WFH is not going to work

[Pmax2020]

46 minutes ago, MarkG said:

You do realize they'll sack you just as fast as anyone else if things get bad?

There is no loyalty from companies any more.

You’ve been watching too many tw*ts on TikTok telling folk to be the ‘Last person in and the first person out’ each shift…

Companies don’t just sack everyone when the going gets tough or they lose a contract. They retain a select group of people to work on bids and ultimately migrate them to the next project they secure.

I do get a lot of paid overtime and a bonus but the point I was making is I also routinely work extra hours unpaid because myself and a couple of other managers play a critical role in ensuring we are profitable. 

[dragging boot straps]

1 hour ago, Pmax2020 said:

You’ve been watching too many tw*ts on TikTok telling folk to be the ‘Last person in and the first person out’ each shift…

Companies don’t just sack everyone when the going gets tough or they lose a contract. They retain a select group of people to work on bids and ultimately migrate them to the next project they secure.

I do get a lot of paid overtime and a bonus but the point I was making is I also routinely work extra hours unpaid because myself and a couple of other managers play a critical role in ensuring we are profitable. 

Seems like you struggle to delegate, coach, and empower peers. 

From the way some of your messages read, I would guess you are probably not people's first pick to work with anyway. 

[DarkHorseWaits-NoMore]

 

Edited January 13 by DarkHorseWaits-NoMore

[Pmax2020]

7 hours ago, dragging boot straps said:

Seems like you struggle to delegate, coach, and empower peers. 

From the way some of your messages read, I would guess you are probably not people's first pick to work with anyway. 

Throughout the entirety of my career - irrespective of whether I’ve been in the same team as a colleague or I’ve managed them, I’d estimate the following…

10-20% - Are fully committed to their job because they are either passionate about what they do or they have genuine aspirations about learning, sharing responsibility, and developing their careers. 

20-40% - Pretty good at what they do. They don’t knock their pan in, but are steady and reliable, and you should appreciate they don’t fall into the next bracket. They know their jobs well and get consistently good results.

40-50% - You’re now getting into the ‘not my problem / not my job’ folk. Their work is fairly mediocre, they often complain about trivial things, they don’t see the bigger picture a lot of the time. You’d be appreciative to hear they’re leaving.

10% - Actively argumentative, inexplicably selfish, don’t care that other people are constantly picking up their slack. Constantly complaining about Ts and Cs but wouldn’t dream of leaving.

[Pmax2020]

8 hours ago, DarkHorseWaits-NoMore said:

 

Your guy fails to appreciate that he only has a job because 10-20% of his colleagues are fully committed and give 110%. They regularly work extra hours to meet targets, and resent pricks like him complaining like a little b*tch as they hide in their houses all week.

I’ve never said what industry I work in on these boards, but I can guaranteed if the 3 or 4 really hard working people on my project had the same attitude as everyone else then we’d all be out of a job by the end of the year. 

Edited January 14 by Pmax2020

[hotblack42]

6 hours ago, Pmax2020 said:

10% - Actively argumentative, inexplicably selfish, don’t care that other people are constantly picking up their slack. Constantly complaining about Ts and Cs but wouldn’t dream of leaving.

10%?  looks like you’ve managed to avoid the public sector, & in particular, education.

I read a report about 5 years ago that 10% set out to actively sabotage their employer’s business initiatives & established processes. USA IIRC - a nation of winners & losers.  10% sounds high, but there are regular murders carried out by sacked & wronged employees..  🤔😳

[Pmax2020]

I appreciate working conditions vary vastly across different industries, as do the employers themselves. I’ve had several jobs where we’ve been poorly treated and paid. I’ve obviously taken the money for a short period and ultimately moved on. 

It’s the people that either just plain steal their wages by doing no work, or complain endlessly about their jobs with no intention whatsoever of ever leaving.

I’ve had people tell me they hate their jobs and that they are going to leave at the first opportunity. Only to be offered a promotion in another team, that they then reject!

[mspL4]

18 hours ago, hotblack42 said:

10%?  looks like you’ve managed to avoid the public sector, & in particular, education.  

