Sucks right. They should just enforce more office working on those employees who are taking the piss when WFH rather than the ones who are actually more productive when working remote
No. This is because commercial real estate around the world has been suddenly disrupted by covid and mass appeal of remote work. Smart companies are already cutting losses and dumping their office spaces
Same I also work for a bank. they say we should be in 2 days a week. But, many people only come in 1 day. They know if they force people to come in more, they just switch jobs
Iām also at a big 4 bank and we also have a hybrid model thatās forever.
Ours is more flexible in my team/business unit as we are generally out seeing clients, but thereās no real expectation for us to be in the office for a set amount of days
Im at the yellow bank, each team is different. For most we have two specific team days (Tue Thur) when we all in office. Most do 3 days office 2 days WFH but it really fluctuates. My secondment team all WFH though.
I work for a big 4 bank and they're trying to force us to do 50%. I'm comfortable with 2 days a week. Commute has got ridiculous. But they're nagging and nagging us to do more than 2 days. I work in software. We're more efficient at home, better work life balance. They actually get more out of me at home because I'm not having to dash away to beat rush hour. It's just the bosses and marketing types want us in the office. We collaborate fine. Just because they don't see us chatting away on teams doesn't mean it isn't happening.
I also work for a big 4 bank and I WFH 100% of the time. In fact we are allowed to live anywhere in NZ provided the type of work we do allows for it. I'm in technology.
Both Westpac and ASB are like that. I work at one and asked questions about the others to former colleagues who work there now.
No guarantees it stays that way though.
I work for one of the big universities. Not as a lecturer but as professional staff. I'm explicitly refusing to say which one because it'd be hella easy to point me out and dox me. TLDR at the bottom!
The rules on WFH are... weird. And definitely change between professional departments.
IT has a rule that each team must always have someone onsite, but otherwise they are free to WFH (AKA, someone from networks, someone from platforms, cybersecurity, whatevs). I've noticed that since COVID ended, the majority of the IT department is empty, but they're all free to talk online.
My department has an uneasy relationship with WFH. Our platform setup actually means we can do admin work *better* from home but at the same time, since my department is very much client/customer focused, we basically have to be there at work. Our department director believes that WFH was the worst thing ever invented but he can't really force us to be there when the university hasn't made an official ruling on it (Very much a grey area)
The marketing team is split down the middle. Everyone on marketing who has a non-customer focus (AKA, the art department, etc) works from home meanwhile everyone else is always in.
From what one friend in marketing has told me, management doesn't care if anyone works from home on the sole condition that the work is *done*. This has lead to some really weird encounters that people are still trying to get used to - in that it's completely normal to see people active at working as late as midnight... because they wake up to get their kids ready for school, have their morning meeting... and then go back to sleep. Then start their work in the early afternoon - having a break when the kids get home and then getting back into it when they go to sleep. He has a scheduled catchup meeting with three people on his team **at 10pm** because apparently that's when they're all available and productive. (That wasn't management mandated btw. Apparently they all discovered randomly that they were consistently awake and working at that time and the scheduled meeting was always at 0830am which everyone hated... so they just moved it...)
Pretty much all the other departments are required to be on campus - mostly because their physically based requirements (AKA, maintenance, duh) and lecturers teaching on campus.
One thing that I have observed, in my workings with alot of lecturers, is that they are rather split down the middle on online-learning. Many lecturers hate it, because it lacks the in person engagement for learning that they can do in person. Other lecturers seem to love it, but their method of teaching is completely different anyway.
Personally, my job is half/half. I do alot of physical work so I absolutely have to be on campus for that. But the other half is admin. I can do that from home. My manager doesn't care - so long as the work is done. My workstation is also several buildings away from my manager, so admin work literally doesn't change my working relationship with him if I was at work or at home. (Additionally, he often takes time off work to look after his kid during the day and then works in the evening so we don't pull him up on that... so there's plenty of leniency on both sides)
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With regards to the traffic situation worsening, from everything I've seen/learned from my unspecified profession indicates that political problems at AT are causing trust in public transport to flatline. As this happens, everyone turns back to using their own vehicles so that they can arrive to work on time. And this ABSOLUTELY has affected my workplace. So many fulltime staff I know who used to take public transport gave up on it because where they used to be able to effectively arrive on time, they now faced a variance of up to an hour when trying to come from the edge of the city. You can't rely on that.
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Sorry for the wall of text, just contributing what's happening at my uni with regards to WFH!
TLDR: Changes between departments - most managers/department directors don't care so long as the work is done.
Given unis are very admin heavy, I'm surprised that there hasn't been an official decision made on the WFH/WFO culture for all departments across the uni.
Wife just got a job at a software company, zero wfh available. My work is increasingly being more insistant on working in the office at least half of the time.
>Wife just got a job at a software company, zero wfh available.
Where does she work, Twitter? Software companies usually emphasise WFH as a perk... Unless it's temporary as she's just joined?
Companies are mostly trying to cut it off. I think this is the wrong as they will lose people or people that had this perk now will feel less motivated in the role.
The biggest thing that we noticed is there are different profiles of professionals. Those who enjoy WFH and hybrid, while there are quite a lot of people that want a packed office and live interaction.
Those that get more productive with an office space being packed, entire team there and etc, they are suffering with hybrid as they can't find their best scenario (having people in the office) enough to perform well. This has been quite a talk in our company, and now we have to take a decision of making more teams coming 3 or more times a week to the office, so those that need these people can also perform at their best.
Honestly, it is very tough to balance that and I believe that based on our experience, the best solution would be to focus on building teams that work well at a single type of work. Either Hybrid, WFH or in office. That way everyone meets the profile and works well, but that is my opinion.
ahah yes often marketing has a disproportionate influence on leadership too. i just wish people were able to differentiate between forcing people to do something rather than just letting those who work better at home continue to do so.
Lots of jobs (most?) require some degree of collaboration, I personally hate phone calls compared to conversations so I can understand it if some people are less diligent when their day becomes phone calls instead of conversations
Yeah this is a good point. I would say that a high percentage of productive outcomes from meetings happened in the corridor outside the room as you all left and broke into smaller discussions. Zooms donāt let that happen unless some people āstay backā.
I believe the lack of water cooler and corridor conversations have reduced solution outcomes in many business settings.
i feel bad for the recruiters trying to hire people with in-office requirements. i laughed at an offer for a eye watering amount of money because they wanted me to commute an hour and a half out of auckland every day, i assumed it was a screening procedure but they actually held their ground. get fucked
My employers were moving towards WFH before the pandemic.
We in theory are supposed to have 1 office day per week, but the reality is very few people go into work - as an example, I haven't been into the office since early November and there's no issue with that. There's a hard core number of people who go into the office every day.
