Will we simply return to a presenteeism work culture?

I think the vital element is choice. Some private sectors have no intention of returning FT to the office.
I work for public sector and job can be done from home but we have bo choice even for hybrid working.
I have mixed views. My commute is relatively short but by public transport and adds to the length of my day. When WFH saved a lot on transport,clothes,extras such as a coffee. I also tended to work longer hours WFH as when you dont have a bus to catch there is a tendendenct to do just one more thing!
I started my job WFH including training which was all done by training via Teams and very good. I am lucky in that have plenty of space and I am the sort of person who is happy in their own company.
It was only when i went into the office that i realised how essential and supportive those spontaneous casual conversations are. At least some real time with colleagues is vital to me.
Everyone's situation is different. Choice is hopefully something that will be a result. WFH may also make work possible for those whose physical or mental health has made accessing work places difficult.

Many employers are organising staff to be present for a couple of days a week, working the others at home. Fir many this will be a godsend with fewer expensive and time consuming journeys for work. Some may even actually see their children for more than a couple of hours a day. There could be saving on all the expensive coffees and takeaway lunches deemed to be the norm for a lot of workers. Return to work is to support the service industry. Instead of people who travel a distance to work spending money in the work location they may be more tempted to shop locally.

What a waste of a manager's time, those people should be managed properly wherever they are located.

Some people I have worked with needed constant supervision and, left to their own devices, did no work at all.
How are employers supposed to handle this if they are forced to allow these people to WFH?

I often wondered how working from home impacted on things such as an increase in home insurance, utility bills, etc. Although it might even it out, especially if you previoiusly had to drive a long way to work, by not having as much fuel to pay for. I just think it might be too temping to answer those evening e-mails etc.

Anyhow I really hope we don't return to the days when everyone is leaving their home in the dark to queue for buses or sit in long long traffic jams, and doing the reverse every evening.

If we are to create caring and healthy communities, they need to be places where neighbours know and watch out for each other and where local businesses can thrive and flourish.

Too many people are spending their days working in anonymous business parks and office dominated areas of cities, and shopping in overpriced Tesco Express type places, and going home at night to characterless dormer towns where neighbours are barely on nodding terms with each other.

And too many children are spending long long hours in creches, being collected by exhausted parents and returning to unlit houses at a time when a previous generation of children would have been fed, bathed, in their pyjamas and being read a bedtime story.

It's not a healthy way to live and I really hope this will be a turning point.

I think it is the norm now for employers to provide work computers and phones. As much as anything it is a question of security. They will have procedures on their machines to protect everything on it from being accessible to anyone else.

Baggs

^you use your own computer^

This can't be assumed. Some companies provide computers for wfh.

My daughter was provided with a lap top, printer, camera attachment and up to £500 to buy office furniture at the start of the first lockdown. Her employer has reduced the floor space they rent at their two offices to save costs so there is no intention for office based people to return full time. My daughter is planning to be in the office five days a fortnight.

M0nica

*Beswitched, that is the responsibility of the employer. It is rare for confdential 'documents' to be in paper form. they have all been digitised.

Most employers now issue employees with laptops and their use is monitored. DD first worked from home ten years ago. Since then she has worked for three different employers in three different industries. All have issued her with a work computer and work mobile phone and monitored the use of both. She signs on into both every morning. and signs off when her working day is complete.

I know people who work from home dealing with contacts, legal documents etc. They have to be kept in a secure locked place. If it was discovered they were being left lying around where anyone could read them it would be a disciplinary matter.

Not sure how it's monitored.

My son WFH but some of his team found it lonely so they have gone back to office working. He is happy with the arrangement and travels into work just once a week.

His workplace encourages flexibility and has improved
results as people can choose where they want to work.
I think freeing up the roads and transport is important too. It means those who have to commute can do so more easily.
My DD, a nurse, found her journey time halved during restrictions.

*Beswitched, that is the responsibility of the employer. It is rare for confdential 'documents' to be in paper form. they have all been digitised.

Most employers now issue employees with laptops and their use is monitored. DD first worked from home ten years ago. Since then she has worked for three different employers in three different industries. All have issued her with a work computer and work mobile phone and monitored the use of both. She signs on into both every morning. and signs off when her working day is complete.

Yes that demonstrates why some jobs are not suitable for home working and why rules need to be in place for those who can do their job at home eg small children must be minded elsewhere, ear phones must be used when on official calls, confidential documents must be kept locked in a secure place.

From my own experience customer service is far worse. Long waits on the phone to speak to someone. Almost impossible to speak to someone from the local council. On the occasions I have tried to contact someone I have been ‘cut off’ after about 10 minutes and this happens over and over again. When I did actually get through to a person I could hardly hear what was being said due to the noise of kitchen appliances and children shouting. Needless to say my inquiry was not passed on. Also our County Hall building is practically empty but presumably we are still paying the costs from our council tax.

