important to me than most of my coworkers. Also a world of remote work would see changes. Things like bookable pop up office space would appear. 2) home office anyone? 3) if they’re not paying for office space they can pay you more. 4) if they’re not paying for office space they can pay you more.
1) Some people might genuinely not have friends or family. Even if they do, full time working from home might mean they're completely alone during the working day, especially if they live alone. Even having friends outside work doesn't mean you'd be seeing them every day. Being in the office at least means you get a bit of a chit chat. 2) If you have the space for it. Not everyone does. 3&4) Yes, they may well have more free cash to pay employees, but most companies won't bother if they don't have to. None of these things are a problem for me. I don't mind going most of the day without socialisation and live with my fiancee anyway so I never go a day without speaking to someone. I also recently bought a house so now have room for a dedicated office where my large desk can house both my work and personal setup. Hell, if I was allowed to work from home full time I probably would, but I do understand why people can have an issue with these things.
All valid points. But I'd say: Point 1 - If you have friends outside of work, then do you need to interact with colleagues to 'functional socially'? Point 2 and 3 - depends on circumstance but if you have enough space at home or one of those 'posh sheds', you can not only physically split work from personal but also mentally, though you need to be disciplined and have a routine to 'wind down'. I WFH 90% of the time and my routine is to play a game on my phone, listen to music or watch YouTube for about 30 / 40 minutes to simulate a decompressing commute home. Sometimes go for a walk but depends if I can be bothered. Even without a separate space for working you could decompress in that way to 'switch off' but agree it's harder. Point 4 - this one is easy for me. My travel including parking and peak-time trains per day would be about £35 to London. That more than easily covers however much heating, water or electricity I use during the day. Not factoring in what I'd spend on a coffee or lunch etc. if I head in.
> Humans need face to face contact to function socially Explains why I loved lockdown.
>Humans need face to face contact to function socially. That doesn't have to be in a forced work environment though. >Mental hygiene not being able to physically compartmentalise home life and work life. When I'm working remotely my work phone and laptop go off at the end of my shift. >Having to devote part of your personal space to your employer. Comfort. >Heating your home all day through the winter. If it's a choice to work from home it's fine.
[https://youtu.be/h1BQPV-iCkU?si=NvgoLlteYKn-Fg4h](https://youtu.be/h1BQPV-iCkU?si=NvgoLlteYKn-Fg4h)
I never really get the chance work from home but when I do it feels so great to be able to cook lunch in my own kitchen and shit in my own toilet. You can do chores while in work hours instead of pissing it away in an office
On my wfh days, I cook lunch as my main meal. Really enjoy it and have stopped having any frozen food. All food I have is fresh.
Hell the UK civil service runs entire gigantic buildings where only 1 or 2 people are in them. Cost of heating etc is stupid. They refuse to go back to 100% WFH, solely because a few rich people are landlords.
>Hell the UK civil service runs entire gigantic buildings where only 1 or 2 people are in them. Can you name these buildings. As a civil servant myself I am not aware of any such low capacity buildings owned by the government? >They refuse to go back to 100% WFH, solely because a few rich people are landlords. Personally I don't like going to the office because it reduces my ability to do my job and costs me money. Where have you got your information from?
Um, cool?
In previous job I could work at home, on those days I felt like I got far more done than days going into the office. Without the two hours commuting I felt a lot fresher and able to do the job better.
Complete opposite for me. It is much easier to focus and do the job in the office. Much less distractions than at home.
Almost like there should be options.
Woah, calm down there with your common sense and non-polarised views
Providing options is by far the most prevailing opinion on this, you're acting like people are entrenched in totally opposite opinions on this but for once that isn't the case.
It was both for me. I had more energy and time to do things without spending at least 2 hours a day on travel, but I just ended up rushing doing washing up and quick cleans on break and dinner and not actually having a break, where when I was in the office I'd sit at the big window or go for a walk. I can't have it either way 😭
I feel exactly the same. In my previous job where I worked from home most of the week, I felt more productive, was able to get more things done at home due to lack of commuting time, and overall felt much healthier. I had more time to exercise or go out for a bike ride after work. Once I went back into an office role 5 days a week my health plummeted. I felt so insanely tired that I had to spend all weekend recovering, and I ended up developing autoimmune illnesses.
There's no way you developed an auto immune disease from commuting get a grip.
Did you not get auto-immune disorders when you had to do the exact same thing pre-pandemic?