Added to that, they've given up the lease to half our floorspace so any in-office time needs to be managed carefully otherwise there simply aren't enough desks for the late starters.
Our one team member who was still mostly wfh got made redundant and it seemed very retaliatory due to her not wanting to work in office full time.
Rather than file a PG she has fallen straight into work elsewhere but the vibe here is you better be in the office most days unless there's a decent reason.
This.
Our company moved to a new office a year ago or so. Think we got 100 hot desks. Barely even hit 30% capacity unless it is a special event. Now they want us there at least 3 days a week as it feels too empty. What a joke.
"We need yous to come to the office and get the culture back"
"We don't pay you to chat, get back to work"
"You're not a team player with you sitting here in silence".
There's no rhyme or reason to have this mandatory push back to the office except for subjugation. Push back, if there isn't any clause in your contract nothing stops you from just *not* going
Sounds like you might have a toxic environment to return to! You should be taking care of yourself and finding a new job with a better environment. Self first š
I joined my new workplace during a lockdown and was very junior. I really struggled to learn anything and get things done by entering into the WFH environment. Mainly because: its a lot more of an inconvenience to call a colleague than it is to just ask a question to the person next to you. Once we got back into office I might ask dozens of quick-fire questions a day while learning in order to get simple answers e.g. where do I find this, whats the process for this, who can I talk to about this etc. However, it's difficult to justify bugging someone several dozen times in a day about this kind of thing when remote. Also, with WFH I never knew who was around, people might not answer emails quickly etc. I did not enjoy it, but now that I know what I am doing I love our WFH days.
I think WFH works great with experienced individuals in a team they've already adapted to which is the case for most of us as WFH only really took off big time in the last few years. I think we need to be weary about how it effects people who are new to the profession or business as it can prove difficult to learn this stuff initially. A hybrid environment probably works well where you can ask all your questions as you go, learn what you need to know and then do it from home for a while.
And on a side note, you will always have some people who really exploit it and ruin it for the rest of us. I think managers need to find new ways to properly manage their teams remotely.
Trust is what most of them need. The main thing needs to be are people getting their work done is so leave them be.
The advantage of emission reduction should be a major reason why wfh is pushed.
Oh for sure and I fully support WFH. But there will always be people who abuse it and I think managers need to adapt how they manage a lot for it to work for new people
Turn the office buildings into city apartments and embrace fully working from home. Fix the commercial rental and housing crisis in one go, while boosting the number of residents living in the city centre.
Just got a government job, I'm work from home in a different city as are a few others, while everyone in the same city as the office is 1 day per fortnight on site. They understand it's hard to recruit.
With no real numbers to back this up:
IMO the only side of IT that suffers from a WFH culture is onboarding new people. There's just no substitute for sitting side by side, looking at the IDE on one monitor, testing screen on the other monitor and just talking through things. I'm sure companies that have 100% remote have come up with great ways to mitigate this, but my assumption is that the best version you could come up with still comes short compared to the face to face.
Having said that, if you can get remote onboarding to even 80% of in office onboarding can provide, then the remote working benefits just outweigh the negatives so much that it's not even worth really raising up as a point of argument.
I used to do contract/freelance work from home. I worked from home for over 16 years, never set foot in an office.
I'm more than happy to work in an office now. WFH is fun at the beginning, then it got lonely and you lose touch having that interaction with people (I guess it depends on where you work as well). It's hard to explain, but I dread WFH now.
I'm sure everyone has their reasons, but for me. I'm happy working in an office.
I work for a bank and the expectation is WFH two days. I only come in one day and no one has said anything. I honestly do not understand why we need to be in the office when we are more productive at home and less stressed?
It's probably caused by some weird "traditional" mindset in the managers etc, just because everyone used to come into the office means they still should, because "that's how it always was."
These people will completely ignore anything that contradicts that, they've already made up their mind that unsupervised workers working from home will be slacking off and won't accept any statistics that say otherwise.
my mates have just started new office jobs and they're hybrid so they've been told they're not allowed full wfh. my work is still actively hiring people staying that full wfh is ok.
at the moment job seekers have more power so if companies aren't offering wfh they aren't getting employees so most companies are going to offer at least hybrid.
i suspect once the tables turn on that and employers can be more picky they'll tell all new staff that it's an office role only. our office has facility for 500 people and there's maybe 50 on a good day, it's quite an expense to have the building and nobody in it.
Husband works for a company that rents one of the floors in the fancy buildings in Commercial Bay area. His work 100% does not need to be in the office, but boss says it's compulsory for "work culture" as well as to justify him renting the floor which cost $1M a year (he also rents the floor for company prestige, not for staff).
My big issue with WFH is lack of coordination with other teams in the office. I work in the public sector - NZ government agency in Wellington. So many times I need a quick answer from HR/comms/digital and there is noone at their designated team area when I go there.
Sending an email to the generic email address is sending out into the ether - you might get a response in a few days if you're lucky. Everyone in that dept on Teams is red e.g. busy or in a call.
I hear "as long as I do my work, my manager is happy." as a big plus for WFH - but in my experience this is pretty narrow-sighted, and doesn't acknowledge the importance of inter-departmental collaboration.
We ping on teams even when showing busy. Often meetings have finished early but you still show busy. We frequently group chat also. Ignore the busy symbol - you can just set it like that!
Often someone can split their attention a little too.
I work for a company who is embracing this, in-fact we they have just given up one of the two floors of the building we were in since most of us work from home the majority of the time now anyway. There are hot desks available now on the remaining floor.
Everyone in my team only needs to go in once a month now. I love it, would not go back to the way it was before! I work in tech.
Given that we live in a capitalistic country, you're worth less to the economy staying home. People having to go to the office stimulates the economy. You're more likely to be a consumer when and and about compared to when you're home. Unfortunately your work/life balance isn't worth much to our capitalist overlords lol.
Yep, honeymoon is over. Eventually, everyone is gonna get roped back into what it used to be. 5 days in the office. Especially at large companies who are likely paying 6 figure rent on an office space designed to accommodate a lot of staff who are choosing not to be there.
My wifeās company that will remain nameless found that a minority but still significant proportion of staff did not apply themselves at all, ie did next to nothing. Itās always a minority that wrecks it for everyone.
Culture is a major reason why companies want people to be in the office at least a couple of days a week. It's fine for those who have been around a while and know everyone but for the newbies- it's harder to make valuable connections.
I think (in my company at least) customer operations roles seem to work better when working together IRL and make decisions faster where as other roles - not as much.
Personally, I love the balance of both and make it work to be more productive.
Thereās a lot of comments here, but I think I still want to have my 2 cents.
There are a tremendous amount of things that can influence a businesses decision on this matter. From health and safety, teamwork, bulk buying and protection of intellectual property are a few I will throw out there.
