Working From Home Megathread

givyjoe

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

Nothing prevents it, from either home of office.

Some people seem to believe it's easier from home.

But you should be recording working vs non working time, either way.

Says who and why?? None of the companies I've worked for have ever required me to account for time, minute by minute. I'm sure some do and it;s dependant on the sector, but the vast majority of companies/positions that are (and suited to WFH) donn't/won't be going over folks time with a fine tooth comb. Simple email/text to my boss if it's going to be a 'significant' absence of hours. No requirement to make up time as he already knows what I will/do/have already made up the time with extra work. It is easier from home and a lot of managers are fairly relaxed about their staff managing their time as you know.. they trust them.

silverharp

kinda dumb but I cant judge :pac:

https://twitter.com/zerohedge/status/1400776778705145859

givyjoe

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

All of them apply to all employees.

Yes, salaried employees usually do need to go beyond their contractual minimum if they want to be seen as worthy of promotion.

But they still need to comply with labour laws.



The attitudes of many posters here towards something as basic as the laws that cover employing and managing staff tell me that you know next to nothing about business or management.

Sure, some companies choose to knowingly break some laws, some of the time. But do it for a while, and you will get in to trouble or one sort of another. It's usually just not worth the risk.

Christ on a bike.. irony overload here..

Frank Bullitt

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

Nothing prevents it, from either home of office.

Some people seem to believe it's easier from home.

But you should be recording working vs non working time, either way.

Give me a break.

Go back to the 80's there, boss.

Big pushback by Apple staff against a call back to the offices.


https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-57385999

Apple employees have launched a campaign to push back against Tim Cook's plans for a widespread return to the office, according to reports.


It follows an all-staff memo last week in which the Apple boss said workers should be in the office at least three days a week by September.


But staff are demanding more flexibility, according to an internal letter obtained by news site The Verge.


Apple's policy has "already forced some of our colleagues to quit", it said.


"Without the inclusivity that flexibility brings, many of us feel we have to choose between either a combination of our families, our wellbeing, and being empowered to do our best work, or being a part of Apple," the letter said.


"Over the last year we often felt not just unheard, but at times actively ignored," it also reads, accusing management of a "disconnect" with employees on the topic of remote or flexible working.

It seems that a few have already "voterd with their feet!".

Edit: link to original article https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/4/22491629/apple-employees-push-back-return-office-internal-letter-tim-cook

Here is the full letter sent to management.

Read the full letter below:

Dear Tim and Executive Leadership,

Thank you for your thoughtful considerations on a hybrid approach to returning to office work, and for sharing it with all of us early this week. We appreciate your efforts in navigating what has been undeniably an incredibly difficult time for everyone around the world, and doing so for over one hundred thousand people. We are certain you have more plans than were shared on Wednesday, but are following Apple’s time-honored tradition of only announcing things when they are ready. However, we feel like the current policy is not sufficient in addressing many of our needs, so we want to take some time to explain ourselves.

This past year has been an unprecedented challenge for our company; we had to learn how to deliver the same quality of products and services that Apple is known for, all while working almost completely remotely. We did so, achieving another record-setting year. We found a way for everyone to support each other and succeed in a completely new way of working together — from locations we were able to choose at our own discretion (often at home).

However, we would like to take the opportunity to communicate a growing concern among our colleagues. That Apple’s remote/location-flexible work policy, and the communication around it, have already forced some of our colleagues to quit. Without the inclusivity that flexibility brings, many of us feel we have to choose between either a combination of our families, our well-being, and being empowered to do our best work, or being a part of Apple. This is a decision none of us take lightly, and a decision many would prefer not to have to make. These concerns are largely what prompted us to advocate for changes to these policies, and data collected will reflect those concerns.

Over the last year we often felt not just unheard, but at times actively ignored. Messages like, ‘we know many of you are eager to reconnect in person with your colleagues back in the office,’ with no messaging acknowledging that there are directly contradictory feelings amongst us feels dismissive and invalidating. Not only do many of us already feel well-connected with our colleagues worldwide, but better-connected now than ever. We’ve come to look forward to working as we are now, without the daily need to return to the office. It feels like there is a disconnect between how the executive team thinks about remote / location-flexible work and the lived experiences of many of Apple’s employees.

For many of us at Apple, we have succeeded not despite working from home, but in large part because of being able to work outside the office. The last year has felt like we have truly been able to do the best work of our lives for the first time, unconstrained by the challenges that daily commutes to offices and in-person co-located offices themselves inevitably impose; all while still being able to take better care of ourselves and the people around us.