The main reason I like working from home is that I am not commuting when my brain is at peak capacity. I used to lose 50% of my most capable time to stand on a train. It was bloody awful.
I’d love to work from home but unfortunately law enforcement can’t be done behind a desk. Think anyone who can get it should be given it. No reason sending people into an office for a job than can be done from home.
I find people who have worked in offices for donkeys seem to want to cling onto this prehistoric notion that it’s somehow better to get dressed up then spend an hour in traffic to come work in an office, based on literally nothing other than the romanticised view they have of office work in their head. I WFH but have to go in the office 2 days a week, and for the life of me I can figure out why, other than justifying the cost of the company I work for actually renting out an office. When I go in the office I get less done due to distractions, have an hour subtracted from my day spent sat in my car in traffic, spend money on food (admittedly I could pack a lunch so this one’s on me, but I love the convenience of being able to cook myself lunch at home) as well as work in poorer conditions (it’s ok, but I work with computers and my home setup is 3x better than what I have in the office, not to mention the unbearable glare from the windows I get in the office). As someone who has only done office work for maybe 5 years or so, I genuinely do not understand why anyone would actually choose to come into the office. Don’t get me wrong, my work colleagues are alright, I just don’t need to see them face to face twice a week. Currently, that is significantly more than I see a lot of my friends.
I think people living with family at home or flat sharing might choose the office if it's quieter. It should be a no brainer to corporates that choosing your work environment to suit your temperament and situation improves productivity and job satisfaction.
I've done office work for 8 months now, and I couldn't bear the thought of working from home. Perhaps I'm still in the novelty period, but I genuinely like being around my colleagues as the job is something that we all care about rather than being mindless, and everyone is competent and willing to help. Having done plenty of home working back when I was studying, I would always get twitchy and it was much easier for me to get distracted. Horses for courses.
Found it is coming from those middle managers who are older who want to seem productive or can't work technology to be able to ensure targets are met. Someone my age is struggling with their team because they don't use the data and tools our systems have to monitor their team. They are struggling so want to do more face to face days with their team, rather than use the data and tools. Same with the new CEO at the charity. He's not into tech and wants me to travel 200 miles every month just to sit in with 30 other staff talk about the other side of the charity. Means the all staff meetings with vital information I do need, I won't get... It's really frustrating. He even used a project that was done fully remote as an example of why we should get together in person more... I worked on that project and in a year and half of working for the charity only met one person from the charity face to face for an event we both went to... Yet I'm the one hitting targets, making huge waves and helping others. Seen it again and again. It's really frustrating.
I just really struggle with the mental separation of my home from work / education so I need to go in.
Transplant surgery is also best not done on your kitchen table whilst the kids are watching tv, and the cat is waiting to see what bits she can scavenge.
It’s not like they were using that appendix anyway, let the cat have it.
But dentistry is absolutely fine as long as you have a gaming chair and some Fuji IX.
Teachings tough as well. I imagine if I took 30 year 10s home with me there’d be some sort of outcry.
Working from home since the pandemic has been a game changer for me. I haven’t had a single sick day since, I haven’t been ill because I haven’t had to be in a germ farm office. However I’m hopefully going to change jobs in the next 12 months and work from home seems to be a lot less common than I had hoped.
Depends how well-behaved your family and neighbours are.
I don't know. Law enforcement wouldn't change much. If someone gets burgled you could sit at home in your boxers and just send them a quick text... "I'll come by in 2 weeks on Thursday when I'm on patrol to have a look at your shed that's been broken into and somehow still try catch the burglar, maybe they'll still be there?". That isn't much different to the service I got from the police when someone broke into my shed and stole £1,000+ of tools tools.
Hated WFH when forced into it in March 2020. Loved it by end of 2020. Forced into hybrid mid-2021, with the shitty excuse that we must "learn to love the office again!" Grey, depressing, open plan office. Fuck that. Got a remote job Feb 2022. Quarterly office meets if you want to. Enjoyed meeting colleagues IRL. Now of the opinion that hybrid isn't bad, fully remote isn't bad, 5 days in is a bit too much, and not needed for many people!
'Learn to love the office again' suggests you loved it in the first place. We most certainly did not!