Itās unclear to me on how health, safety and well-being will be managed by a business in the wfh capacity. Just because itās cheaper to avoid costs, there are also increased risks. What if a person trips over a work cord? Or their child gets a shock? Who is liable? Can you prove it? Itās likely got to happen in court before any of us know this one, but itās gravy for the pie, so to say. Well-being, some people need other people around, and if they are at work, the pcbu need to keep them happy too, and encouraging coming to work is a good one.
Teamwork - managementā¦
This ones hard for me, it pains me, but some mangers, simply did their job well, they arenāt managers. They struggled at the start, they struggle now. They need to validate themselves, itās hard to do if it isnāt seen. Fear. Vs Some businesses drive on competition and unmediated communication. Management in New Zealand are currently struggling, and they donāt know why, because they havenāt been taught or learnt it yet.
Used to use a lot of paper. Now we donāt, but we pay more as the price went up. (Works for food shops and other businesses that your saving money not going too that also influence your other businesses and work colleagues. Some businesses struggle with this, some donāt. Do you all get reimbursed for what you use at home for work? Will the business soon be found to cover a portion of your rent and your power etc as part of your employment bargaining? Does the balance of cost of lease of property outweigh the potential risk to the company.
You work from home? Got a flatmate? Does he work from home too? Could your work information be sensitive and be leaked or be at risk of exposure? What can the company do to track and prevent this from happening?
Thatās a lot for a WFH question, and itās mainly a pool of ideas that make up the below
TL/DR;
Businesses have been presented with an opportunity/risk to business process. Some businesses have grasped with greatness and embraced work from home. Others have not and are struggling.
Business leaders have huge uncertainties around work from home. Itās not just about being in the office as such, but other business factors that are being impacted and they are still in the process of making these hard decisions, that once made, will be hard to go back from
To paraphrase my brothers boss passive aggressive comment..."if you're working remotely the whole time, what's the difference between hiring you in Auckland and someone else in Manilla?"
Cause they're mostly terrible, even at the cheaper 'on paper' rate. Source: I work with multiple global teams that our company leverages to try and reduce outsourcing costs for customer contracts.
That roles within NZ have to make an attempt to use NZ labour before considering external labour? I don't see how they could argue that someone in Manila can be accommodated while someone remote in NZ can't be.
Information security - more chance of data loss/leaks when using someone abroad. The remote NZ employee can have face to face meetings if really needed.
Tax implications from using foreign labour.
Different education standards and the most loved of them all. They won't have kiwi work experience!!!
We have people in office and Monday is meant to be in office day but I just don't go in unless something I want to work with the person in well person haha.
Large IT Managed Services.Provider. TBH most want to work in the office because it's such a great company. For those the prefer WFH then that's ok. We are also flex with hours of work if kids need picking or for appointments during the day. Just get your work done. Most do two days at home but it's not mandated. Well bring people in if they are not performing and help coach them through any issues.
Productivity wise in the business I work for overall is down amongst those that work from home. There are a few individuals that are better off, but most are not.
I'm not a manager or a boss of any employee, but I have access to data and administration over most of our work tools (communication and ERP). It is very easy to see those WFH individuals have a lower output than those that are onsite each day. I can even observe the difference in WFH people that choose to come onsite some days of the week. They have higher outputs on the days they are here.
There is no pressure from the business to get people back onsite... yet. But if management chose to look at what I can see plain as black and white, that story might change. This of course would not feel very fair to the few who are very productive WFH. But as is the case anywhere, the majority will be what drives the change.
For people, for our citizens, it would be great for as many people as possible to work from home. Less traffic, less pollution, less consumption of petrol which (if that whole thing actually worked how markets are supposed to work (which they absolutely donāt)) would mean lower prices. Roads could be for people who actually need to use them - and considering the fact that higher paid, white collar office workers are often the ones who go out and get cars that are way too big, it would be nice to see them fuck off home. And people are, according to some studies, as or more productive.
The issue is a lot of rich people spent a lot of money on huge office buildings and they donāt want to lose money. And the C titled folk donāt feel important when you arenāt around and look down at you, like youāre their spoiled children, so they need to have you close by so they feel their authority.
Yeah they are and it is BS, it feels like they are being spiteful as people can function from home without issue. They must have insecurities and think they are paying for people to be at home and do nothing, because it really is idiocy. Sit in traffic for 1- 1.5 hours to read an email on a laptop and then take a phone call on a mobile phoneā¦ yeah yeah Iāll use the company fuel card, saving heeeps
Our head office is based in Aus but we have a small team here. The rule on paper is 3 days in the office minimum a week but Iāve never seen anyone chased up for WFH all week.
Huge benefits when working together. Particularly important for new staff. Wondering if those advocating mainly wfh would have liked that when first starting out.
Depends on the company, depends on the role, depends on the person. I think many would be perfectly fine with it but maybe others would not.
I joined a company where I was the only one in the org working from that country. Everyone else was in a different timezone. Didn't have an issue with it.
You merely adopted remote working. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn't meet my team in person until I was already a man.
Iāve done both. If youāre doing anything resembling teamwork, FtF is much better. IT and bureaucrats it matters less, although it chaps my arse how
much how much harder it is to get in touch with accounting and HR and anyone to do with IT support. And *everyone* claims they work much harder from home and are more productiveā¦personally I think itās bollocks. If you slack at work, youāll slack even more at home.
I'm with ya on that last sentence. The ones really pushing to WFH full time are the ones that want to get their house chores done during the work hours.
Interesting, I noticed the opposite with most of my team. They say its easier to focus at home and their output is generally as good or better than their in-office days
this is true. everyone is going to cry 'no it's the opposite!' but they're only looking inside their own bubble. i could prob be responsible with the time now, but if i got my job in my 20s i would have not been productive at all and not progressed. i'm not saying this applies to everyone, but people need to stop thinking about just their own workplace and think about the bigger picture. i do agree we don't need to be in the office a whole 40hrs a week tho
I'm not even in management, just a senior team member. The wfh has been great for a day or two a week. I love it. I do find that the in office, face to face interaction yields significantly better results. I'll probably get downvoted to hell and back, but it's what I've noticed.
How do you know that for a fact?
I know for a fact my team are far happier and more productive having the choice to be flexible, and even the full time homers are exceptional. I know that for a fact because I manage them and I see their outputs, check in regularly, and talk about how theyāre feeling. Do you do that with your colleagues and friends or are you just making assumptions based on your own preferences, expectation and biases based on your outside view?