Looking around the corner, we believe the future of work will be significantly more location and timezone flexible. In fact, we are already a distributed company with offices all over the world and across many different timezones. Apple’s organizational hierarchy lends itself towards offices that often follow the same structure, wherein people in the same organization are more likely to be co-located in an office. At the same time, we strongly encourage cross-functional, cross-organization collaboration, and our organization’s many horizontal teams reflect this. Such collaboration is widely celebrated across our organization, and arguably leads us to our best results — it’s one of the things that makes Apple, Apple. However, orgs are rarely co-located within walking distance, let alone in the same building, meaning our best collaboration has always required remote communication with teams in other offices and across timezones, since long before the pandemic. We encourage distributed work from our business partners, and we’ve been a remote-communication necessary company for some time, a vision of the future that Steve Jobs himself predicated in an interview from 1990. This may explain how mandatory out-of-office work enabled tearing down cross-functional communication barriers to deliver even better results.

Almost all of us have worked fully remote for over a year now, though the experience arguably would have been better less one pandemic. We have developed two major versions of all our operating systems, organized two full WWDCs, introduced numerous new products, transitioned to our own chipsets, and supported our customers with the same level of care as before. We have already piloted location-flexible work the last 15 months under much more extreme conditions and we were very successful in doing so, finding the following benefits of remote and location-flexible work for a large number of our colleagues:

Diversity and Inclusion in Retention and Hiring
Tearing Down Previously Existing Communication Barriers
Better Work Life Balance
Better Integration of Existing Remote / Location-Flexible Workers
Reduced Spread of Pathogens

We ask for your support in enabling those who want to work remotely / in location-flexible ways to continue to do so, letting everyone figure out which work setup works best for them, their team, and their role — be it in one of our offices, from home, or a hybrid solution. We are living proof that there is no one-size-fits-all policy for people. For Inclusion and Diversity to work, we have to recognize how different we all are, and with those differences, come different needs and different ways to thrive. We feel that Apple has both the responsibility to recognize these differences, as well as the capability to fully embrace them. Officially enabling individual management chains and individual teams to make decisions that work best for their teams roles, individuals, and needs — and having that be the official stated policy rather than the rare individual exceptions — would alleviate the concerns and reservations many of us currently have.

We understand that inertia is real and that change is difficult to achieve. The pandemic forcing us to work from home has given us a unique opportunity. Most of the change has already happened, remote/location-flexible work is currently the “new normal,” we just need to make sure we make the best of it now. We believe that Apple has the ability to be a leader in this realm, not by declaring ‘everyone just work from home for forever,’ as some other companies have done, but by declaring an official broad paradigm policy, that allows individual leaders to make decisions that will enable their teams to do the best work of their lives. We strongly believe this is the ideal moment to “burn the boats” — to boldly declare ‘yes this can be done, and done successfully, because there is no other choice for the future.’

We have gathered some of our requests and action items to help continue the conversation and make sure everyone is heard.

We are formally requesting that Apple considers remote and location-flexible work decisions to be as autonomous for a team to decide as are hiring decisions.
We are formally requesting a company-wide recurring short survey with a clearly structured and transparent communication / feedback process at the company-wide level, organization-wide level, and team-wide level, covering topics listed below.
We are formally requesting a question about employee churn due to remote work be added to exit interviews.
We are formally requesting a transparent, clear plan of action to accommodate disabilities via onsite, offsite, remote, hybrid, or otherwise location-flexible work.
We are formally requesting insight into the environmental impact of returning to onsite in-person work, and how permanent remote-and-location-flexibility could offset that impact.

We have great respect for Apple and its leadership; we strongly believe in the Innovation and Thinking Differently (from “the way things have always been done” and “industry standards”) that are part of Apple’s DNA. We all wish to continue to “bleed six colors” at Apple itself and not elsewhere. At Apple, our most important resource, our soul, is our people, and we believe that ensuring we are all heard, represented, and validated is how we continue to defend and protect that precious sentiment.

This is not a petition, though it may resemble one. This is a plea: let’s work together to truly welcome everyone forward.

Yes, the all seeing eye of the apple's power is somewhat dimished when the staff are not contained in their offices.

Mr.S

Mr.S wrote: »

Though Apple strikes be as a company with huge focus on internal culture, which is a struggle with remote - maybe that's their logic.

The international bit works both ways. I’m in a highly international company and even on days that I am in the office all my meetings are on zoom or MS teams, with people in other countries (and none of my direct reports are in Ireland bit instead spread across 4 countries)

So on many days it is an irrelevance whether I am in the office or not. I’m sure that there are many apple employees in the same boat

Cluedo Monopoly

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

Nothing prevents it, from either home of office.

Some people seem to believe it's easier from home.

But you should be recording working vs non working time, either way.

In my last 2 multinational employments I did not have to enter a timesheet. The last time I entered a timesheet was 2009.

