Return to office - but I want to remain fully remote

Going back to the original poster, I can't get my head around a company that has managed to create a role that requires absolute quite and cannot be carried out in an open plan office while at the same time not allowing an absolutely quite space. What is that role?

I work on detailed information and provide detailed info to others from an open plan office. If things heat up and I need some extra concentration, I disappear into a meeting room for a period of time and then re-emerge. It accepted.
 
Blackrock1 said:
There are all sorts of ways to learn through observing others, being beside someone isnt the only thing, watching how people interact with others, how they influence people etc.

This craic of graduates deciding they dont need to be in the office is an absolute nonsense, for one thing how the hell would they know!
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Oh please..... I would love to see the research that backs up the assertion that people need to be in the office to learn how to interact with others.....we don't hire cave dwellers.

Graduates or new employees don't decide they don't need to be in the office. It's a company policy. There are are whole processes and procedures in place. The company is free to change that policy if they want but they need to be honest with people why if they want people to buy into it. And not give them wishy washy reasons full of corporate speak.....

Collaboration and the way we interact in the workplace is completely different now. I am not saying that's a good thing. I would hate to be starting work now and never getting the chance to build the friendships that I have built over the years. Companies always thought they were like Apple and Google with people coming up with brilliant ideas while sharing an office. It never happened it in organisation I worked in.

The last bank I worked in before covid was so invested in collaboration, they moved the business to Poland but left the technology and change management in Dublin and London. Before we used to meet every single day in person. So they actually reduced the natural collaboration they were so fond of talking about. Same bank are now apparently going to start monitoring employees swipe cards to see how often then attend the office because they say collaboration is suffering.

If people prefer to work in the office then by all means work in the office. It simply doesn't suit everyone. Doesnt mean are dossing. Lazy employees at home are lazy employees in the office. It's output that matters. Not how many times they click a mouse. And output is very measurable no matter where you work.
 
Asking both sides to explain their issues is no bad thing. Let management explain why everyone benefits from sharing a workspace, and let people who find that difficult for whatever reason explain why.

There was a view that this is the job, suck it up. Learn to fit in or be miserable, or of course leave.

The other side is it’s not suiting me so I’m off after trying it for an hour..,

We’ve had a week of marking neurodiversity in the workplace, followed by a reminder that you can’t wfh full time.

Few people will flounce off to WRC, but look at staff turnover, shockingly high in some companies. That’s very expensive. As is time in the WRC.

Open minds help
 
Marsupial said:
Yep - nowadays, it's all about "me" "me "me"!

And if the employer isn't willing to accommodate my demands then I'll flounce off to the WRC who will almost always side with the employee!

(Source, a frustrated sibling who has worked in HR for the past 40 years).
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That's not my experience as an employer or during my more than 30 years working. I remember employees who didn't turn up for work because of alcohol issues, aggressive behaviour and a few communists (literally) who were very bolshie in the workplace. None of that happens any more. Maybe it's the people or maybe we've got better at hiring. I will say that employees expect respect and a reasonably good working environment and they expect their personal needs to be accommodated but I don't see anything wrong with that. If you expect your employees to take a personal interest in your business then a level of reciprocity is required.

I'm not a fan of the WRC but I don't have any major problems with it either. It's an industrial relations safety valve.
 
Purple said:
I'm not a fan of the WRC but I don't have any major problems with it either. It's an industrial relations safety valve.
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Nor me, but any of the periodic CPD courses on WRC cases can make for sobering listening.

Its public image is distorted a bit by the fact that only the oddest and most egregious cases get media coverage.
 
I have no interest in working in the office but management categorically refuse to consider it, even for one day per week. They won't even send out the government mandated hybrid working emails... they just won't do it.

The other side of the department engaged with management about getting hybrid... refused. Two years they have been back and forth but management still won't actually send the information needed to get forms from UPPER management about it.

Its definitely possible to do, but management don't want it and they are fighting tooth and nail against it.
 
THE_Chris said:
I have no interest in working in the office but management categorically refuse to consider it, even for one day per week. They won't even send out the government mandated hybrid working emails... they just won't do it.

The other side of the department engaged with management about getting hybrid... refused. Two years they have been back and forth but management still won't actually send the information needed to get forms from UPPER management about it.