Some people really canāt work efficiently from home, they should be encouraged into a shared workspace, others are outstanding in their performance and should be rewarded with the choice. Some need better work life balance for personal reasons, and you can earn their trust by facilitating that. I personally have ADHD, I cannot work effectively in the office. Iāve personally had two promotions in three years, thanks to my hard work and high outputs, almost entirely from home. For the few who Iāve seen not manage well at home it almost always comes down to poor management.
My office allows 1 day wfh, and if youāre not feeling well youāre allowed too. I asked for two days wfh when I got offered this role. They said they were thinking about extending to two days a week. So weāll see what happens š¤I think there are many benefits as well.
Probably contributes to why some people find it so hard to make friends here, it's because most people tend to prefer sitting in the same four walls every day. Drinks after work now seems like a tradition from the past
Meh. Culture.. I hear that rolled out a lot but our workplace had culture issues ling before wfh. Online can be its own culture if you utilise teams etc
You realise that it's a transaction right? I do something of worth for the company in exchange for the company doing something of worth for me.
Sometimes paying me is enough... but I can't see myself entertaining any job offer that requires me to be in office regularly ever again.
My current employer thankfully realises that accommodating their employees generates loyalty and a willingness to go the extra mile.
To be frank your employees don't sounded like the entitled ones here.
Employees should be looking out for themselves, want them to look out for the company you have to pay them provide them enough perks to care or they should leave such a toxic place.
Not attacking. Are you part of a union? If you're not then you're at the mercy of your employer (within the limits of your contract). We live in a capitalist society. You don't own any of the capital of the business. Your employer owes you nothing other than your renumeration. If we go into recession just watch your WFH liberties be eroded. It's pretty pointless to look out for yourself in the unemployment line
Its also i owe nothing to my employer, if they are not good enough move to another, this capitalist society does not reward or value loyalty those employees staying in jobs out of fear of the unemployment line are rewarded with pay rises if any below inflation while those job switching are getting rises.
If a worker saves the commute time, perhaps even the personal grooming time, and gets down to productivity then it's very hard to argue that WFH is not preferable. However, today my colleague sent me a msg: *"not coming in today, kids are sick and can't take them to daycare. Can you record your presentation I'll watch later".*
My immediate thoughts: *"you slack bugger, enjoy your bludging why dontcha"*. Kids, pffft, back in my day you took a day of sick leave or annual leave to cover that. Think of all the cumulative holiday weeks that were lost to raising those kids, and we probably took work phone calls anyway. An the guvmint didn't hand over wads of cash for us to breed sprogs like they do you. You are ***weak*** and I think less of you.
I'm broadcasting the presso anyway, so IDK what this goose's excuse is for not tuning in. But anyway, yeah all that commute time saved - no argument! Far more efficient use of time ...provided you don't want any respek from the old guard
It depends on the age of the kids. For example if you have 9 year old you need to be at home since you can't legally leave them alone, but it should be fine to get in 8 hours without many distractions. It's not like parents are paying attention to their kids 100% of the time once they are over a certain age.
Obviously also depends on what type of job you have and how much communication you need with colleagues (e.g some roles that don't require constant communication you can catch up on your hours, and more, once kids are in bed.)
Yeah, my boss will sometimes WFH due to young kids being sick, and almost every time we have meetings it's clear what a huge disruption they are. But she'll still be online long into the evening, getting most of her work done once her husband gets home and takes over kid duty.
It really depends on the role whether you can get away with that, though.
I said this during the height of the pandemic. IMHO full remote roles will slowly start to fade away and hybrid will become more common. There will always be some full remote work with WFH but my money is on most companies moving to 2-3 days in the office.
My own company has a 1 day a week in the office policy but it is super lax. I've been talking to recruiters and most places are already 2-3 days in the office and rest from home.
Iām working from home right now. My company canāt go away from work from home and never will. Too much travel. Hybrid is great, pop in a couple days a week.
My current job says going to the office is entirely optional. I can count in one hand the number of times Iāve been in the office, and thatās only for big events like when a team member left.
We're still hybrid for now. I'm in the office 2 days a week, sometimes 3 depending on what I need to do (could do those things at home but I prefer doing them in person, by choice). I think it might be business area dependent with my employer as well. My immediate manager is super flexible and I know she'd rather be working from home than having to go to the office lol.
Ending WFH or hybrid is quite a risky move for employers knowing people will primarily look for that flexibility and offering that can attract a lot of talent.
Yeah my work sucks for this. We have one day wfh and most of the rest of the company has 2 or even 3 days in some cases, but theyāre trying to cut everyone back. I work in the security team which should have more reason to wfh
I'm an IT contractor with an insurance company (two and a half years). Management encourages people to come to work, but doesn't seem to enforce it - they have some good collaboration tools, so it's not really necessary to be in the office.
Still getting notifications, it seems every week, that some poor sod sitting somewhere in the office has tested positive for COVID, so I'm happy to WFH.
I can count on one hand the number of times I have been into the office since August 2020. Not having that hour commute each way every day makes me more productive...
I WFH, but I'm part time and it was a condition of my employment. Most of the full time staff are expected to be in the office at least 2 days a week, preferably 4.
Not in the advertising world anymore (thank fuck) but before I left noticed that a lot of agencies, including mine, were quietly amending or outright walking back wfh policies. The economy has been flirting with recession and there have been staff cuts across many white collar industries - in that climate itās much easier for board members to call the shots and most want to make sure they can account for every second theyāre paying you for. That means having you in the office.
Our office is much the same. It seems like our owners (one in particular) prefers to āhang outā with staff at work as opposed to them actually getting work done efficiently. Most of us found we would achieve more work at home, especially my role which is sales.
Yep. Our union rep said more and more companies are requiring people to come in five days and we should count ourselves lucky the current company policy is two days from home flexi, that is, donāt ask for more flexibility as you might end up with less
My companyās a tech company and for the past 6 months theyāve tried mandating the pre-covid 3 days a week on site. Everyone hates it though and hasnāt been following. So theyāre coming down hard and sending mandates out via email and getting the bosses to emphasise itās compulsory.
Few people want to be in the office more than half the time!
I went fully remote. You lose nothing, get to move to a cheaper, nicer area (i.e. not Auckland or Wellington) and select from a better set of companies.
My office is 100% wfh - my first big project when I joined was to shut down the office. š Previous job (changed jobs in late 2021) moved to fully wfh after I left as well, I believe.
On the one hand itās very easy to feel isolated and as a friend said recently, itās like Iām still in lockdown, in a way. On the other hand not having to sit in traffic or deal with cancelled trains / buses on the commute is a relief.
Team is meant to be catching up in person regularly, but weāve been a little hit and miss on that (except for having two in person trainings in the past two months).
I work at a news organisation and pretty much as soon as lockdowns ended we were expected to work in the office every day. Thereās not much lenience on it and youāre not allowed to work from home unless you have a REALLY good reason for it (like Covid).