I voluntarily left the Public Sector for this being 1 of several reasons. Local Council. Sick of being made to do other people's work as well as my own & no escalation point due to my "Manager" being a product of The Peter Principle and thus useless & scared of their Staff in case they hear those dreaded words, "I'm going to The Union!".

Most people in Public Sector are there to make up the numbers, justify the annual fiscal budgets & to take the Pension after a career of expending more energy avoiding their duties than it would take to actually do them. I mean, if you're chromosome-damaged, thick, a bully, lack direction, never left skool in the head or just plain lazy there'll be a well-paid job waiting for you at your local Council. You may have to go via The Home Office, that career stepping stone towards becoming completely useless.

I'll put in 110% effort 75% of the time. Anything above that & it's only as and when absolutely necessary. I get at least 25% of my wages stolen every month & I'm not working for free so that's as much as I'm willing to give...

[fellow]

The work-from-home boom is becoming a redundancies-from-home bust

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/01/28/work-from-home-mass-layoffs/

Quote

As the global economy runs out of steam, and as companies look to save on costs, they are getting rid of the home workers first. The working-from-home boom is starting to turn into the redundant-from-home bust. And if people don’t get back to the office soon, they probably won’t have a job anymore.

This month has been difficult for anyone committed to lounging around in their pyjamas all day (formally known as working from home). 

In the City, the law firm Slaughter & May has started tracking how often staff show up at its offices and sharing the data with department managers in a drive to make sure its people comply with a policy that requires its lawyers to spend at least three days a week at their desk. 

Many of its rivals have started to adopt similar policies. Meanwhile, over in the United States, the drive to get people back has become even harsher. The online home goods retailer Wayfair was reported to have told its employees that not only was it planning to make more than 1,600 people redundant, but that staff who worked remotely were “most likely to be laid off”. It is hardly alone. 

A study by Live Data Technologies found that staff who logged in remotely five days a week were 35pc more likely to be laid off than their colleagues who at least managed to pop into the office for a few hours on a Tuesday or a Wednesday.

The hiring boom has turned into a tsunami of redundancies, as a slowing economy shrinks demand, and as firms realise that they took on too many people during the boom. 

At the same time, the evidence is mounting that working from home is not nearly as productive as had been hoped. A paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco published last week looked at 43 industries across the private sector and found no improvement in productivity from home working. 

Meanwhile, a paper from the New York Fed and Harvard that studied home-working in depth at one Fortune 500 company found that there was far less training and mentoring once no one went into the office anymore, with companies just buying in ready-made talent.

The results are likely to be disastrous for younger workers with less experience.

In the looming wave of redundancies the people working from home are clearly the most likely to be laid off. There are two reasons for that. First, they are less productive.

Next, when you work from home you are inevitably less connected to the organisation. If you are out of sight, you are out of mind, and very soon you will be out of work as well.

 

Edited January 30 by fellow

[wighty]

42 minutes ago, fellow said:

The work-from-home boom is becoming a redundancies-from-home bust

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/01/28/work-from-home-mass-layoffs/

 

Companies are getting wise to how little work is done in the office, on site or WFH.

At least on site they are available for consultation.

 

[Sackboii]

On 1/15/2024 at 7:47 AM, mspL4 said:

I voluntarily left the Public Sector for this being 1 of several reasons. Local Council. Sick of being made to do other people's work as well as my own & no escalation point due to my "Manager" being a product of The Peter Principle and thus useless & scared of their Staff in case they hear those dreaded words, "I'm going to The Union!".

Most people in Public Sector are there to make up the numbers, justify the annual fiscal budgets & to take the Pension after a career of expending more energy avoiding their duties than it would take to actually do them. I mean, if you're chromosome-damaged, thick, a bully, lack direction, never left skool in the head or just plain lazy there'll be a well-paid job waiting for you at your local Council. You may have to go via The Home Office, that career stepping stone towards becoming completely useless.

I'll put in 110% effort 75% of the time. Anything above that & it's only as and when absolutely necessary. I get at least 25% of my wages stolen every month & I'm not working for free so that's as much as I'm willing to give...

Finally, someone who shares the same view as me of a significant number of the public sector workforce.

