Working From Home Megathread

Fr Tod Umptious

Cluedo Monopoly wrote: »

You are without doubt a controlling micro manager in the public sector. Am I right?

You see with COVID-19 there is always a bogeyman.

Always someone else to point the finger at.

So far it's been people going skiing in Italy, Italian rugby fans, Cheltenham racegoers, Keelings workers, house party people, dancing on the streets of Killarney people, RTE going way party people, meat factory workers from Barzil.

And when it comes to WFH anyone who is not 100% in on the group think about how brilliant it is can simply be accused of being a controlling micro manager.

Apparently there is just this huge swath of the working public that are these mythical middle managers that are against WHF because apparently their only job is to be watching other people, and they add no other value to an organization whatsoever.
Sounds like something out of the soviet era.

And if WFH becomes a thing they have no usefulness in the world anymore.

It's not that simple folks.

WFH is great, I love it, but it has it's pitfalls and like everything else with COVID it could be a few years before it's value or otherwise is fully measured.

AndrewJRenko

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

What would you consider to be a genuine difficulty?

Great question, and fascinating to see the evasive answer.

average_runner

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

Congratulations, you are the first person I have seen admit that SOME employees haven't been working well from home. Some will have been the same ones who weren't working so well in the office either but with WFH the issues are harder to spot and to fix.

When you work well, do mean not doing their job or not handling working from home well?


Its very easy to monitor their work rate no matter where they are. You give them assign goals and expectations, same way any good team lead or manager would do

Mrs OBumble

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

Congratulations, you are the first person I have seen admit that SOME employees haven't been working well from home. Some will have been the same ones who weren't working so well in the office either but with WFH the issues are harder to spot and to fix.

They weren't harder to spot and fix. It was identified quickly and dealt with.

Mrs OBumble

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Nothing Andrew has posted.

I did not say "what wouldn't you consider".

I asked what would you consider to be a genuine reason.

Mrs OBumble

[Deleted User] wrote: »

They weren't harder to spot and fix. It was identified quickly and dealt with.

How do you know, given that you weren't the poster who commented about it?



TBH if issues with a task done remotely are easily seen and fixed, that sounds like a job that can easily be outsourced to a lower cost geography.

Mrs OBumble

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

How do you know, given that you weren't the poster who commented about y.

You quoted my post about it

wes

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

WFH is great, I love it, but it has it's pitfalls and like everything else with COVID it could be a few years before it's value or otherwise is fully measured.

No need to wait a few years. There are companies that have been fully remote for years now, who already exist.

There are also companies like where I work, that use to be everyone worked in the office and went with a hybrid model long before covid.

The data is already out there.

Backstreet Moyes

From the colleagues I have talked to most want to wfh as much as possible

The majority of those who can't wait to go back are the people who wander around talking most of the day, take long lunch breaks or who are constantly looking for someone to help them do work

The majority want to go in one day a week to catch up with friends

TP_CM

Nuts102 wrote: »

The majority want to go in one day a week to catch up with friends

Interesting thought - if we end up working from home 4 days a week and go into the office just 1 time to catchup with people, companies might well see the office as being less productive than having people work from home.

Backstreet Moyes

TP_CM wrote: »

Interesting thought - if we end up working from home 4 days a week and go into the office just 1 time to catchup with people, companies might well see the office as being less productive than having people work from home.

I don't think anybody means going in to chat for the day I mean going for breakfast or lunch and catching up

Mike Murdock

Deleted User wrote: »

The thought of going back 5 days a week is depressing, i used to get a dose of the fear on a Sunday night when i was was working full time in the office, now i never get it. I am more productive at home and my boss is happy with the work I'm doing. But ultimately she wants everyone back because some haven't been working well from home and she wouldn't want the hassle of deciding who gets to work from home and who doesn't.

I hope at least we can get a day or 2 at home per week.

Varadkar seems to be very supportive of working from home but Paschal is wavering a bit as he fears for the city centre businesses.

Any idea whether these people are the people that don't work well in the office anyway?

HairySalmon

Man Vs ManUre wrote: »

Another great lie in for the lads!! This thread should be renamed to ‘Dossing from home’.

Not like you’ve a set of responsibilities, deadlines and tasks to work through regardless of being in the office or not.

Also, not like you can’t scroll the internet mindlessly from your desk while in the office to seem busy...

Antares35

Nuts102 wrote: »

From the colleagues I have talked to most want to wfh as much as possible

The majority of those who can't wait to go back are the people who wander around talking most of the day, take long lunch breaks or who are constantly looking for someone to help them do work

The majority want to go in one day a week to catch up with friends

There's one in our office (who keeps going into the office, despite being told not to and despite being in an at risk group) who keeps insisting we will all be back in soon, that there is "an agenda from the top to get us all back". The last update from her was we'd all be back by March 5th. Yeah... Strangely, she's the one who spends most of the day flitting around with cups of coffee, gossiping, interrupting other people's work with her stories about her kids, husband, sister in law etc.