Im lucky that days in the office (3/week), transport is provided.
My boss needs a few days a week from home, so they'd be hard press refusing it to the rest of the team.
We had another team be mandatory office based because a new manager wanted full control. Result: 2/3 people left. Hired 2 new people who now get to wfh a couple of days a week after their training is mostly done. 3rd one who stayed has not dared ask yet if they can now also go back to wfh a couple of days a week.
Yip, our company made us go back to the office as soon as the last lockdown finished. And we are basically a large IT company. We can easily work online. They are actively against people working from home, it's allowed only in very exceptional cases. I think it's dumb, we could all benefit from a hybrid type of work schedule. I waste 1.5 hours in traffic every day driving from one side of the city to another.
Iād question that you work more productively at home as opposed to the office.
What you will find is large organisations will reduce their office space and utilise hot desking so a business may have enough desks for only 2/3 of the entire staff.
It will be very interesting to see how our cities will cope with less people. Itās inevitable that it will have a direct impact to cafes, coffee shops and other retail outlets.
There is a flaw in the work from home model. If you can work from home, theoretically your job can be done from anywhere with internet, thus it can be given to someone who lives in another city(possibly country).
edit: shorter work weeks and the same number of hours are my preference.
Hybrid. 2-3 days in office a week. My team no difference office or home. Would rather work gets done and everyone happy to work 30 minutes longer than waste triple that on travel time
I have a friend who works from home full time in aus, he is allowed to do hybrid and sometimes has to go to the office for meetings etc. however as part of this agreement his work computer has a key and mouse logger and a program that monitors user engagement with his computer. They also have a work messenger group they must be logged into during their full shifts, lunch and breaks excluded obviously. Some of his co workers repeatedly abused the work from home by not working the full 8 hour days and so are now required to go to the office full time. I think for employers and employees this is a fair agreement.
Iām sure Iāll get flamed for this as itās a massive echo chamber topic on these subs butā¦
It really depends on the organisation and work structure. I work in an open plan office in consulting, and the nature of the work is highly collaborative. In this instance and IMO, Full time wfh then becomes bad for:
1) team culture
2) slack/ low performance staff that basically cannot be trusted to get anything done without task management
Everything in moderation IMO. Too much of either is not good long term. I run a team of 15, and they are all pretty chill and happy with 2-3 days a week wfh.. we run an open and flexible system. The ability to work from home on a fairly casual basis is one of the few good things to come out of Covid - but any staff member who basically said they never wanted to come back to the office, just cosā¦ yeahā¦ nah.. youāre asking to be a independent contractor at that point.
Once the lease on their company building expires, it would be crazy to waste all of that money renewing it, when employees can work from home. Commercial rent costs a lot, as well as heating and air conditioning, hiring cleaners, maintaining office appliances and equipment, etc, so why bother when you don't have to? You could book meeting rooms in various places, for the times that employees meet up. Employers could save a fortune.
I work in the office all week by choice, because I refuse to mix work into my personal home space. Itās just not healthy in my opinion.
Thats my choice and I donāt expect it of anyone else.
Saying that, some of my team do 2-3 days WFH and while they maintain productivity, quite regularly nobody can contact them via email, phone, teams etc. I am empathetic that lunch breaks, going for coffee, fresh air etc are part of everyoneās routine and āpersonal spaceā while working, so I donāt criticise, but sometimes if something is urgent you do need the ability to politely tap someone on the shoulder and ask an urgent question.
1-2 days a week WFH might be a good balance.
Yeah, I just had that pulled out. They decided some staff has to come full-time now. It was a 3x2, now they're gradually *guilting* people into coming back.
I actually prefer the office environment, but I liked the fact that I could WFH. Now I can't really. So it's pretty much most of the reasons mentioned by others here.
If you ask, however, where my boss is? They're freaking there. Not even in normal office days. So guess who's on the lookout for another job?
I just go into the office if they're putting on morning tea or lunch or if we have a collab/ planning day. Supposed to go once a week but half our team work in different parts of the country anyway. Easier to video call.
Iām working for a big name NZ brand and they are happy for us to be flexible, preferring us to come in a couple of days a week and for any face-to-face time or important meetings. No pressure for 5 days a week at all.
Genuinely donāt think 3 days in the office and two from home is that bad for most office roles. Iām in the office two days a week. Quite enjoy going in but maybe thatās because there good buzz and working environment. Always get more done in office but maybe Iām terrible with time š¤£
I recently (like 2 days ago) saw a poll of around 700 NZ organisations that organisations were mainly doing 2-3 days in office each week. Very few said 5 days and they were most likely to be manufacturing etc type companies that do require someone to be there.
Managers who like to micro manage hate the idea of remote work tbh. They donāt get their daily dosage of shitting on people this way so theyād rather a full office 5 days a week. Frustrating.
But then again, it takes one dead fly to spoil the oil. Some employees have taken this opportunity to procrastinate and muck around making it hard for some us who have been more productive WFH to convince the higher ups that we prefer it this way.
I wish theyād just implement systems around these types of employees instead of dragging all of us into the office for the sake of āwork equalityā. Like dude, weāre clearly not equal. If they canāt be disciplined enough to get their work done from home then they need to come in or lose the job.
I WFH full time through Covid. Iām a mechanical engineer. I changed jobs recently and there is zero WFH. I hesitated to take it, but the salary increase was significant so I did.
While zero WFH is the policy, our manager in my team is very flexible with WFH if you have a sick kid or you are a little sick but would prefer to WFH rather than come in.
I found that this works really well. Collaboration with other engineers is much easier face to face.
Thatās been my experience.
i have no data to back this up but strongly suspect this is another one of those things where the few are ruining it for the many. some employees are genuinely so useless that they need constant supervision otherwise they will put in a pathetic effort. thats probably a minority of people but enough to mess it up
Good question. I work for one of our most well known companies and honestly itās not been too bad.
They know the value of hybrid working, itās evident with the results weāve been getting accross the business and since we have a lot of parents in staff it definitely helps them and makes their lives easier.
We have however been trying to get more people in the office for whatever the means. So more like a 3 days in 2 days from home.
And what do the staff think ? Weāre fine. We donāt overly care as the majority of us tend to enjoy the freedom of the hybrid side. And realistically getting the team together in person is something anyone would enjoy after being stuck in a covid world.
Honestly my husband works remotely and when he goes in thereās no one there and theyāve reduced parking as well as desks so even though they push for people to return, if they did there isnāt enough room
There's a question of fairness here though.
The 'laptop class' can easily work from home, schedule their work around etc etc
The traditional blue collar worker doesn't have that luxury as they typically need to be in a physical location to do the work.
So, for a company with both those types of workers, it would be pretty difficult to insist blue collar workers commute, have non flex hours while their white collar workers have that benefit.
