The new Labour Government has floated the idea of the right to flexible working e.g. condensed hours. This seems to be an alternative to the mooted 4 day week.

 

However, the really interesting trend is what is likely to happen in 2025 with big corporate businesses. Amazon have recently made it mandatory for 5 day office based work across their business and there are other big companies considering this too, or a form of this. One may suggest this is a way to cut the workforce via attrition to a tough econimic climate, or it could also be the beginning of a new trend?

 

Suspect most people here are in favour of flexible working and home based working (as am I in principle). But my view is over the next 12-18 months we're going to see some changes back to pre-pandemic.

As I work directly with students in a school. working from home isn't an option. However, that doesn't mean I want to stop anyone else working from home. It gives people a better work/life balance, and reduces emissions from travelling between work and home. What is wrong with that?

My company are great and have remained completely flexible so zero mandate on any form of office working, very much against the grain in my industry. Long may it continue.

As said, as a teacher it won’t be available for me. I do wish there could be something we could have to compensate for the fact that we don’t have flexible working but there never is.

I’m in retail management so no home working for me, but we went to a 4 day week condensed hours last week and it is amazing! I’m completely happy to do slightly longer days and get an extra day off, I love having a random weekday off and getting to get errands done etc when town is quieter on a weekday, and still getting more time to relax or do what I want to do.

Mine only ask us to come in to the office two days a week, sometimes one. The department manager often says to me "how did we manage to do 5 days a week before the pandemic?" :lol:

 

That balance works perfectly for me, I can get more stuff done at home (like household chores, washing, hoovering etc) and have more time to go to the gym in the evenings but by the same token it's nice to get out of the house occasionally too.

A few people where I work do a 9-day fortnight which would take the pressure off doing so many extra hours in a week just to get that day off. I know we can submit flexible working requests but how often they're approved is another story (e.g. I think it's just a genuine need to be proven as opposed to a 'I fancy an extra day off' approach). I often end up working over my hours anyway (much to my own and my manager's dismay without any compensation for it) but I do find on the week's where we have a Bank Holiday and therefore a Monday off slightly less jarring and a little more productive. I was kind of hoping my employer would trial a 4-day week but given we're a financial company paying out money and investing we need to be there when the banks are.

 

As for working from home, our split is 2 days at home and 3 in the office. It's been like that now for just over 2 years after everyone being permanently at home for 2 years and coming back to the office on a gradual and hybrid basis. It doesn't seem like that's going to change any time soon. I like my office time and I like my home time so I'm happy with just a mixed approach now but if they wanted to go back to 5 days in the office I think a lot of people would leave. My job in particular my manager is in a different city and then the rest of my team is also in a different city to me/her so we're working remotely across 3 locations anyway so being in the office doesn't make any sense. It would be to appease rental prices for the office space rather than that sense of "community" everywhere thinks it brings from collaborative working :lol:

I work basically every day from the office but we don’t have any return to office mandates at our company and I think the pushback would be very strong if they tried. Given that I’m in the Accounting/Consulting space I doubt we will see a strict mandate any time soon unless it’s industry wide and coordinated. Knowledge industry relies too heavily on people to upset them too much

 

My boss has a few semi flexible rules in that she generally expects people to come to the office once a week to keep in touch with the team and trainees/new joiners are expected to be in 4-5 days a week initially so they can learn and integrate with the team

I work three days in the office and two at home. The problem being that my office is a two-hour commute each way because we moved during the pandemic, but that's on me. It's too expensive to move back closer to London now so for three days a week I deal with it. For five days I'd look for something else.

 

I'm quite happy with either surrounding though, I like being part of the team and seeing people, but I get significantly more done at home without the background noise. So the balance is good, especially as the three days aren't fixed so I can move them to suit what I'm doing that week.

I work in the office quite a lot as I prefer it but I the majority of my colleagues basically work from home full time. If anything my company discourages office working as it loves the idea of saving money anywhere it can.

 

I really disagree with it though, mainly for my junior colleagues. I think they’re missing out massively by not having an office community and not learning by overhearing conversations and so on. They haven’t known anything different so they don’t know what they’re missing, but they are in my view. It would need more senior colleagues to come in for it to be worthwhile for them though. Even 50/50 would be fine. It upsets me actually.

I'm student facing in education so working from home is a distant memory outside of a few one-off days, though the option is always there in exceptional circumstances. We do have a system though where we work right through the day without a lunch break for four days a week and use the time to have an early day where we finish at 1pm, it's really nice to have that time to relax.

I will never have this option as a teacher! I do sometimes feel a little jealous of my hubby who works 9-5 four days a week and works from home full time! I have to leave the house at 6:30 every morning in order to be at work in time to set up since our school starts at 8:15am (even earlier when I have my morning duty which starts at 7:45) which is unusual for primary schools, then my husband rolls out of bed at 8:40 has a quick shower and takes his cuppa and toast to work with him for 9am. :lol: We don't even sleep in the same bed on week days since he says my alarm wakes him up at 5:30 and he'd rather stay asleep, so it's weekends only :lol:

 

The trade of is the holidays I guess, I couldn't live without them and I'd definitely leave teaching if they reduced them as they threaten to do every bloody summer. 3 weeks in and I am utterly exhausted already, 4 more weeks to go!

Edited September 20, 2024Sep 20 by spiceboy

My new job has a fair bit of working from home, which I do like, if I'm not required to be face-to-face then no point me hogging up the road to go into an office (and my team would likely not be there). That said, I always like being able to go in and meet people in the office when I can, it's good for significant new stages of projects, after which the main work is probably better done at home - though as I'm new here that's something that may change as I get more used to the work environment.

