Hybrid versus 100% remote working

[Snooky]

You really don't need evidence that vast swathes of people in lower level admin type roles are doing less for example. How many and percentage I don't know but they are there. It was hard enough to get a full day out of some people in the PS clients I've seen when they were in the office so undeniable they are working less at home.

There are ways of measuring this kind of thing, especially if your business was running pre-COVID so you (should) have metrics to compare with. I think the main reasons most businesses want staff back in are partly because they're tied into expensive office rent contracts, but mainly because senior/middle management often can't easily do their job remotely and they want to see their vast empire laid out in front of them.

The whole "you must be all together in the office to work effectively" mantra is such BS, especially in IT where we're all very familiar with colleagues working in other far flung parts of the world like India, whom you'll never meet face to face or even share much of a working day with. Working in finance most of the end users I ever dealt over the last 20 years with were in the US, Germany, Switzerland or the Far East, while a good proportion of my team mates were in India, Czechia, Poland etc. If the management team feel you can work effectively with people under those circumstances, there's absolutely no reason why you can't also work effectively with your UK colleagues in a mostly remote arrangement.

Also IMO

[northernladuk]

There are ways of measuring this kind of thing, especially if your business was running pre-COVID so you (should) have metrics to compare with. I think the main reasons most businesses want staff back in are partly because they're tied into expensive office rent contracts, but mainly because senior/middle management often can't easily do their job remotely and they want to see their vast empire laid out in front of them.

I'm not convinced to be honest. It also requires line managers to understand and manage remote workload which is a skill in itself. Many won't have this and just get on with their day to day work with everyone around them. I don't believe many roles, particularly professional ones have any kind of metric either.

The whole "you must be all together in the office to work effectively" mantra is such BS, especially in IT where we're all very familiar with colleagues working in other far flung parts of the world like India, whom you'll never meet face to face or even share much of a working day with. Working in finance most of the end users I ever dealt over the last 20 years with were in the US, Germany, Switzerland or the Far East, while a good proportion of my team mates were in India, Czechia, Poland etc. If the management team feel you can work effectively with people under those circumstances, there's absolutely no reason why you can't also work effectively with your UK colleagues in a mostly remote arrangement.

Also IMO

No one is saying you must all be in the office. They are going hybrid so understand WFH works. It's just using effective group time which I do believe is a benefit for many reasons. Perm WFH just doesn't work for many people. They may think it's nice now but two years on they will be lonely, demoralised, not flourishing in the role as well the the basic factors like slacking, not suitable work environment and ineffective work. As I said before I don't know many people off this forum that relish 100% WFH.

You also don't mention that although many companies put up with offshore suppliers but the quality reflects the cost in nearly every situation I've been in. By your analogy they can pay their WFH employees a lot less for not being in the office. These suppliers are chosen because they are cheaper. An employee working from home isn't cheaper so a false analogy.

[Paracelsus]

It's certainly going to more difficult for some job types than others. Things like helpdesk work, data entry, case/claim handling, dev work perhaps - are easily measured by quantifiable low-level metrics like tickets, cases, commits and whatnot. You can go higher up and look at average time to execute a project, but it starts to get wooly here - a small co will not neccessarily have enough data for a firm conclusion, a big co which puts out hundreds of projects a year will.

Easy for us at our level to have an opinion on it and not consider the broad spectrum of people in a business.

True that. I think new starters are a totally valid reason to get a whole team in the office for a while, especially for more junior roles that involve training. It's one thing to waltz into a gig as a senior engineer who doesn't need to learn much, another to be a newbie, my first two tech jobs would have been incredibly laborious to pick up 100% remote.

[Snooky]

These suppliers are chosen because they are cheaper. An employee working from home isn't cheaper so a false analogy.

In my own experience of many years of working with offshore providers, very often the offshore suppliers will need more than one worker to do what a local worker previously did - either due to lack of skill, expertise or just as a way to cream a bit more money out of the deal. I really don't believe that in the big picture offshoring a role is necessarily much cheaper. Whether that worker is in the same office as their colleagues in the UK makes no difference at all to the differential.

[northernladuk]

In my own experience of many years of working with offshore providers, very often the offshore suppliers will need more than one worker to do what a local worker previously did - either due to lack of skill, expertise or just as a way to cream a bit more money out of the deal. I really don't believe that in the big picture offshoring a role is necessarily much cheaper. Whether that worker is in the same office as their colleagues in the UK makes no difference at all to the differential.

