How ironic - some HMRC staff essentially committing fraud.

David49

I read the OP as the worker arriving at the workplace car park logging in and gaining an extra 10 mins or so before they got to their desk

Not quite sure how you read it like this, when it clearly states. “… before driving home” as the last few words of the post.

What rubbish they print. Even more worrying is that people fail to look at these silly stories with any form of criticism.

I read the OP as the worker arriving at the workplace car park logging in and gaining an extra 10 mins or so before they got to their desk

persons should read- Covid "response"

I can see the front page of the Telegraph on the BBC front pages of newspapers link. This is one of the 2 main stories on the front page- bold large type- " Civil Servants fake office attendance in WFH scandal". On the left hand side, bold type "Starmer could cost us election says Welsh leader". There is a large photo of The Duchess of Edinburgh in the middle.

With all thats going on in the world- this is perceived as a "scandal"?!

It quotes Danny Kruger, now Reform, complaining that the civil service has "grown by 20% in the last 10 years" though he fails to admit when the biggest increases happened, i.e. in relation to Covid persons, Brexit preparations and negotiations and consequent back logs. He fails to say he was part of the Conservative government for 8 years when the majority of the increase spiked. Funny that. It states "insiders say managers have 'no control' over remote staff who are taking advantage of flexible working arrangements".

The top and short of the solution to this 'scandal':
1) managers should always have oversight of. their employees work performance and ensure they have met. their job targets- ie "that they have been doing their job to the expected standard with expected outcomes) and discuss in annual appraisal whether that has been achieved over the past 12 months.
2) Each branch of the civil service, including HMRC, land registry, passport office, courts and tribunals, etc needs to review its organisations's outcomes and whether they have the right amount of staff in post year to year and publicly declare progress when Covid/service backlogs have been met.

That is a routine matter to be monitored and managed properly on a year to year basis whatever party is in government.

If only Trump's actions, Project Freedom, and the threat of escalation of the war, was so easy to solve.

LemonJam

Sounds like a click bait story to me.

All the evidence shows that productivity does not fall when employees WFH if the job allows, and indeed can improve productivity. The test is whether the employee is performing to the standards and outcomes the job requires. Also if employers are competing for good employees in industries that lend themselves to WFH, if they do not offer WFH arrangements they are putting themselves at a disadvantage.

If someone chooses to work 80 hours or how ever many hours in order to perform successfully in 2 paid jobs- why not. It's not unknown for people to moonlight and have additional jobs. Again the test is whether that person is delivering to performance standards and the outcomes each employer expects.

Absolutely, I agree with every word.

Sadly some right wing papers agree with Boris Johnson that no one should work from home.

Mmm I wonder how many of their journalists etc WFH?

The only thing I believe that’s printed in a newspaper is the date at the top of the front page!

LemonJam

Teaching Unions are lobbying for more schools to allow teachers some time to WFH in order to attract and retain teachers to/in the profession as the profession has a huge recruitment and retention problem.

It’s certainly a proposition that could work well, my daughter did wfh three days a week during lockdown, she’s a primary (infants) school teacher and it certainly isn’t ideal for those ages as young children learn at such different paces and often “show and tell” in person works better for them.

However, I see no reason why this wouldn’t work at secondary level or college, it would have to be well set up and lots of planning done.

My daughter is currently not even allowed to do her weekly pupil lesson planning afternoon at home, though it clearly states teachers are “allowed” to this in their contracts, all the teachers in her school are angry about this.

Anything which helps retain teaching staff AND doesn’t disrupt pupils should be explored.

When I was teaching, an enlightened depute head tried to give us a block of non teaching time which we could use and work from home to mark or prepare lessons. This was a long time ago!
Sadly it became unsustainable because of many factors but I always remember that being treated as a responsible adult at work was eye opening.

Teaching Unions are lobbying for more schools to allow teachers some time to WFH in order to attract and retain teachers to/in the profession as the profession has a huge recruitment and retention problem.

Sago

Unfortunately the whole WFH thing is a bad idea for some people.

Our son met someone at a networking event, this person worked for a competitor, our son said his company had just employed one of his ex staff, the guy enquired as to who it was.
It turned out he was still on the payroll working from home full time!
The culprit had also had the temerity to put a friend of his forward for a role at the same company, he too was in full time employment elsewhere.

It’s apparently a common scam.

That’s not the same thing as is claimed is happening here.

I too have heard horror stories about WFH where people have more than one employer.

However, there’s also ludicrous accusations made at the entire WFH set up.

I was working from home prior to retirement, as my DD does now.

I also worked from home with two other jobs (not at the same time) in the mid 1990’s, it’s really not a new thing, it’s just that it clearly became extremely commonplace during Covid and there are clear advantages for both Employer and Employee.

Many organisations, including many govt departments sold off buildings maintaining much cheaper premises, but only large enough to accommodate a certain proportion of staff at one time, hence hybrid working is available in many govt departments. Great technology means meetings can held nationwide using MS Teams or Zoom.

In my personal and professional experience hybrid and WFH staff, in the main, work harder and longer hours and achieve more positive outcomes due to lack of “conversational” interruptions and tea and elongated lunch breaks.

Those people who “cheat” the system, pretend to be busy or take advantage to the detriment of the business whilst WFH are the very same people who do exactly the same whilst working from the business premises and it’s up to local management to address this.

The pros of WFH or hybrid working far out way the cons.

If you’ve never done it, or don’t wish to do it, don’t knock it, it’s great to be given the choice.

Sounds like a click bait story to me.

All the evidence shows that productivity does not fall when employees WFH if the job allows, and indeed can improve productivity. The test is whether the employee is performing to the standards and outcomes the job requires. Also if employers are competing for good employees in industries that lend themselves to WFH, if they do not offer WFH arrangements they are putting themselves at a disadvantage.

If someone chooses to work 80 hours or how ever many hours in order to perform successfully in 2 paid jobs- why not. It's not unknown for people to moonlight and have additional jobs. Again the test is whether that person is delivering to performance standards and the outcomes each employer expects.

Right wing press. No words!

Telegraph and The Mail.

Unfortunately the whole WFH thing is a bad idea for some people.

Our son met someone at a networking event, this person worked for a competitor, our son said his company had just employed one of his ex staff, the guy enquired as to who it was.
It turned out he was still on the payroll working from home full time!
The culprit had also had the temerity to put a friend of his forward for a role at the same company, he too was in full time employment elsewhere.

It’s apparently a common scam.

Indeed : this is a very strange story. Are the newspapers happy to supply details of these miscreants, so that they might be dismissed with immediate effect?

So we are meant to believe large groups of people are getting up, dressed and taking their laptops in their car, logging into the local HMRC wi-fi from the car park, then driving home, whilst maintaining their wi-fi connection and returning home to complete their full days work?

Even if this was possible, why? Once they reached the work car park, why would anyone do this ?

Not quite sure how that would work? Soon as they move back home they’ll lose the work Wi-Fi signal, which would only connect if they have work phones as well as work laptops.

Most HMRC staff are hybrid workers, so can work from home some days a week, usually a 60/40 split, unless they have reasonable adjustments in place in which case they can normally work a bigger percentage at home.

It does sound a ludicrous non story and pointless thing to do.

I’m sure they’ve managed to find one or two doing this out of the 65,000+ people working for HMRC.

This would mean immediate dismissal for most organisations here. Unless there was a very,very good reason.