 

I feel for all the people in education in this thread (which was me until relatively recently), I recall seeing some story about teachers working from home for non-classroom hours (and I don't mean the work that many teachers do out of hours at home) which would seem to make sense, but that would probably require more investment in education. As ever.

I feel for all the people in education in this thread (which was me until relatively recently), I recall seeing some story about teachers working from home for non-classroom hours (and I don't mean the work that many teachers do out of hours at home) which would seem to make sense, but that would probably require more investment in education. As ever.

 

 

In my first school the headteacher used to say our non-contact was our time and we could do it at home, take appointments in that time, sleep in if it was first thing, whatever, he wasn't bothered as he knew teachers were doing more than their allocated hours just to ensure lessons were being set. In my current school though my time is spread throughout the week with in half hour slots rather than in one big chunk so that's not an option which is a bit annoying. Especially as it's really hard to get things completed in the half hour slots, I tend to get through a bit of marking and that's it. Many benefits of working there too though so can't complain really.

I started full-time working life in an office 5 days a week, switched to working from home during the pandemic and now am flexible going into the office once or twice a week. Having experienced all three, the flexible route is definitely my favourite - it's way more convenient for me to be at home (and reducing the commute is better for the environment, as pointed out) and I am more productive. I get so distracted by people chit chatting and can struggle in general when noise levels are too much. But I do get on well with my team and think it's good for me mentally to see them in person at least once a week. I do feel lucky that my job allows for flexibility and hope it stays that way for however long I am here for, would definitely not appreciate going back to how things used to be now I know what it's like to have a balance that suits me better.

I'm another hybrid worker, typically spending 2 days at home and 3 in the office. I'm also one of those people who will regularly be found wondering how on earth I ever did 5 days in the office before, I'm always so tired by the time I get to my third day now :lol: but I think part of the reason for it is that lockdown affected other parts of my routine as well as just where I physically worked.

 

The trend towards hybrid working means that less people are travelling and as such the demand for public transport is lower - and in my case that means that the services have majorly decreased. I now have a routine on office days where the alarm goes off at 4:50 (which kills me before the day has even started) so I can get ready before walking the 30 minutes to the bus stop (as there no longer is one that goes any nearer to our house) and then have a now elongated journey that stops all over the place to try and make it pay before eventually getting to the office at about 7:35... which is a good hour or so longer in total each way than the equivalent journey was before lockdown when I was doing 5 days in the office. I need those days at home where I can just set the alarm for 7am and start half an hour later!

 

The really frustrating thing is that I could opt to set my alarm later and journey so I arrive at about 9 instead - but by that point the office is typically packed and I end up just having to find a desk wherever there is one free, often on an entirely different floor of the building... which is fine if I want to concentrate on something in particular but ultimately leaves me feeling very annoyed that I've spent 3 hours getting to an office where I'm still not with my team - so early it is so I at least don't feel like it's an entire waste of time. I could apply to become a home worker - but I don't think that would be good for me in the long run. I did enjoy lockdown to an extent but everyone else was in the same situation then, where as I think I'd suffer mentally if I was at home on my own every working day as I do enjoy seeing my colleagues and have a particularly nice group of people to work with.

I'm another hybrid worker, typically spending 2 days at home and 3 in the office. I'm also one of those people who will regularly be found wondering how on earth I ever did 5 days in the office before, I'm always so tired by the time I get to my third day now :lol: but I think part of the reason for it is that lockdown affected other parts of my routine as well as just where I physically worked.

 

The trend towards hybrid working means that less people are travelling and as such the demand for public transport is lower - and in my case that means that the services have majorly decreased. I now have a routine on office days where the alarm goes off at 4:50 (which kills me before the day has even started) so I can get ready before walking the 30 minutes to the bus stop (as there no longer is one that goes any nearer to our house) and then have a now elongated journey that stops all over the place to try and make it pay before eventually getting to the office at about 7:35... which is a good hour or so longer in total each way than the equivalent journey was before lockdown when I was doing 5 days in the office. I need those days at home where I can just set the alarm for 7am and start half an hour later!

 

The really frustrating thing is that I could opt to set my alarm later and journey so I arrive at about 9 instead - but by that point the office is typically packed and I end up just having to find a desk wherever there is one free, often on an entirely different floor of the building... which is fine if I want to concentrate on something in particular but ultimately leaves me feeling very annoyed that I've spent 3 hours getting to an office where I'm still not with my team - so early it is so I at least don't feel like it's an entire waste of time. I could apply to become a home worker - but I don't think that would be good for me in the long run. I did enjoy lockdown to an extent but everyone else was in the same situation then, where as I think I'd suffer mentally if I was at home on my own every working day as I do enjoy seeing my colleagues and have a particularly nice group of people to work with.

 

 

Dear God, I thought my 5:30am alarm was bad! :o :huh:

 

My previous role I needed to be in all the time, although they did have really flexible hours.

 

My current role is almost purely admin based and I've been able to work 1 day from home a week which is great. It's really nice to be able to save a couple hours on that day so I can have a lie in or have more time for myself once work is done.

 

One other benefit is that in my previous role I would be on my feet all day moving around etc. So a lot of the time if I was quite ill I would take sick days as going in to work would make me feel horrid/worse. Whereas now I can work from home if ill without worrying about getting behind on tasks or such or people needing to cover me. Of course if I am very ill then I will still take a sick day. Although I haven't actually had a sick day in over a year now which is a first, so I think the flexible working has benefitted me health-wise as well.

 

It's also great to have the option to work from home if there are family emergencies and such (One example was my mum being very ill so was able to work from home to help her go to the Doctors and keep an eye on her whilst my dad was at work).

Edited September 21, 2024Sep 21 by Envoirment