She's so hard up for an audience now that if you email her anything, she just comes back with, "can I call you to discuss it instead?". Said call will have a mandatory ten minute monologue about Netflix recommendations before she answers the original question. I fell into the trap a few times, now I just don't bother asking her for anything.

I get that loneliness is a factor, but work comes first to me. No point telling my boss that I didn't meet a deadline because I was listening to a colleague talking about Netflix.

Fr Tod Umptious

wes wrote: »

No need to wait a few years. There are companies that have been fully remote for years now, who already exist.

There are also companies like where I work, that use to be everyone worked in the office and went with a hybrid model long before covid.

The data is already out there.

I was talking in the more general sense.

A lot of companies that never had to work remotely previously have to do so now.

And from my own experience WFH was far less prevalent pre COVID than people think.

I live in rural Ireland and work in IT and even a recently as 6 months before COVID when I was having a look a the jobs market very few agencies that I talked to could match my desire to have the majority of my week WFH.

The best most could come up with was a day or two a week at home.

Backstreet Moyes

HairySalmon wrote: »

Not like you’ve a set of responsibilities, deadlines and tasks to work through regardless of being in the office or not.

Also, not like you can’t scroll the internet mindlessly from your desk while in the office to seem busy...

Yep I get it with a few friends who don't work in an office who keep telling me how lucky I am getting paid for sitting at home doing nothing

I do the same work as when I was in the office but I get it done quicker by avoiding having people calling over looking to chat

When I get a message from someone now I just don't read it and respond when I finish up what I am doing and say I was in a meeting and only saw the message

Obviously can't do this in the office

But what I didn't realise is how much focus you lose just by having small conversations each day

Just putting in the headphones and focusing just on a task for a period of time helps work get done much quicker

kippy

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

Can you give some examples please? I knew people who worked remotely, whether from home or from a Dublin office, while working with teams elsewhere in Europe or the world. But these were generally exceptions to the rule, where the main organisations worked at particular locations most of the time.

Shopify are the company that nearly always comes to mind.
But there are/were plenty more.

https://growremote.ie/ - have been promoting remote work/WFH for a few years - trying to increase the appreciation that lots of people WFH, trying to get more WFH and making rurual communities aware of their WFH opportunites.
More here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqYeCt86bKViiRdPtgfMzHw

c68zapdsm5i1ru

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

How do you know, given that you weren't the poster who commented about it?



TBH if issues with a task done remotely are easily seen and fixed, that sounds like a job that can easily be outsourced to a lower cost geography.

No it sounds like a well managed team with good structures and leadership in place.
Not always easy when language, cultural and time differences come into play, as well as lack of local knowledge.

c68zapdsm5i1ru

Man Vs ManUre wrote: »

Another great lie in for the lads!! This thread should be renamed to ‘Dossing from home’.

A prime example of someone who shouldn't be working from home.
But why should the vast majority, who can be trusted, be forced back to stressful commutes and less time with family or for getting nvolved in their communities, just in order to monitor a few unreliable people. They should be dealt with on a case by case basis, not allowed to dictate everyone's working pattern because of their lazy attitude.

wes

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

I was talking in the more general sense.

Ah understood, yes for a lot of companies it is very new.

Backstreet Moyes

Shawn Sparse Sunstroke wrote: »

A prime example of someone who shouldn't be working from home.
But why should the vast majority, who can be trusted, be forced back to stressful commutes and less time with family or for getting nvolved in their communities in order to monitor a few unreliable people. They should be dealt with on a case by case basis, not allowed to dictate everyone's working pattern because of their lazy attitude.

I don't even think its about trust, if you are not hitting deadlines you were hitting in the office its easy to see who is dossing

I suppose in some cases things like kids can be a distraction but you can work around it

For example I knew today that I would be looking after mine and my niece for two hours, so I logged on for two hours yesterday and I am just answering emails and answering any requests until I will be free in a few minutes

But agreed it should be dealt with instead of everyone suffering over a few

Mike Murdock

Shawn Sparse Sunstroke wrote: »

A prime example of someone who shouldn't be working from home.
But why should the vast majority, who can be trusted, be forced back to stressful commutes and less time with family or for getting nvolved in their communities in order to monitor a few unreliable people. They should be dealt with on a case by case basis, not allowed to dictate everyone's working pattern because of their lazy attitude.