Its definitely possible to do, but management don't want it and they are fighting tooth and nail against it.
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And, of course, the employees always know better than the management! Isn't it remarkable that such knowledgeable staff haven't yet managed to be promoted so they can run the company? (Probably into the ground, but so what? After all, there are plenty of other jobs out there!)
 
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Sunny said:
Oh please..... I would love to see the research that backs up the assertion that people need to be in the office to learn how to interact with others.....we don't hire cave dwellers.

Graduates or new employees don't decide they don't need to be in the office. It's a company policy. There are are whole processes and procedures in place. The company is free to change that policy if they want but they need to be honest with people why if they want people to buy into it. And not give them wishy washy reasons full of corporate speak.....

Collaboration and the way we interact in the workplace is completely different now. I am not saying that's a good thing. I would hate to be starting work now and never getting the chance to build the friendships that I have built over the years. Companies always thought they were like Apple and Google with people coming up with brilliant ideas while sharing an office. It never happened it in organisation I worked in.

The last bank I worked in before covid was so invested in collaboration, they moved the business to Poland but left the technology and change management in Dublin and London. Before we used to meet every single day in person. So they actually reduced the natural collaboration they were so fond of talking about. Same bank are now apparently going to start monitoring employees swipe cards to see how often then attend the office because they say collaboration is suffering.

If people prefer to work in the office then by all means work in the office. It simply doesn't suit everyone. Doesnt mean are dossing. Lazy employees at home are lazy employees in the office. It's output that matters. Not how many times they click a mouse. And output is very measurable no matter where you work.
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the logical extension of your argument is that human relationships dont matter at all, why go visit your mum you can just face time her its just the same right? And if you can sit there and tell me with a straight face that a graduate can learn the intricacies of dealing with stakeholders at different levels of an organisation by sitting at home on zoom calls we wont ever agree.
 
Marsupial said:
And if you can produce statistics that demonstrate that I'm wrong, then I'll happily put my hands up and return shamefaced to the undergrowth, a sadder albeit wiser man.
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You can't just throw out claims and then challenge others to prove their disagreement. Even if the WRC did produce stats on the side they find in favour of, and that showed that they most often find in favour of the employee, that is absolutely meaningless without the context of where the fault truly lay. If 90% of cases that go before them were really the employer's fault, but they only found in favour of the employee 75% of the time, then they would be significantly biased in favour of employers, yet saying they fine in favour of the employee 75% of the time without the additional context would suggest the opposite.

Given their approach of pushing mediation first, would it not be reasonable to assume that only strong cases make it to the hearing stage?
 
In this case the employee did know better than management as the issue was simply they worked better, as in completed teh tasks under discussion, from home in a quiet environment.

Different working styles and different needs.

I’ve had 3 online meetings today. Definitely not a day to be in the office talking into a headset.
 
The employee is always free to setup their own business, work as a contractor / freelance and then the yet to work when and where they want, in whatever way they feel is optimum. if you don't like the conditions of the job, vote with your feet! The employer will probably manage just fine without you, so don't be worried about leaving them in the lurch ;)
 
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Bluefin said:
Are people not concerned that if a job can be fully remote that these jobs overtime will be relocated to other cheaper locations…think of all the IT/HR/payrole/tech eng support roles that have been been lost in many Pharma/Med device companies?
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We're all influencers now, in case you hadn't noticed!
 
www.irishtimes.com

Return-to-office mandates are the ‘opposite’ of evidence-based management

Pressure on staff to return, and its attendant fallout, has in many cases been driven by opinion and managerial groupthink
www.irishtimes.com www.irishtimes.com

One of the reasons why is that employees suspect they’re being brought back for spurious reasons: the startling truth is that they’re probably right. Managers may think they are basing their return decisions on hard facts but, in reality, evidence-based decision-making is surprisingly thin on the ground in most organisations.
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Leo said:
You can't just throw out claims and then challenge others to prove their disagreement.
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But surely I can express an opinion?

EDIT - evidently not, as I have now been blocked from commenting on this thread.

However your abuse of language upsets me: I didn't make a "claim" but merely offered an opinion and I didn't "challenge" anyone but merely issued a polite invitation.

Leo said:
Given their approach of pushing mediation first, would it not be reasonable to assume that only strong cases make it to the hearing stage?
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That depends entirely on how you define "strong cases". How would you define the recent one that involved the solicitor daughter of a prominent Mayo family! ;)
 
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