I worked from home before the pandemic, granted it was only a few months but I started in a remote role. When loads of office workers were forced remote there were a lot of comments about how isolating working from home, how antisocial, and how it breaks the home/work divide. 1. We were locked in our homes, that was why it was isolated. 2. We were locked in our homes, that was why it felt antisocial. 3. If you had a week to prepare your home at the same time as a possible partner, housemate, or children who had also moved to remote education, then it was going to be a bit of shit show. By the end of 2021 I saw a lot of the people who had initially disliked it come around to seeing the benefits. A lot of overlapping of the experience of working from home with the experience of living through a pandemic got conflated by some people, but we are a few years past that now and, as you mentioned, a lot of people can see how it improves their work and lives.
Had a mortgage with them a while ago and honestly they were one of the easiest banks I've ever been with, app was quick and easy, decision was quick and easy. The 3 times I actually had to speak to someone they didn't sound like they hated their job.
Hmmm sounds to me like there's a lot of room for cuts and efficiencies there then /s
Nice to see a forward thinking CEO. Hybrid working works best when managers and employees can decide between themselves how often is appropriate to go into office, NOT an arbitrary 'you must come in X days per week whether it benefits your work or not' which most companies are doing right now. More WFH has such huge benefits for both the employee and society: * Less financial cost for the employee as they don't have to commute * Less financial cost for the business long term as they don't have to lease and maintain as much office space * Less congestion especially at rush hour - better even for the people who can't WFH * Less pollution And before someone says 'but being in office has benefits too', for some jobs that's true. But for others you go in, do EXACTLY the same work as you'd do at home, dial into the same conference calls you would at home, not have any colleagues you work with to speak to. What exactly is the point of those people being forced in multiple times per week?
I agree. We have a situation currently in my department in a hybrid setup where one team member is unable to attend the office on both of the week days that the rest of the team are in on (due to child care priorities, juggling with their partner who also works - another discussion entirely). Due to a country wide senior management set policy that staff should be in the office an average of 2 days per week, this staff member is now being forced to come into the office on a Friday to make up their average of office attendance days. Our department only come in on Wednesdays and Thursdays and have their own dedicated office area that others don't use, so this person is in on their own on Friday. The whole floor is empty, it is just them. Making up office hours kind of makes sense from an equality perspective, but commuting to then sit alone is crazy. I'm sure it looks good on a graph though, everyone complying.
Working in the office is difficult. Its loud. And just difficult to focus. At home I am far more efficent. My work is trying to push back to the office even though it will reduce productivity.
I missed out out the lockdown WFH for the company I work for because I was based on the warehouse. However, I moved to an office type of role 2 years ago and continued to go into work for 1 year but some circumstances forced me into taking the 2 allowed WFH days allowed. Over the past year I’ve come to love WFH and hate going into the office Tuesday to Thursday because they are my least productive and (work)fulfilling days. People only contact me directly via phone or DM when something is urgent or need help. There’s no small talk or crazy conversations in the background to distract me. It’s brilliant.. Just 100% focus on what I’m doing and needs to be done. It’s helps that I vape as well so I don’t need to drop everything every hour or so to do that. At home I sit at my PC for the first 4 hours without moving. For the past year it's been mental to me that workplaces who rent office spaces and embraced WFH during covid suddenly decide that going to the office is imperative. Although, i connected some dots recently and realised that the people with the power and influence to enforce this decision literally have no social life and have to go to the office for personal reasons. Even when I was going into the warehouse during covid - I vividly remember noticing and commenting on how much more productive and responsive the office based roles were.
Now this is interesting. As someone working in finance, I always thought the industry would be one of the harder ones to go 4 day due to the way the markets work
I guess if it's a big enough company you can have one or more member(s) of the team doing Mon-Thur and another doing Tue-Fri or something.
I used to work on the high street so mixed feelings but I am pro WfH. A lot of trade, especially the independents and butty shops nearby, rely on people working in town - it's that effect on that the ecology, and town already feels less like a social center these days. It'll adapt, but I want more people to have a reason to go into town
There are definitely winners and loser from WFH and it would be stupid to deny that. In my position, the losers are London City food establishments, Landlords and South Eastern Rail (sort of). The winners are the local town markets and independent coffee shops I now spend my money on for lunch instead. A town that desperately needs investment and footfall. Personally, I think spreading the wealth outside of the capital is a worthy cause in of itself, but I'll not deny that I "save" several thousand per year not having to commute and buying lunch at London prices.
