All Government roles to be 60% on-site

[oliverson]

Relax Mr. I'm better than others with a WORLD CLASS "working from home" setup talk about making assumptions about things...

I take it you typed this from the broom cupboard?

[Snooky]

I can't image doing that again....don't mind a mix 2/3 or 3/2 but I'd not go back to 5...did it for a long time and now am too old/too knackered for the long commutes...

Same here. For the last 4 years I've been mainly remote, only visiting the office at most once every 4-6 weeks. It hasn't made any difference to my productivity. Despite never really needing to be in the same place as my colleagues, I liked being in the office with them but I've always resented the 2.5-3 hours a day it wasted out of my life.

Now, when I do the occasional commute, it absolutely wipes me out. Having long COVID doesn't help either. Anyway, if I couldn't have a role with a similar remote pattern to what I currently do, I'm at the age where I'd probably just choose not to do this line of work any more, I'd find something more rewarding locally even if it was lower pay. Or I might even retire early!

[dsc]

I take it you typed this from the broom cupboard?

Sure, sitting on my world class HermAn Miller

[oliverson]

Sure, sitting on my world class HermAn Miller

Ha ha

[Cookielove]

Snooky totally with you, commuting wipes me out now....I'd have to get something lower paid locally or give up and not do same line of work anymore...

[Spangled]

FWIW, I’m on an Outside IR35 contract doing design for DWP digital services.

I’m based in Newcastle but the project is notionally based in Manchester. Consultants on the project are spread all over the country, from London to Inverness. Civil Servants on the project tend to be more local to Manc.

When I started in summer 2022 the expectation was two days a quarter in Manchester for a quarterly planning session and the rest remote WFH.

First quarterly planning session was an in-office two-dayer (ie I stayed overnight), the second one was condensed to a one-dayer in the office and then the rest have been conducted virtually when they realised there were always some who couldn’t make the planning sessions and had to dial in so what’s the point making half the team schlep to Manc while Bill from Birmingham is dialling in. I’ve been to Manchester once more for a one-day design/UR brainstorm thing – which was useful – but WFH the rest.

There was some heat about 40% in-office expectations back in April 2023 – some higher-up going all Jacob Rees-Mogg about the empty desks - but the consultancy I contract through pushed back and contractors on the project were given an exemption. A higher proportion of the Civil Servants go into the office regularly – mainly cos they tend to be more local to Manc - but a lot of them are CS lifers (business change, transformation etc) who love all the in-office “bantz”, office politics, empire building and micromanaging their colleagues. But even they aren’t close to meeting the 40% (2 days a week) “rule”. And they just spend their in-office days chained to their desks on Teams calls anyhow.

[dsc]

[...]And they just spend their in-office days chained to their desks on Teams calls anyhow.

Ah the "fill my whole calendar with teams meetings, so I've got no time to do actual work" type.