Are the offshore people in the office? You can't argue a suppliers way of working represents a clients approach to their own employees. Different things managed differently. Suppliers will have SLA's, KPI's and regular supplier reviews to keep them on track, employees don't and so on.

[dsc]

I'm not convinced to be honest. It also requires line managers to understand and manage remote workload which is a skill in itself. Many won't have this and just get on with their day to day work with everyone around them. I don't believe many roles, particularly professional ones have any kind of metric either.

No one is saying you must all be in the office. They are going hybrid so understand WFH works. It's just using effective group time which I do believe is a benefit for many reasons. Perm WFH just doesn't work for many people. They may think it's nice now but two years on they will be lonely, demoralised, not flourishing in the role as well the the basic factors like slacking, not suitable work environment and ineffective work. As I said before I don't know many people off this forum that relish 100% WFH.

You also don't mention that although many companies put up with offshore suppliers but the quality reflects the cost in nearly every situation I've been in. By your analogy they can pay their WFH employees a lot less for not being in the office. These suppliers are chosen because they are cheaper. An employee working from home isn't cheaper so a false analogy.

Doesn't everyone these days use some sort of ticketing system for tasks? if as a manager you can't handle that, then get your team lead to do it, if you both can't then you shouldn't be doing the bloody job. How is managing a remote workload different from managing a normal workload? Understanding how long a task can take (on average) and deadlines are an easy way to track how people are doing without even seeing them at all for weeks.

As for aligning people to meet up in an office to do something together - fine if there's 2-3 of you in the team, if there's 5+ good luck trying to pick the right day that fits with everyone's schedule. It's probably better then to simply pick a day in the week when you have to come in, at least people can work around a fixed date.

I currently do 100% wfh and yes it's not perfect but the main office is in a different country, so there's no options for me. I would definitely prefer to be able to simply go in whenever, but I wouldn't want to be forced to have to go in, if there's nothing specific that needs to be done there (hardware, client / subcontractor meetings etc. rather than Kenny is bringing a cake and it would be nice to see each other and "discuss" some things).

[northernladuk]

Doesn't everyone these days use some sort of ticketing system for tasks? if as a manager you can't handle that, then get your team lead to do it, if you both can't then you shouldn't be doing the bloody job. How is managing a remote workload different from managing a normal workload? Understanding how long a task can take (on average) and deadlines are an easy way to track how people are doing without even seeing them at all for weeks.

Not everyone has a project or a tast related job. You are too focussed on what you do and not thinking of an entire company top down.

As for aligning people to meet up in an office to do something together - fine if there's 2-3 of you in the team, if there's 5+ good luck trying to pick the right day that fits with everyone's schedule. It's probably better then to simply pick a day in the week when you have to come in, at least people can work around a fixed date.

And as far as I can see that is what everyone is doing.

I currently do 100% wfh and yes it's not perfect but the main office is in a different country, so there's no options for me. I would definitely prefer to be able to simply go in whenever, but I wouldn't want to be forced to have to go in, if there's nothing specific that needs to be done there (hardware, client / subcontractor meetings etc. rather than Kenny is bringing a cake and it would be nice to see each other and "discuss" some things).

Again, you are thinking about just you and not thinking holistically. A company cannot make policy around one person, a small team or even a program. They have to go for a one size fits all and then just let everyone moan about it.

[dsc]

[...]A company cannot make policy around one person, a small team or even a program. They have to go for a one size fits all and then just let everyone moan about it.

They sure can, just depends if they want to. Is it fair for all? No. Is forcing a team / teams to come in cause Bill and Judy from HR hasn't got a task related job and have to come in, to make it look like they are actually doing something is fair? also no. Make it job character dependant, this is what makes the most sense.

I'm not thinking about the whole company as I assumed we are discussing hybrid vs 100% remote for IT related people, it's a whole different ball game for people in other depts.

[TheGreenBastard]

WFH 100% IMO, hard to run a "business" from your slave owners office. Seeking connection from work colleagues is probably both permie-esque and an indicator you need to work on your life outside of work in terms of socialising.

[ladymuck]

WFH 100% IMO, hard to run a "business" from your slave owners office. Seeking connection from work colleagues is probably both permie-esque and an indicator you need to work on your life outside of work in terms of socialising.

I've made some excellent friends while contracting. They have since helped me get other contracts.