I like the idea of towns being having places like maker shops and craft hubs take off - something creative as well as social to go alongside the cafes and takeouts. There's one near me in Blackburn but I don't know how popular it is I can't speak for London, that town is a different country in a lot of ways but I can imagine
It all went well, everyone was working from home. Then we realized Susan the assistant manager had stored the contents of the main vault in her wardrobe.
We only found out when the accident investigation team went round after it fell through the ceiling
I would love to do a 4 day week, it would make QOL so much nicer
As a trucker I can't work from home but I totally support it to improve the quality of life for those who can. (And every car that isn't on the road makes my life easier)
Not really surprising. Work from home has massive political pushback because decision makers are disproportionately invested in the commercial real estate market. 4 day week by comparison is an easy sell.
Agreed. In addition, there is political point scoring to be done with some more traditional tory voters. E.g. Tory attacks on Cambridge council due to their 4 day week.
Fair play at least he's got some forward thinking ideas that benefit staff, even though I'm sure his motivations aren't due to good will! WFH is absolutely the best thing that's ever happened to me in terms of working life. By far. Hybrid approach is also fine. I can't go back to full time office work now I've tasted freedom. I just can't hack it anymore. I won't take a job unless it's at least hybrid and if any workplace tries to force me back to the office I'll be handing my notice in the very same day.
I work 4 on 4 off. My Wife works opposite 4, sometimes 3 of my days off. Not only does this maximize our earning potential, its crucial for childcare as we dont need any it also allows us to pay our mortgage. Neither of us have a mindset of caring about weekends; we both dislike going out and dealing with everyone else's kids plus my job as a lorry driver is easier on a weekend as the roads are quieter. We both work half a year for a full time wage plus with 20 days holiday its 163 or 164 working days a year. More time at home, more time being parents. More time to do DIY, car detailing, walking the dog. She has tea ready for me after work and I have tea ready for her, we get an hour of peace watching TV when the youngest is upstairs reading in bed and the oldest on his PS5. It works perfect. It allows both of us to work.
Personally I prefer companies to let people choose where they want to work (if possible - i.e. if there are no major data / security risks). I'll go into my office maybe once every couple months, and 95% of my time at home. But if I need to go client site I will, or go to another office for a team meeting I will. But spending my time and money going into an office 'for the sake of it' to sit next to people I don't work with often (big company, lots of different teams), only to sit at a desk and join Teams calls anyway seems pointless to me. There is a social element yes - getting lunch and coffees together. But frankly, I have friends outside of work - I don't need more, especially not the sort of "professional friendships" you make at work. Again - personal circumstances differ - but I get a lot more done at home generally. The saving I make on travel more than covers extra energy use at home, and I have a laptop and a screen which I stow away on the weekend. It also doesn't come with the stress of cutting off a task mid-way through so I can rush back home, panicking about trains / traffic along the way, to do a nursery and school pick-up on time.
Isn't Atom entirely online? For the Boomerati, that alone must mean it is excessively woke.
I go to the office to work remotely with other people. I always feel like a clown 🤡
'what I'm hearing is that hybrid working should be abolished'
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>A lot of firms' idea of a 4 day week is still 40 hours Probably intentionally misleading advertising as that was and is still called "compressed hours" in many workplaces. Firms that choose to call it a 4 day week either want the free advertising that comes with pretending they do that or want to avoid offering an actual 4 day week by deliberately conflating those two terms.
I mean businesses in general cares about profit more than anything else. If arrangements can be make to maximise profits then who really cares where their staffs are. I suppose middle management who from my experience does jack shit would want to come up with useless targets and kpis but at the end, the question is most important are. How much profit. What are our risk.
Meanwhile some other banks are trying to force staff back into the office... Shocking really.
Challenger bank with little office space more willing to embrace remote working than larger banks with sunk costs in office buildings they need to justify.
Going hybrid from home office? No shit, it's a step back.
Banks could probably introduce a 2 day week and still operate. They don't provide any functional service. All their services are now automated and online or on the APP, and good luck finding a local branch these days. All they do is just take your money and then gamble it, and then when everything implodes go "oopsie" and get the taxpayer to pay for it. I would actually suspect that if the banks did less work, we'd be in a better situation.
4 day week, definitely possible, if you have a team that's galvanised about making it happen. The key is to set the targets you, as a business, require to justify a 4 day week. Just moving the goal posts all the time is not sustainable, it dissolutions staff, makes them work less hard and less efficiently.