[Casual-observer]

2 minutes ago, wighty said:

Companies are getting wise to how little work is done in the office, on site or WFH.

At least on site they are available for consultation.

 

Always inevitable. When the IT department is requested to pull together a report of office attendance you know redundancies are coming and it's for the long term best.

Two husbands in my social circle are broken inside after years of working from home. Being henpecked for that long or simply failing to get outside of the house neuters you as a man.

[hurlerontheditch]

Quote

This month has been difficult for anyone committed to lounging around in their pyjamas all day (formally known as working from home).

Definitely written by a VI with commercial property exposure...

[hotblack42]

Those unsuited to homeworking / hybrid will be back in the office or redundant by the end of 2024.

Fine, then the nasty SOBs on here who "instinctively" dislike work being conducted anywhere but in a supervised workplace will STFU and leave those of us working productively at home + on the move + in the office, alone.

People who want to impose their prejudices (aka gut instinct🤮) on others, rather than collect and analyse objective information and use time proven management techniques, are arrogant, destructive scum.  This is not an opinion.

[hotblack42]

FFS - the desktop website is playing up too.  Using Firefox.  I'm not going to try other browsers - host needs to up their environmental testing!

Edited January 30 by hotblack42
Clicked unresponsive 'Submit reply' button twice

[hotblack42]

Edited duplicated post showing as blank.  Bugfix release please?  Tested in all popular browers!

Update - Edited duplicated post text re-appeared on 2nd refresh.  Site definitely needs some tlc.

Edited January 30 by hotblack42

[cbathpc]

1 hour ago, wighty said:

Companies are getting wise to how little work is done in the office, on site or WFH.

At least on site they are available for consultation.

 

its obvious though isn't it, as much as we like to talk about trusting and respecting people, we know full well that we can't with most people. Self checkouts have shown to increase thefts, and wfh will be shown to increase slacking off. The concept of your manager looking over your shoulder is totally neccesary  for lots of people. I'm big enough to accept that I do need some accountability, and being in the office gives that

 

It's hilarious how fast the tone, "i'll be quitting if I have to go into the office" has changed to "a few days a week isn't so bad"

[cbathpc]

1 hour ago, wighty said:

Companies are getting wise to how little work is done in the office, on site or WFH.

At least on site they are available for consultation.

 

its obvious though isn't it, as much as we like to talk about trusting and respecting people, we know full well that we can't with most people. Self checkouts have shown to increase thefts, and wfh will be shown to increase slacking off. The concept of your manager looking over your shoulder is totally neccesary  for lots of people. I'm big enough to accept that I do need some accountability, and being in the office gives that

 

It's hilarious how fast the tone, "i'll be quitting if I have to go into the office" has changed to "a few days a week isn't so bad"

[VancouverGuy]

Personally, I wonder how much of this drop in productivity is actually caused by the high marginal tax rates, and not us Work-from-Homers.

In my situation, I've been fully remote for 3 years now. My "office" is 5,000 miles away. With the time difference, I can balance picking the kids up and family time with work responsibilities. Last week an agent called me with a job in the nearby city to me. I wouldn't mind doing it - I'm not particularly averse to going to an office each day.

However, the £10-20k pay rise I'd get would be subject to the 60% marginal tax rate. Then factor in the commute costs and city-lunches everyday, and I'm looking at a 70% tax rate. Then add the additional child-care costs and lost family time - now I'm looking at 90% effective-tax on the extra pay. No thanks.

It's all about the laffer curve. Plain and simple.

[Nick Cash]

10 minutes ago, VancouverGuy said:

Personally, I wonder how much of this drop in productivity is actually caused by the high marginal tax rates, and not us Work-from-Homers.

In my situation, I've been fully remote for 3 years now. My "office" is 5,000 miles away. With the time difference, I can balance picking the kids up and family time with work responsibilities. Last week an agent called me with a job in the nearby city to me. I wouldn't mind doing it - I'm not particularly averse to going to an office each day.

However, the £10-20k pay rise I'd get would be subject to the 60% marginal tax rate. Then factor in the commute costs and city-lunches everyday, and I'm looking at a 70% tax rate. Then add the additional child-care costs and lost family time - now I'm looking at 90% effective-tax on the extra pay. No thanks.

