AIBU in thinking they should get back to work?

Alegrias1

I think its about something else Ilovecheese. I think its about the belief that people WFH must be skiving, wasting time and getting money for nothing. Hence the belief that the problems with the DVLA are all down to WFH.

That’s just silly, where are the large numbers of people saying this?

One of my offspring works from home and will continue to do so. The council she works for provided her small department with funds to update their computers and wi-fi and have closed down the office and given up the lease. This has saved them a lot of money. They have team meetings together in a council conference side room once a month or more often if needed. What she pays for in extra heating (of one room) she more than saves in travel costs - which is good for the environment too. They had to run two cars and now only have the one. And everyone seems to be happy and working better. They don't have to worry about having to have time off for positive tests or colds unless they feel really poorly and even then they pop in and out of "The Office". I think there would be strong objections (although maybe not strike action) if this were to be changed now!

Of course it doesn't work for everyone and another offspring is working from home two days a week and into the office for three, whilst another is back in full time. It depends on what the job is. Some can efficiently and some can't. Having a blanket ruling across a company is silly. It depends on the job. To my mind the more people can work at home the better it is for the environment.

Ilovecheese if the job can be done just as well as at home, that’s fine, and I don’t think office working will ever go back to exactly what it was.There are jobs though that are better done in an office and ‘team’ environment....our children have told us this.Two of them really need to be more office based and the other one can accomplish everything at home, with one office visit per week.

X posts NFk?

But what about the adverse effects on town centres now offices aren’t full of potential customers for the shops cafes and restaurants in the area?

Other businesses will thrive though won't they? Local high street shops and cafes which have been in such decline will surely see the benefits of people popping out for a sarnie and a coffee at lunchtime.

lemongrove

Alegrias1

I think its about something else Ilovecheese. I think its about the belief that people WFH must be skiving, wasting time and getting money for nothing. Hence the belief that the problems with the DVLA are all down to WFH.

That’s just silly, where are the large numbers of people saying this?

Calling my posts silly won't stop me making them .

RTFT.

Alegrias1

I think its about something else Ilovecheese. I think its about the belief that people WFH must be skiving, wasting time and getting money for nothing. Hence the belief that the problems with the DVLA are all down to WFH.

... that is my suspicion also.

I've read a lot of comments on Facebook, comments from many who were - by the very nature of their jobs - obviously unable to WFH - saying things like "get back to work and stop being lazy". I think also there's a bit of a 'class' thing going on too... those in less glamourous, low-paid jobs thinking that there's an elite and privileged group of workers. The old divide and rule.

And I think I know the reasons why government is so keen to take up the cry...

I just read about a prostitute who has lost her council house because she was working from home. Bit much when the government is telling people to do this.

Scones

^But what about the adverse effects on town centres now offices aren’t full of potential customers for the shops cafes and restaurants in the area?^

Other businesses will thrive though won't they? Local high street shops and cafes which have been in such decline will surely see the benefits of people popping out for a sarnie and a coffee at lunchtime.

Exactly! The cafes and shops in my small town are thriving, despite lockdown because there are more people around during the day. Some of them even do home delivery. There are also unoccupied spaces which are being converted to home working hubs for people who don't have the space at home. People are always resourceful and are capable of change.

As more than one of the contributors has already mentioned returning living spaces to town centres would help the housing shortages as well. It might even mean more food shops would return rather than the endless chain clothing stores, phone shops etc. Perhaps independent defies, fruit and veg. This could even help the coffee and tea shops. Town centres need people.

It just takes a bit of imagination and of course finance to make it happen.

My son applied for his full driving licence about 3 weeks ago. He had to send his passport. He was hoping to go to Poland at the end of this month as his wife and child are there buying a property and he needs to sign documents. Now he won't be able to unless he gets his passport back next week.

I shrink away from telling other people that they have no right to strike or to resist going back into the office. We are still in a pandemic.

My youngest son is working for a Government Dept in Wales as his placement year in Uni. He is longing to work on site so he gets the full working experience but has to work from home for the foreseeable future. It is quite isolating as a long term thing.
On the other hand, my eldest son is working from home, as his wife, and they are loving it. It means they can be on hand for the school runs and more productive than in a distracting office. It also saves them a 2 hour drive everyday which has got to be good for the planet!