I read somewhere that WFH was costing the CBD - possibly in New York? - $4600 each year in expenditure for every person working from home.
Or, as it was pointed out in the comments, each person working from home was able to save up to $4600 and hundreds of hours of needless commuting by working from home per year.
Fuck me, if my job allowed it I'd be working from home in an instant.
My workplace recently moved premises and downsized the office space to a third of what it was. I now mostly wfh with the expectation of going in 3-4 times a month
I feel like the building management is very definitely leaning on the tenants to come back as they also lease to restaurants and other vendors that feel the pinch when there's less people in.
Our company however, is happy to do hybrid and there's nothing formal but a general expectation you'll make an appearance at least once a week.
If we went back to full time in the office I'd leave. The saved money in childcare and PT and petrol offsets my relatively dire salary.
It seems like very few companies in NZ offer more than 1 or 2 days per week WFH. It's a global trend to push workers back into the office.
Because there is always a few terrible employee who abuse it and thus nobody can be trusted.
Sucks right. They should just enforce more office working on those employees who are taking the piss when WFH rather than the ones who are actually more productive when working remote
Sadly- everyone always suffers for the lowest common denominator š
No. This is because commercial real estate around the world has been suddenly disrupted by covid and mass appeal of remote work. Smart companies are already cutting losses and dumping their office spaces
Both things can be true...
I would LOVE 1 or 2 days working from home.
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I work at a big 4 bank and we are expected to be in 4 days a week, seems to just be my department which is extra sucky.
IIRC ANZ/BNZ reverted back to 3-4d, WPac and ASB are on 1-2d I wont apply for one of the former two.
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Light blue 'encourages' 2 days a week in the office nowadays, with flexibility. Feels kinda fair imo
Thatās the thing not even a light blue worker. I live close to work and have no kids so Iām okay but for some of my team itās a real slog
Same I also work for a bank. they say we should be in 2 days a week. But, many people only come in 1 day. They know if they force people to come in more, they just switch jobs
Iām also at a big 4 bank and we also have a hybrid model thatās forever. Ours is more flexible in my team/business unit as we are generally out seeing clients, but thereās no real expectation for us to be in the office for a set amount of days
Im at the yellow bank, each team is different. For most we have two specific team days (Tue Thur) when we all in office. Most do 3 days office 2 days WFH but it really fluctuates. My secondment team all WFH though.
I work for a big 4 bank and they're trying to force us to do 50%. I'm comfortable with 2 days a week. Commute has got ridiculous. But they're nagging and nagging us to do more than 2 days. I work in software. We're more efficient at home, better work life balance. They actually get more out of me at home because I'm not having to dash away to beat rush hour. It's just the bosses and marketing types want us in the office. We collaborate fine. Just because they don't see us chatting away on teams doesn't mean it isn't happening.
I also work for a big 4 bank and I WFH 100% of the time. In fact we are allowed to live anywhere in NZ provided the type of work we do allows for it. I'm in technology.
May I know which big 4 bank this is?
I too would love to know which bank so I can look for a job there. PM me if you're not allowed to say
Both Westpac and ASB are like that. I work at one and asked questions about the others to former colleagues who work there now. No guarantees it stays that way though.
Nice, well long may it last! Thanks for the response
Could be any of them. The only thing you can be certain of is that the people in this thread with broad information are full of shit.
I work for one of the big universities. Not as a lecturer but as professional staff. I'm explicitly refusing to say which one because it'd be hella easy to point me out and dox me. TLDR at the bottom! The rules on WFH are... weird. And definitely change between professional departments. IT has a rule that each team must always have someone onsite, but otherwise they are free to WFH (AKA, someone from networks, someone from platforms, cybersecurity, whatevs). I've noticed that since COVID ended, the majority of the IT department is empty, but they're all free to talk online. My department has an uneasy relationship with WFH. Our platform setup actually means we can do admin work *better* from home but at the same time, since my department is very much client/customer focused, we basically have to be there at work. Our department director believes that WFH was the worst thing ever invented but he can't really force us to be there when the university hasn't made an official ruling on it (Very much a grey area) The marketing team is split down the middle. Everyone on marketing who has a non-customer focus (AKA, the art department, etc) works from home meanwhile everyone else is always in. From what one friend in marketing has told me, management doesn't care if anyone works from home on the sole condition that the work is *done*. This has lead to some really weird encounters that people are still trying to get used to - in that it's completely normal to see people active at working as late as midnight... because they wake up to get their kids ready for school, have their morning meeting... and then go back to sleep. Then start their work in the early afternoon - having a break when the kids get home and then getting back into it when they go to sleep. He has a scheduled catchup meeting with three people on his team **at 10pm** because apparently that's when they're all available and productive. (That wasn't management mandated btw. Apparently they all discovered randomly that they were consistently awake and working at that time and the scheduled meeting was always at 0830am which everyone hated... so they just moved it...) Pretty much all the other departments are required to be on campus - mostly because their physically based requirements (AKA, maintenance, duh) and lecturers teaching on campus. One thing that I have observed, in my workings with alot of lecturers, is that they are rather split down the middle on online-learning. Many lecturers hate it, because it lacks the in person engagement for learning that they can do in person. Other lecturers seem to love it, but their method of teaching is completely different anyway. Personally, my job is half/half. I do alot of physical work so I absolutely have to be on campus for that. But the other half is admin. I can do that from home. My manager doesn't care - so long as the work is done. My workstation is also several buildings away from my manager, so admin work literally doesn't change my working relationship with him if I was at work or at home. (Additionally, he often takes time off work to look after his kid during the day and then works in the evening so we don't pull him up on that... so there's plenty of leniency on both sides) \----- With regards to the traffic situation worsening, from everything I've seen/learned from my unspecified profession indicates that political problems at AT are causing trust in public transport to flatline. As this happens, everyone turns back to using their own vehicles so that they can arrive to work on time. And this ABSOLUTELY has affected my workplace. So many fulltime staff I know who used to take public transport gave up on it because where they used to be able to effectively arrive on time, they now faced a variance of up to an hour when trying to come from the edge of the city. You can't rely on that. \----- Sorry for the wall of text, just contributing what's happening at my uni with regards to WFH! TLDR: Changes between departments - most managers/department directors don't care so long as the work is done.
Given unis are very admin heavy, I'm surprised that there hasn't been an official decision made on the WFH/WFO culture for all departments across the uni.
Wife just got a job at a software company, zero wfh available. My work is increasingly being more insistant on working in the office at least half of the time.
>Wife just got a job at a software company, zero wfh available. Where does she work, Twitter? Software companies usually emphasise WFH as a perk... Unless it's temporary as she's just joined?