Frank Bullitt

Cluedo Monopoly wrote: »

In my last 2 multinational employments I did not have to enter a timesheet. The last time I entered a timesheet was 2009.

God, timesheets are a poison on work.

Lillyfae

[Deleted User] wrote: »

The international bit works both ways. I’m in a highly international company and even on days that I am in the office all my meetings are on zoom or MS teams, with people in other countries (and none of my direct reports are in Ireland bit instead spread across 4 countries)

So on many days it is an irrelevance whether I am in the office or not. I’m sure that there are many apple employees in the same boat

*Internal*

Fr Tod Umptious

Cluedo Monopoly wrote: »

In my last 2 multinational employments I did not have to enter a timesheet. The last time I entered a timesheet was 2009.

Having to log time can be a pain but I can see how it is required.
As an IT person I've had to do it in most companies I work for.
The IT department charge the other departments for their service, based on hourly rates.
Even though it is all the same company at the end of the day and the money is just going around Ina circle this is done so that the other departments will actually know the value of IT and know that it not just something they can have unlimited access to.

Patsy167

I'm seeing more and more places indicating that they are reverting to more or less a full return to the office. I was speaking to a few at the weekend and all had been told it will be 3/4 days in the office and the general feeling is that the stigma of WFH will return and 5-days will be encouraged and praised.

Curious to hear what others are hearing locally?

BBC reporting 'Five-day office week will become the norm again'

"The five-day office week could become the norm again within two years, the Centre for Cities think tank has told the BBC.

A blend of home and office work is expected to be popular while the UK recovers from the pandemic.

But some analysts then anticipate a shift back to pre-Covid working patterns for many."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57339105

Lillyfae

Lillyfae wrote: »

*Internal*

Apologies

Patsy167

Patsy167 wrote: »

I'm seeing more and more places indicating that they are reverting to more or less a full return to the office. I was speaking to a few at the weekend and all had been told it will be 3/4 days in the office and the general feeling is that the stigma of WFH will return and 5-days will be encouraged and praised.

Curious to hear what others are hearing locally?

BBC reporting 'Five-day office week will become the norm again'

"The five-day office week could become the norm again within two years, the Centre for Cities think tank has told the BBC.

A blend of home and office work is expected to be popular while the UK recovers from the pandemic.

But some analysts then anticipate a shift back to pre-Covid working patterns for many."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57339105

I think that there will end up being a significant divide between those working for large firms and MNCs, who have been hybrid working for years, and smaller domestic companies, maybe with less managerial comfort re. performance management, who’ll want to have their people present and visible.

Certainly in my case the existing informal 2/3 days WFH that’s existed for years has been formalised by way of the stripping out of a lot of desks to make space for social areas. New capacity is c. 50% of total headcount

dashoonage

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/politics/tanaiste-leo-varadkar-pushing-for-early-returnto-officesin-august-40513640.html

Yis cant go on holidays lads and get back to the office with ye!!!

BrianD3

Hopefully everyone got their submission in to the public consultation on the statutory right to request remote work

Here is ICTU's submission
https://www.ictu.ie/download/pdf/ictu_submission_on_right_to_request_remote_work_may_2021.pdf

As i said previously, I'm not convinced that this statutory right will help private sector workers that much - poor union representation and IMO the desire to have staff WFH will have to be "the employer's idea". If there is a law brought in to attempt to force the issue, employers will find a way around it and won't fear the WRC.

paw patrol

Patsy167 wrote: »

I'm seeing more and more places indicating that they are reverting to more or less a full return to the office. I was speaking to a few at the weekend and all had been told it will be 3/4 days in the office and the general feeling is that the stigma of WFH will return and 5-days will be encouraged and praised.

Curious to hear what others are hearing locally?

BBC reporting 'Five-day office week will become the norm again'

"The five-day office week could become the norm again within two years, the Centre for Cities think tank has told the BBC.

A blend of home and office work is expected to be popular while the UK recovers from the pandemic.

But some analysts then anticipate a shift back to pre-Covid working patterns for many."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57339105

Not much said in my current place, but they were always v covid conscious and I suspect there will be so much rules in the office that in 2021 it will only be possible to have small proportion of staff in there at a given time.

i'll be pushing for 3/4 days at home in the strongest terms.. I work on contract so can move easily so majority WFH will be a significant factor in future jobs.

I'll only be 5 days in the office if I'm stuck for work but I'll try get roles in other countries with occasional office visits if irish companies don't play ball

If my place decides "You only live 1.5 hours away you can come in 2 days every week" I'll be moving to another country where they have an established presence. :pac:

Infoanon

dashoonage wrote: »

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/politics/tanaiste-leo-varadkar-pushing-for-early-returnto-officesin-august-40513640.html

Yis cant go on holidays lads and get back to the office with ye!!!