It's all about the laffer curve. Plain and simple.

For you in the above very specific example yes.

Most of us realise there’s a spectrum of jobs that can either be fully WFH or hybrid or fully office/factory/hospital etc based.

Everyone can find the right situation for themselves. Personal requirements change, company requirements change.

 

[Nick Cash]

10 minutes ago, VancouverGuy said:

Personally, I wonder how much of this drop in productivity is actually caused by the high marginal tax rates, and not us Work-from-Homers.

In my situation, I've been fully remote for 3 years now. My "office" is 5,000 miles away. With the time difference, I can balance picking the kids up and family time with work responsibilities. Last week an agent called me with a job in the nearby city to me. I wouldn't mind doing it - I'm not particularly averse to going to an office each day.

However, the £10-20k pay rise I'd get would be subject to the 60% marginal tax rate. Then factor in the commute costs and city-lunches everyday, and I'm looking at a 70% tax rate. Then add the additional child-care costs and lost family time - now I'm looking at 90% effective-tax on the extra pay. No thanks.

It's all about the laffer curve. Plain and simple.

For you in the above very specific example yes.

Most of us realise there’s a spectrum of jobs that can either be fully WFH or hybrid or fully office/factory/hospital etc based.

Everyone can find the right situation for themselves. Personal requirements change, company requirements change.

 

[wighty]

5 hours ago, cbathpc said:

its obvious though isn't it, as much as we like to talk about trusting and respecting people, we know full well that we can't with most people. Self checkouts have shown to increase thefts, and wfh will be shown to increase slacking off. The concept of your manager looking over your shoulder is totally neccesary  for lots of people. I'm big enough to accept that I do need some accountability, and being in the office gives that

 

It's hilarious how fast the tone, "i'll be quitting if I have to go into the office" has changed to "a few days a week isn't so bad"

Also if there's an emergency to sort out quick, who will get called on to do it?.

Fix up an on line call or grab the guys in the office?.

 

[Pmax2020]

5 hours ago, VancouverGuy said:

Personally, I wonder how much of this drop in productivity is actually caused by the high marginal tax rates, and not us Work-from-Homers.

In my situation, I've been fully remote for 3 years now. My "office" is 5,000 miles away. With the time difference, I can balance picking the kids up and family time with work responsibilities. Last week an agent called me with a job in the nearby city to me. I wouldn't mind doing it - I'm not particularly averse to going to an office each day.

However, the £10-20k pay rise I'd get would be subject to the 60% marginal tax rate. Then factor in the commute costs and city-lunches everyday, and I'm looking at a 70% tax rate. Then add the additional child-care costs and lost family time - now I'm looking at 90% effective-tax on the extra pay. No thanks.

It's all about the laffer curve. Plain and simple.

You’re over-thinking it. 

Most people are lazy and selfish, and WFH brings out the worst them. I think it’s that simple. When they are out of sight they skive and procrastinate even more. 

I work very hard because I ultimately appreciate having a well-paid and secure job. My employer effectively pays my bills, and for the life I afford my kids. 

I have also always had the attitude that it’s important to stand out as being hard working, committed, and good to have in a team - and I’ll admit it’s because I’ve been in companies or roles where people have lost their jobs and I never wanted that to be me. 

I’ve seen it several times throughout my career and it can be devastating.

I just think a large proportion of people these days have dreadful attitudes towards their employers but that lack the integrity to leave if they are unhappy. 

[Chunketh]

2 hours ago, wighty said:

Also if there's an emergency to sort out quick, who will get called on to do it?.

Fix up an on line call or grab the guys in the office?.

 

Given that fixing shit normally involves a third party these days, both.

[Housepricecrash91]

6 hours ago, VancouverGuy said:

Personally, I wonder how much of this drop in productivity is actually caused by the high marginal tax rates, and not us Work-from-Homers.

Yes a fair chunk of productivity drops will be a result of stagnant wages, inflation, higher housing costs (rent and mortgages) and frozen tax thresholds... Why take on more work and stress for very little incremental reward..