Hybrid versus 100% remote working

[d000hg]

Ours has each project having a dedicated office day - staggered over the week - but people are quite often in more than that either because they're involved in multiple projects or they just prefer to be in. I was already WFH with the client since this contract started pre-lockdowns (just as Covid was first making the news) as are a couple of others; I've yet to be the only person not in the office for a meeting so far

[psychocandy]

My take on this is:-

Fully remote - brill wherever
Odd day up to once a fortnight - brill wherever. I actually prefer this.
Once a week - hmmm. It had better be a good contract and/or not too far.

[psychocandy]

Clients can normally be flexible, once you have proved yourself.

I had one where they tried to organise all the face to face meetings into a 3 day window once per month, so plenty of time to plan. The meetings were Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday and you could travel on Monday and Friday during office hours as billable time. I normally organised my Thursday meetings to finish by lunch and go home then.

now that is pretty good....

[achilles]

Our company is taking a voluntary approach to the office, you can come in if you want to. As a consequence the office is empty.

That's the ideal scenario for me, the employer giving me the option to be either fully remote or work from an office, but it is my choice. I believe this is the way most employers will operate in the future and they will be the ones that attract the best talent.

[northernladuk]

That's the ideal scenario for me, the employer giving me the option to be either fully remote or work from an office, but it is my choice. I believe this is the way most employers will operate in the future and they will be the ones that attract the best talent.

Buy you aren't employed as I've pointed out before. The talent they are trying to attract is not disguised permies that don't know the difference between an employer and a client so you better hope they don't.

[Andrew Bidder]

I have been providing services on a fully remote basis for 8 years and I continue to have a successful contracting career. I have no interest in any contract working on a Hybrid or on-site basis and I certainly reject any offerings of such contracts. There is just no way I would go back to wasting 3-4 hours a day(door to door) commuting, to get to the office tired for a days work. I am more productive working from my remote office, fresh and ready to graft away each day to deliver my agreed project tasks, no desk walk-up interruptions, fluid collaboration on a hour to hour, day to day basis to meet my project tasks using MS Teams, with other team members. You see a lot of press articles expressing a push for a return to the office and the end of remote working. My take on this is either such companies, do not have an effective team process in place for managing remote teams or the enterprise have a large building expenditure, which they cannot scale back from. A number of large enterprises I have worked for previously have started to scale down the office footprint to a IT support dept. and meeting rooms with hot desks for any staff that need to attend the office, with the focus on staff to deliver while working remotely.

[mattster]

For those who have been taking these hybrid roles, how does it actually play out? Are the clients militant "Monday is office day" or do you pick when you come in? In practice does it end up that you WFH 100% once things are going smoothly?
If it's one day a week do you manage to swing it you work a short day so you can travel from further afield and still keep the gig, or stay 1 night in a hotel, or does it mean you only take local roles?

My place seems to have managed to combine the worst of all worlds, in that we have a specified number of office days but they are not synchronised in any way. The upshot of this is that I have been in this role for just over a year and have yet to have an in-person meeting at all. Everything is done over Teams, often with other participants in the meeting within earshot in the office (but never all of them) - so in-office attendance is utterly pointless. It's kind of weird and frankly very annoying because it makes the commute feel even more worthless than usual. For context, I am 2.5hrs commute out of London and when I first arrived the deal was 2x days per month - no problem. That moved to 4x per month within a couple of months and then 2x week, at which point I baulked. I indicated that I wouldn't renew on those terms and it was swiftly put back down to 4x month although new joiners won't get that luxury. That, btw, one of my few successful Ts&Cs negotiations in a work context and proabably only because I actually meant it.

The driving force behind our in-office day requirements seems to be entirely from the very top. Certainly my manager (and hers) would prefer fewer office days or at least some point to them. Point of minor interest - this company already had a 2x week WFH policy pre-Covid so they are almost back to where they were.

[Snooky]

My place seems to have managed to combine the worst of all worlds, in that we have a specified number of office days but they are not synchronised in any way. The upshot of this is that I have been in this role for just over a year and have yet to have an in-person meeting at all. Everything is done over Teams, often with other participants in the meeting within earshot in the office (but never all of them) - so in-office attendance is utterly pointless. It's kind of weird and frankly very annoying because it makes the commute feel even more worthless than usual. For context, I am 2.5hrs commute out of London and when I first arrived the deal was 2x days per month - no problem. That moved to 4x per month within a couple of months and then 2x week, at which point I baulked. I indicated that I wouldn't renew on those terms and it was swiftly put back down to 4x month although new joiners won't get that luxury. That, btw, one of my few successful Ts&Cs negotiations in a work context and proabably only because I actually meant it.

The driving force behind our in-office day requirements seems to be entirely from the very top. Certainly my manager (and hers) would prefer fewer office days or at least some point to them. Point of minor interest - this company already had a 2x week WFH policy pre-Covid so they are almost back to where they were.

If you never have any face to face contact and it's so unsynchronised, does anyone who actually matters even notice whether you're in the office when you go in? Seems like you could just not go in and nobody would notice.

[TheGreenBastard]

My place seems to have managed to combine the worst of all worlds, in that we have a specified number of office days but they are not synchronised in any way. The upshot of this is that I have been in this role for just over a year and have yet to have an in-person meeting at all. Everything is done over Teams, often with other participants in the meeting within earshot in the office (but never all of them) - so in-office attendance is utterly pointless. It's kind of weird and frankly very annoying because it makes the commute feel even more worthless than usual. For context, I am 2.5hrs commute out of London and when I first arrived the deal was 2x days per month - no problem. That moved to 4x per month within a couple of months and then 2x week, at which point I baulked. I indicated that I wouldn't renew on those terms and it was swiftly put back down to 4x month although new joiners won't get that luxury. That, btw, one of my few successful Ts&Cs negotiations in a work context and proabably only because I actually meant it.

The driving force behind our in-office day requirements seems to be entirely from the very top. Certainly my manager (and hers) would prefer fewer office days or at least some point to them. Point of minor interest - this company already had a 2x week WFH policy pre-Covid so they are almost back to where they were.

This is a inside gig I assume? Love the arbitrary flex of "we own you, come in (even though there's no real point)".

[eek]

This is a inside gig I assume? Love the arbitrary flex of "we own you, come in (even though there's no real point)".

Inside contract = no chance I'm coming in