People who work from home do not work at the same pace as in the office. You don’t have supervisors looking over your shoulder etc. also some people have got children or elderly living with them so have other distractions. That is why there’s a backlog! If home workers had targets to meet rather than hours to work they’d work a lot quicker!! Just a suggestion!

My small London based company have been working from home since 17 March 2020, although the office has been available to anyone who needs to work here, need the photocopier or large scale printer (Construction industry); colleagues have been going to site (offices, hospitals etc). We have had a record year, an absolute whizz bang of a year in terms of sales! Colleagues have worked incredibly hard, there has been very little illness (15 colleagues, only 4 days illness among them this year).

I used to say, getting to my office on the tube used to feel like I'd had a full day even before walking through the door, cancellations, delays, strikes, etc, and I'm lucky I just need to take one tube line from NW London to SE London! I've been able to return to my laptop at 8pm to finish off projects colleagues have worked on all day that need "tweaking" before being sent to clients for 9am meetings. One colleague badly twisted his ankle - would normally have been a week at home but was able to work from the comfort of home.

Three (!) of my colleagues have welcomed babies in the last 18 months and have been able to be hands on in the childcare - they've found it invaluable to be able to step away and do feeds or whatever and then get back to their desks.

One of my Directors is naturally keen for us to return to the office but he can't argue that we've been slacking, far from it! We have remote working set up on secure systems, we have Teams calls every morning at 9am to catch up on projects. It's really been an eye opener in how this could work in the future.

And - in the last 2 weeks one of my sons colleagues and two of his housemates have caught Covid. My next door neighbour has caught Covid. One of my colleagues has just said he has 3 friends who, in the last week have caught Covid. It's too early to dismiss this virus just because there is a vaccine and "less" deaths.

My son WFH, and has to be reminded to take aunch break and to stop work. Yes, there are probably scivers but the majority I suspect put in longer hours than they're paid for.
With the DVLA, I wonder if its paper based applications and supporting evidence which is the problem, whereas online processing is relatively quicker?
I worked for the last couple of my working years for the civil service, and the IT systems were not always the quickest, and getting problems fixed with them was often slow. And as for hotdesking, we were victim to having to squeeze 6 people into workstations designed for 5.
So I suspect many of the DVLA's problems are a similar mix.
There is always the element of control and envy regarding those able to work from home, from those whose jobs aren't suitable for homeworking. I used to literally beg for a half day to work at home to do online study (mandatory training), but was usually refused by the control freak I had for my last manager.
No real definitive answer to the DVLA situation.

Having worked at the DVLA, now retired thankfully I can advise that there is more than one building involved in housing all the staff and these are spread across the Swansea area. From my knowledge, for those going into the office the hours have reduced and there are now shift patterns, so yes hot-desking is possible as desk numbers have diminished.
There are a lot of the younger element working there and from what I was told had not always been adhering to the COVID rules, mixing out of work and not wearing masks at all times, if my information is correct.

Peff68

People who work from home do not work at the same pace as in the office. You don’t have supervisors looking over your shoulder etc. also some people have got children or elderly living with them so have other distractions. That is why there’s a backlog! If home workers had targets to meet rather than hours to work they’d work a lot quicker!! Just a suggestion!

I expect most of them do have targets.

There is a huge backlog and it is undoubtedly causing issues. Online renewal of a licence is streamlined and efficient (if you have the right documents) - if you do not it is another matter (e.g. no passport or a need to send in paper copy) - I know of many who cannot get a V5 for their car (just bought one) and have waited literally months! You cannot use the car as it cannot be taxed until you have the V5. I had a recent customer (September) who is an HGV driver who applied for the renewal of his licence (which expired in July) in March 2021 and still hasn't got it - that is farcical when there's a shortage of HGV drivers in the UK. I don't know what the issue with DVLA is and whether homeworking affects it (you would need secure access for each person WFH - not impossible but .gov.uk are not renown for easy systems and VPN access) but it need sorting and fast!

My license was due for renewal, I was worried about delays. I applied and got my new license in less than a week.