A lot of it boils down to lower-middle/middle management needing to be seen to do something (organising face2face mettings for no reason) so they will actively say "Our employees can't be trusted." or "We can't single out people."

These managers know who the problem cases are. They are the ones that do feck all in the office anyway.

Mrs OBumble

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

Congratulations, you are the first person I have seen admit that SOME employees haven't been working well from home. Some will have been the same ones who weren't working so well in the office either but with WFH the issues are harder to spot and to fix.

This fact has been acknowledged by myself and others multiple times in this thread

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

One company I work with has had seven new hires in the last 12 months. Of those, three have left within six months. And this is a company that usually has very little turnover.

I wonder how others have faired.

correlation does not imply causation

JTMan

hmmm wrote: »

That's a good point. Even if the vaccinations go very well (late Summer finish), it's likely there will be some restrictions over Winter & the government will probably be encouraging people to WfH. Some of this may be enforced.

Yeah, whilst case numbers will probably be very low by Autumn and Winter, case numbers will not be zero. Those under 16 might not yet be vaccinated and about 20% of the population might have refused a vaccine. On top of that, "winter is coming" vibe will be going on with fear of the changing weather adding to cases.

Add all this together, with the fact that WFH will probably be one of the last restrictions to be lifted. WFH is still required, where possible, at level 1.

I spoke to a mate in Australia, in an area with no cases, and I asked if his office was reopen and he said no because the government are continuing to encourage people to work from home. i.e. Australia lifted nearly all restrictions but still encouraged WFH. i.e. further evidence that it is the last restriction to go.

Would not surprise me if it is March 2022 (post "flu season") when some offices reopen.

scrips

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mrs OBumble View Post
What would you consider to be a genuine difficulty?

Deleted User wrote: »

Nothing Andrew has posted.

I would consider inadequate home heating and a lack of office space and equipment to be genuine difficulties, especially when they have run on for a year or more.

mandrake04

JTMan wrote: »

Yeah, whilst case numbers will probably be very low by Autumn and Winter, case numbers will not be zero. Those under 16 might not yet be vaccinated and about 20% of the population might have refused a vaccine. On top of that, "winter is coming" vibe will be going on with fear of the changing weather adding to cases.

Add all this together, with the fact that WFH will probably be one of the last restrictions to be lifted. WFH is still required, where possible, at level 1.

I spoke to a mate in Australia, in an area with no cases, and I asked if his office was reopen and he said no because the government are continuing to encourage people to work from home. i.e. Australia lifted nearly all restrictions but still encouraged WFH. i.e. further evidence that it is the last restriction to go.

Would not surprise me if it is March 2022 (post "flu season") when some offices reopen.

Not sure where you mate is but in NSW/Sydney the government lifted the WFH order last year

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-14/sydney-news-nsw-coronavirus-work-from-home-orders-lifted-today/12979148

https://www.nsw.gov.au/covid-19/safe-workplaces/workers/working-from-home


Of course it’s up to employers discretion now.

Think shakey nail Melbourne lifted theirs a few weeks ago, although it might be staggered 50% first half week and other 50% the later part of the week.

Mrs OBumble

Mike Murdock wrote: »

A lot of it boils down to lower-middle/middle management needing to be seen to do something (organising face2face mettings for no reason) so they will actively say "Our employees can't be trusted." or "We can't single out people."

These managers know who the problem cases are. They are the ones that do feck all in the office anyway.

And if anything is to be done about the problem cases (whether WFH or WFO), the employer needs to be seen to take reasonable steps to enable the employee to do the job. Meetings etc are not "make work". They are managers doing their freakin JOB to protect the company's interests in the event of an employment dispute.

When I was a union delegate, there was nothing more frustrating than to have to support a useless lump of an do-nothing employee, who was being disciplined but whose manager had fúcked things up by not following the process, holding the required meetings etc. But we knew that if we allowed the wrong process in this case, we'd have no come-back when it was used against someone who didn't deserve it.

Backstreet Moyes

I know you can see downsides to joining a new company who are full time wfh but it also has positives for both employees and employers

Single parents who can't commute
Two working parents who can't commute
People who do not drive
People with disabilities
People with anxiety issues

All these and probably more are in a situation where the only option is to work locally or even work a different job if you cannot get a job locally

Employers then might benefit from having a bigger pool or potential employees who would not exist for them if they did not offer wfh

Sunny Dayz

One good thing about WFH in the privacy of your box room is that if things get too much, you can have a cry and then get on with things again.

Riodej1578

Anyone here working in an office environment given an addiction of when they'll be back in the office?

Or anyone who is working in an urban setting but has relocated to a rural location and been advised going forward they will have the option to continue to WFH?