The headline is a little bit misleading , I also suspect it's a bit of kite flying by Leo , possibly in light of the well publicised backlash against Apples policy.

For Governments WFH is a win win - environment /transport infrastructure / Housing - all benefit .

doc22

Infoanon wrote: »

The headline is a little bit misleading , I also suspect it's a bit of kite flying by Leo , possibly in light of the well publicised backlash against Apples policy.

For Governments WFH is a win win - environment /transport infrastructure / Housing - all benefit .

A letter written by a few dozen Apple employees in America won't influence gov policy. The fact covid will be a memory come August and No one of working age will be at risk/fully vaccinated. It'll be interesting to see what the public sector does but I can't see one agency/department lets people WFH while another pulls everyone back in, it'll be harmonized.

ELM327

A few apple employees wont but the collective pull of over 500k jobs depending on MNC/FDI might!

moycullen14

At both extremes of the employment curve there will be a pull to get people back to the office.

At one end, you have google, apple, etc. who can pretty much dictate anything to their employees and at the other extreme you have the more scabby employers, where the employees are glad/desperate to have a job. They, too, can dictate policy. The employers in the middle are more likely to be flexible.

Infoanon

Patsy167 wrote: »

BBC reporting 'Five-day office week will become the norm again'

"The five-day office week could become the norm again within two years, the Centre for Cities think tank has told the BBC.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57339105

Shocker - a vested interest - 'Centre for Cities' sees a return to a 5 day a week !!
The replies to the article are an interesting read with the bast majority calling out the obvious bias.

Another shocker - property comprises see return to city centre working !!

Read beyond the headline !

Infoanon

doc22 wrote: »

A letter written by a few dozen Apple employees in America won't influence gov policy. The fact covid will be a memory come August and No one of working age will be at risk/fully vaccinated. It'll be interesting to see what the public sector does but I can't see one agency/department lets people WFH while another pulls everyone back in, it'll be harmonized.

Firstly no one ever said government policy will be set by a number of Apple employees.
If you read the full article you will know that 'covid will not be a memory ' and that the office in the future is going to be very different in the short term at least.

The Apple story is very interesting, employees are leaving and moving to tech companies that offer WFH , anecdotally I have heard similar in relation to a number of professions .
If employees start leaving ,companies will have to adjust no matter how dated their thinking.

Infoanon

BrianD3 wrote: »

As i said previously, I'm not convinced that this statutory right will help private sector workers that much - poor union representation and IMO the desire to have staff WFH will have to be "the employer's idea". If there is a law brought in to attempt to force the issue, employers will find a way around it and won't fear the WRC.

The recent Supreme Court ruling re the WRC has significant implications and employers attitudes will change.
Not that it will be relevant - employees will move to employers who offer WFH and at the same time any modern efficient company wont require a 'law' to promote the benefits of WFH to its employees.

JTMan

https://twitter.com/MichealLehane/status/1402292607561224192

Dial Hard

Mr.S wrote: »

I thought timesheets are for when you bill clients or are a contractor?!

Yeah, still very common in client service. I work in PR/PA and we have to account for the full 40 hours every single week.

However, my employer couldn't give sh*t one when I work those hours as long as I'm keeping some semblance of core business hours, so Mrs. O'B's argument falls flat on its face, as usual. As long as I can account for my time, my employer neither knows nor cares if I did my shopping during a quiet afternoon or took an extended lunch one day.

Underground

I think the government might give the end of August go ahead to small occupiers like small solicitors firms etc who by all accounts have never left the office all through covid anyway.

I can't see any of the big occupiers heading back to the office in any meaningful way until we reach mass vaccination.

doc22

Underground wrote: »

I think the government might give the end of August go ahead to small occupiers like small solicitors firms etc who by all accounts have never left the office all through covid anyway.

I can't see any of the big occupiers heading back to the office in any meaningful way until we reach mass vaccination.

By the end of August we'll be on to children

Mrs OBumble

Dial Hard wrote: »

Yeah, still very common in client service. I work in PR/PA and we have to account for the full 40 hours every single week.

However, my employer couldn't give sh*t one when I work those hours as long as I'm keeping some semblance of core business hours, so Mrs. O'B's argument falls flat on its face, as usual. As long as I can account for my time, my employer neither knows nor cares if I did my shopping during a quiet afternoon or took an extended lunch one day.

It's not my argument: it's a labour inspectors.

Your employer is legally responsible for ensuring that you don't average more than 48 hours/week, and that you get legal minimum breaks during shifts and rest time between work days.

Your employer will get away with neither knowing nor caring - until some employee complaints, or the government wants to prove something against them. But they will face penalties if WRC inspection happens. And after that grey are likely to care, whether you want them to or not.