Apparently problems arise because there a health database which needs to be accessed for some renewals, particularly HGV drivers. This can't be done from home - but that doesn't explain why DVLA staff feel that they are more at risk than other people who have to work from offices. ridiculous really.
Reminds me of the old days when many Civil Service staff felt that days off sick were actually part of their annual holiday entitlement rather than only to be taken when they were actually sick. I expect people will tell me this is rubbish but sadly it isn't, I knew many people who, if they had not taken their "regulation" sick days, would take time off in lieu.

Fully agree with you Oldwoman70.
Not sure where in Wales you live, Casdon, but in our part of West Wales, WiFi and phone connection is very hit and miss. Most official calls to those wfh seem dogged by this, with the workers having to apologise for being unable to access information, and sometimes phone discussions being unintelligible. All official calls seem to be prefaced with the Covid warning, that staff are wfh, and delays are to be expected. Personally, I arrange a task, eg making a cake, reading the paper, if I have to make a call, put the phone on speaker, and get on with the task, not infrequently waiting around 1/2 hour.
I am certainly not against wfh, DH did this for 25 years at his own business, with occasional site visits, and it was a godsend when dd was in school if she was unwell and unable to attend, and during school hols, as I had the sort of job where you couldn’t just phone in and say the child was ill and you wouldn’t be able to come into work. But now that everything is computerised, home workers must have access to good systems or it falls to bits.
GSM, as JANH says, DVLA are in Swansea, not Cardiff, so it is entirely possible that their drive to work area includes staff living in areas further west where internet connections are poor

Casdon

What exactly can’t be done at home in this job lemongrove?

I am suprised there have not been any logical answers to this.

WFH is great most of the time with secure access to the departmental IT systems but where it does fall down is I expect with interdepartmental systems that cannot be done from home.

With the DVLA for example, there will be thousands upon thousands of mail items received each day. That requires bodies to be on site to open them, then they have to be transferred to the approprate department, then scanned onto the system so that those who WFH can access them.

Once physical (scanned) documents are available they can then be processed. Once this is complete physical input is required to return any documents to the owner and create, issue and send the licences out.

I note that people who have had a reasonable turn around on their licence application, have in the main applied online along with access to passport photo's.

Delays are where there has to be any physical doumentation sent in to DVLA such as doctors certificates etc.

Peff68

People who work from home do not work at the same pace as in the office. You don’t have supervisors looking over your shoulder etc. also some people have got children or elderly living with them so have other distractions. That is why there’s a backlog! If home workers had targets to meet rather than hours to work they’d work a lot quicker!! Just a suggestion!

Not everyone has supervisors looking over their shoulders at work - some employers assume that their staff are professional and treat them accordingly. Also, some colleagues are distracting, as are many other things about the work environment. At home, you might stop for 15 mins to put a load of washing in, or make a cup of tea for a relative, but Betty from Admin isn't showing you photos of her new grandson, and you aren't stopping to sign leaving cards and look at the assorted products from the book people.

I'd be more than surprised if many roles aren't centred around targets of some sort. People might not be on piecework, but that doesn't mean that there are no deadlines or other expectations of their performance. It is laughable to think that people are just left to do nothing except draw their salary when they are working from home.

When I was working full-time I saved 2 hours a day by not commuting, although I often dealt with emails on the bus. When I worked from home I got a lot done in those 2 hours, so didn't feel guilty if I had a long lunch or met a friend for coffee. As I said upthread, if I did something like that I would still have the work to complete by the deadline - it's not as though I could leave it unfinished or expect someone else to do it.

Now I'm semi-retired I don't have my own office, so I do everything at home. It is deadline time now - I was still working at 10.00pm last night, and that will be standard for full-time colleagues at this time of year. They may well have a lie in, or an early finish in a couple of weeks' time to make up for it, and I can't see the problem with that.

So many people seem to think that everyone should follow the same pattern of working as they do, and if anyone deviates from that they are somehow 'in the wrong', and that's just not true.

People who work from home do not work at the same pace as in the office.

Absolutely right. My husband is getting a lot more done. He used to spend a lot of time travelling to meetings. Travel time when he was "on the clock" plus expenses. Now he just dials into Skype. He's saved the taxpayer a lot of money.