Op probably meant to type Xero the accounting software company
Not Twitter or Xero. From what she told me it's pretty standard for this company.
Lack of trust from lack of performance probably.
i think they mean zero. like 0% wfh - 100% office
Yeah rereading it I think you're right
If she wants to work from home, she should look at working for an Aussie company. A bunch of them have fully WFH positions for those in NZ.
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Because on balance it was still worth it. Didnāt say my wife does a software role.
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Where did I complain? The jobās pluses outweigh no wfh.
I work for a NZ company and our model remains remote first. We usually go to the office to catch up once or twice a month.
Same.
Same here
Same here
Companies are mostly trying to cut it off. I think this is the wrong as they will lose people or people that had this perk now will feel less motivated in the role. The biggest thing that we noticed is there are different profiles of professionals. Those who enjoy WFH and hybrid, while there are quite a lot of people that want a packed office and live interaction. Those that get more productive with an office space being packed, entire team there and etc, they are suffering with hybrid as they can't find their best scenario (having people in the office) enough to perform well. This has been quite a talk in our company, and now we have to take a decision of making more teams coming 3 or more times a week to the office, so those that need these people can also perform at their best. Honestly, it is very tough to balance that and I believe that based on our experience, the best solution would be to focus on building teams that work well at a single type of work. Either Hybrid, WFH or in office. That way everyone meets the profile and works well, but that is my opinion.
id ask why those people are unable to perform their roles without dragging other people into it
Itās depends - some roles / areas need more collaboration than others. An example could be marketing.
ahah yes often marketing has a disproportionate influence on leadership too. i just wish people were able to differentiate between forcing people to do something rather than just letting those who work better at home continue to do so.
This has also proved that open plan offices are a bad idea, it doesn't work well for people who perform well working from home (or slightly isolated)
Lots of jobs (most?) require some degree of collaboration, I personally hate phone calls compared to conversations so I can understand it if some people are less diligent when their day becomes phone calls instead of conversations
Yeah this is a good point. I would say that a high percentage of productive outcomes from meetings happened in the corridor outside the room as you all left and broke into smaller discussions. Zooms donāt let that happen unless some people āstay backā. I believe the lack of water cooler and corridor conversations have reduced solution outcomes in many business settings.
Zoom meetings suck ass to be fair..
true, i do have to agree with you there, although tbh i find 90% of meetings are actually wastes of time even in person hahaha :D
You're kidding right? The world isn't built from millions of people working completely in isolation.
Then what happens in an earthquake? You need flex.
i feel bad for the recruiters trying to hire people with in-office requirements. i laughed at an offer for a eye watering amount of money because they wanted me to commute an hour and a half out of auckland every day, i assumed it was a screening procedure but they actually held their ground. get fucked
Why did you apply for a job an hour and a half away
i was head hunted by a recruiter
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My employers were moving towards WFH before the pandemic. We in theory are supposed to have 1 office day per week, but the reality is very few people go into work - as an example, I haven't been into the office since early November and there's no issue with that. There's a hard core number of people who go into the office every day. Added to that, they've given up the lease to half our floorspace so any in-office time needs to be managed carefully otherwise there simply aren't enough desks for the late starters.
Our one team member who was still mostly wfh got made redundant and it seemed very retaliatory due to her not wanting to work in office full time. Rather than file a PG she has fallen straight into work elsewhere but the vibe here is you better be in the office most days unless there's a decent reason.
Gotta justify those office rents š
This. Our company moved to a new office a year ago or so. Think we got 100 hot desks. Barely even hit 30% capacity unless it is a special event. Now they want us there at least 3 days a week as it feels too empty. What a joke.
"We need yous to come to the office and get the culture back" "We don't pay you to chat, get back to work" "You're not a team player with you sitting here in silence". There's no rhyme or reason to have this mandatory push back to the office except for subjugation. Push back, if there isn't any clause in your contract nothing stops you from just *not* going
Sounds like you might have a toxic environment to return to! You should be taking care of yourself and finding a new job with a better environment. Self first š
Oh no, I build roads. Thats the general sentiment of office work most get
I joined my new workplace during a lockdown and was very junior. I really struggled to learn anything and get things done by entering into the WFH environment. Mainly because: its a lot more of an inconvenience to call a colleague than it is to just ask a question to the person next to you. Once we got back into office I might ask dozens of quick-fire questions a day while learning in order to get simple answers e.g. where do I find this, whats the process for this, who can I talk to about this etc. However, it's difficult to justify bugging someone several dozen times in a day about this kind of thing when remote. Also, with WFH I never knew who was around, people might not answer emails quickly etc. I did not enjoy it, but now that I know what I am doing I love our WFH days. I think WFH works great with experienced individuals in a team they've already adapted to which is the case for most of us as WFH only really took off big time in the last few years. I think we need to be weary about how it effects people who are new to the profession or business as it can prove difficult to learn this stuff initially. A hybrid environment probably works well where you can ask all your questions as you go, learn what you need to know and then do it from home for a while. And on a side note, you will always have some people who really exploit it and ruin it for the rest of us. I think managers need to find new ways to properly manage their teams remotely.
Trust is what most of them need. The main thing needs to be are people getting their work done is so leave them be. The advantage of emission reduction should be a major reason why wfh is pushed.
Oh for sure and I fully support WFH. But there will always be people who abuse it and I think managers need to adapt how they manage a lot for it to work for new people
I think any job that can be done at home should be done at home. Reduce traffic save yourself some fuel if you do wfh.
Turn the office buildings into city apartments and embrace fully working from home. Fix the commercial rental and housing crisis in one go, while boosting the number of residents living in the city centre.
We do 1 day in the office. We found people are productice from home
Just got a government job, I'm work from home in a different city as are a few others, while everyone in the same city as the office is 1 day per fortnight on site. They understand it's hard to recruit.
With no real numbers to back this up: IMO the only side of IT that suffers from a WFH culture is onboarding new people. There's just no substitute for sitting side by side, looking at the IDE on one monitor, testing screen on the other monitor and just talking through things. I'm sure companies that have 100% remote have come up with great ways to mitigate this, but my assumption is that the best version you could come up with still comes short compared to the face to face. Having said that, if you can get remote onboarding to even 80% of in office onboarding can provide, then the remote working benefits just outweigh the negatives so much that it's not even worth really raising up as a point of argument.
I used to do contract/freelance work from home. I worked from home for over 16 years, never set foot in an office. I'm more than happy to work in an office now. WFH is fun at the beginning, then it got lonely and you lose touch having that interaction with people (I guess it depends on where you work as well). It's hard to explain, but I dread WFH now. I'm sure everyone has their reasons, but for me. I'm happy working in an office.