My husband has had to mainly work from home so we built an office on the side of the house and insulated it and upgraded our home broadband/modem system. He finds it difficult that he is contactable all the time though. He said before if you were on site you could ascertain whether people needed help/support/input, you could work out their mood before interacting. Now he said people just want you available immediately, people are becoming quite toxic with one another in certain situations because they cannot communicate effectively.

I can't work from home as I wouldn't be able to create a space big enough for what I need to do in a day but I don't work in an office.

Allsorts

I do think a long commute is adding to your day and is exhausting, I will be pleased however when people on the whole are back at work, the phone calls I’ve had with background noise of dogs or children in the background means you are not getting undivided attention. On the whole people like being together but I also sympathise with those battling the trains and traffic to get to work in the first place.

I think, because working from home was suddenly thrust on people and creches and schools were closed, employers had to be flexible Re children interrupting meetings, dogs barking during calls to clients etc.

But I imagine any formal WFH agreements would have rules about things like that.

As far as travelling around to work is concerned, I think there are different ways to adapt and they are not the same for everyone. For example DH will now only drive to work at various locations, whereas previously he used the train. This is mainly to avoid mixing with people. DS on the other hand works for a company that is very aware of environmental issues and won't allow them to use their cars, but sends them by train. He wears a mask and does work on his laptop during the journey. Neither have jobs where they can WFH, so a compromise is found. Travelling time is taken into consideration as part of the working day.

Beswitched

Galaxy

It's not my job to prop up the likes of Starbucks and greggs, which is what are mostly available in town centres, I realised when I worked from home the amount of money I saved by not going to those places was quite considerable, that money went back into the economy in other ways. Town centres need to make themselves somewhere that people want to go not rely on trapping people there by having to go into the office. They are not charities which I need to support.

Exactly.

It would be so nice to have more independent interesting shops in town centres. In Italy recently I’d forgotten how many of these there are in their town centres, makes “shopping” more fun than trawling round m and s, next, boots, primark, etc etc.

I do think a long commute is adding to your day and is exhausting, I will be pleased however when people on the whole are back at work, the phone calls I’ve had with background noise of dogs or children in the background means you are not getting undivided attention. On the whole people like being together but I also sympathise with those battling the trains and traffic to get to work in the first place.

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GrandmaRosie

The commutes aren’t always bad. I enjoyed my 45 mile drive every day - gave me time to clear my brain and separate work from home. Feel I live in my office now as working on my dining room table, which is supposed to be a place of relaxation and socialising! Miss the valuable spontaneous conversations in the office - and the gossip!

But would you enjoy a 2 hr commute involving buses, trains and walking and being subject to the vagaries of cancelled tubes, buses not turning up or being too full to allow you on when they do eventually arrive. Because that is the reality of commuting for so many workers. Being able to drive to work has almost become a privilege nowadays.

Ironically, during lockdown in 2020 in my area, Starbucks had the longest line in the drive through for months

Galaxy

It's not my job to prop up the likes of Starbucks and greggs, which is what are mostly available in town centres, I realised when I worked from home the amount of money I saved by not going to those places was quite considerable, that money went back into the economy in other ways. Town centres need to make themselves somewhere that people want to go not rely on trapping people there by having to go into the office. They are not charities which I need to support.

Exactly.

The commutes aren’t always bad. I enjoyed my 45 mile drive every day - gave me time to clear my brain and separate work from home. Feel I live in my office now as working on my dining room table, which is supposed to be a place of relaxation and socialising! Miss the valuable spontaneous conversations in the office - and the gossip!

Ilovecheese

It's commercial landlords who are going to be keen for people to go back to working in offices. At least one major bank has more or less halved their office space to save rent and rates. It was moving that way even before covid. Institutions like that will not give a toss whether Starbucks etc. survive.

... I think you're right about commercial landlords - maybe that is what was behind the "People need to get off their Pelotons and back to their desks" message from Oliver Dowden (Con Party Chairman) at last year's Tory Party Conference. Although I believe this was aimed at civil servants. A sentiment later echoed by Boris Johnson.

It's so obvious that work culture is changing in favour of the work-life balance - and why the heck shouldn't it?

Flexibility is the key, and companies that offer it I'm pretty sure will be more successful than those that won't.

As for the survival of the 'high street' - it will have to adapt to change, it has done previously - remember a time when most shops closed just at the time you were leaving work and you had to use your lunch-hour for shopping, limiting purchases to items that wouldn't de-frost or warm-up during an afternoon in the office or other places of work?

It's commercial landlords who are going to be keen for people to go back to working in offices. At least one major bank has more or less halved their office space to save rent and rates. It was moving that way even before covid. Institutions like that will not give a toss whether Starbucks etc. survive.