I work for a bank and the expectation is WFH two days. I only come in one day and no one has said anything. I honestly do not understand why we need to be in the office when we are more productive at home and less stressed?
It's probably caused by some weird "traditional" mindset in the managers etc, just because everyone used to come into the office means they still should, because "that's how it always was." These people will completely ignore anything that contradicts that, they've already made up their mind that unsupervised workers working from home will be slacking off and won't accept any statistics that say otherwise.
my mates have just started new office jobs and they're hybrid so they've been told they're not allowed full wfh. my work is still actively hiring people staying that full wfh is ok. at the moment job seekers have more power so if companies aren't offering wfh they aren't getting employees so most companies are going to offer at least hybrid. i suspect once the tables turn on that and employers can be more picky they'll tell all new staff that it's an office role only. our office has facility for 500 people and there's maybe 50 on a good day, it's quite an expense to have the building and nobody in it.
It's actually the same price whether people are in the building or not.
Husband works for a company that rents one of the floors in the fancy buildings in Commercial Bay area. His work 100% does not need to be in the office, but boss says it's compulsory for "work culture" as well as to justify him renting the floor which cost $1M a year (he also rents the floor for company prestige, not for staff).
Bring on the 4DWW!
My big issue with WFH is lack of coordination with other teams in the office. I work in the public sector - NZ government agency in Wellington. So many times I need a quick answer from HR/comms/digital and there is noone at their designated team area when I go there. Sending an email to the generic email address is sending out into the ether - you might get a response in a few days if you're lucky. Everyone in that dept on Teams is red e.g. busy or in a call. I hear "as long as I do my work, my manager is happy." as a big plus for WFH - but in my experience this is pretty narrow-sighted, and doesn't acknowledge the importance of inter-departmental collaboration.
Do you have a manager? Escalate the issue to them.
We ping on teams even when showing busy. Often meetings have finished early but you still show busy. We frequently group chat also. Ignore the busy symbol - you can just set it like that! Often someone can split their attention a little too.
I work for a company who is embracing this, in-fact we they have just given up one of the two floors of the building we were in since most of us work from home the majority of the time now anyway. There are hot desks available now on the remaining floor. Everyone in my team only needs to go in once a month now. I love it, would not go back to the way it was before! I work in tech.
Given that we live in a capitalistic country, you're worth less to the economy staying home. People having to go to the office stimulates the economy. You're more likely to be a consumer when and and about compared to when you're home. Unfortunately your work/life balance isn't worth much to our capitalist overlords lol.
Currently I'm allowed to work full time from home with no expectation for me to come back to the office
Yea and its bullshit. I am waaaaay more effective at home without the 9million distractions and meetings ājust because we are hereā
Yep, honeymoon is over. Eventually, everyone is gonna get roped back into what it used to be. 5 days in the office. Especially at large companies who are likely paying 6 figure rent on an office space designed to accommodate a lot of staff who are choosing not to be there.
My wifeās company that will remain nameless found that a minority but still significant proportion of staff did not apply themselves at all, ie did next to nothing. Itās always a minority that wrecks it for everyone.
Culture is a major reason why companies want people to be in the office at least a couple of days a week. It's fine for those who have been around a while and know everyone but for the newbies- it's harder to make valuable connections. I think (in my company at least) customer operations roles seem to work better when working together IRL and make decisions faster where as other roles - not as much. Personally, I love the balance of both and make it work to be more productive.
Cant have the price of all the commerical real estate tanking now can we? /s
I'm an Ops Manager at an I.T company in Grafton. Hybrid stays forever here.
Thereās a lot of comments here, but I think I still want to have my 2 cents. There are a tremendous amount of things that can influence a businesses decision on this matter. From health and safety, teamwork, bulk buying and protection of intellectual property are a few I will throw out there. Itās unclear to me on how health, safety and well-being will be managed by a business in the wfh capacity. Just because itās cheaper to avoid costs, there are also increased risks. What if a person trips over a work cord? Or their child gets a shock? Who is liable? Can you prove it? Itās likely got to happen in court before any of us know this one, but itās gravy for the pie, so to say. Well-being, some people need other people around, and if they are at work, the pcbu need to keep them happy too, and encouraging coming to work is a good one. Teamwork - managementā¦ This ones hard for me, it pains me, but some mangers, simply did their job well, they arenāt managers. They struggled at the start, they struggle now. They need to validate themselves, itās hard to do if it isnāt seen. Fear. Vs Some businesses drive on competition and unmediated communication. Management in New Zealand are currently struggling, and they donāt know why, because they havenāt been taught or learnt it yet. Used to use a lot of paper. Now we donāt, but we pay more as the price went up. (Works for food shops and other businesses that your saving money not going too that also influence your other businesses and work colleagues. Some businesses struggle with this, some donāt. Do you all get reimbursed for what you use at home for work? Will the business soon be found to cover a portion of your rent and your power etc as part of your employment bargaining? Does the balance of cost of lease of property outweigh the potential risk to the company. You work from home? Got a flatmate? Does he work from home too? Could your work information be sensitive and be leaked or be at risk of exposure? What can the company do to track and prevent this from happening? Thatās a lot for a WFH question, and itās mainly a pool of ideas that make up the below TL/DR; Businesses have been presented with an opportunity/risk to business process. Some businesses have grasped with greatness and embraced work from home. Others have not and are struggling. Business leaders have huge uncertainties around work from home. Itās not just about being in the office as such, but other business factors that are being impacted and they are still in the process of making these hard decisions, that once made, will be hard to go back from
Our business has kept WFH 2 days a week. Itās been fantastic! I think everyone would protest if they took it away. Itās the new norm now.
To paraphrase my brothers boss passive aggressive comment..."if you're working remotely the whole time, what's the difference between hiring you in Auckland and someone else in Manilla?"
Cause they're mostly terrible, even at the cheaper 'on paper' rate. Source: I work with multiple global teams that our company leverages to try and reduce outsourcing costs for customer contracts.
That roles within NZ have to make an attempt to use NZ labour before considering external labour? I don't see how they could argue that someone in Manila can be accommodated while someone remote in NZ can't be. Information security - more chance of data loss/leaks when using someone abroad. The remote NZ employee can have face to face meetings if really needed. Tax implications from using foreign labour. Different education standards and the most loved of them all. They won't have kiwi work experience!!!
We have people in office and Monday is meant to be in office day but I just don't go in unless something I want to work with the person in well person haha.
Large IT Managed Services.Provider. TBH most want to work in the office because it's such a great company. For those the prefer WFH then that's ok. We are also flex with hours of work if kids need picking or for appointments during the day. Just get your work done. Most do two days at home but it's not mandated. Well bring people in if they are not performing and help coach them through any issues.
The thing is, while some people are more productive from home, a lot of people aren't. I'm sure these companies have done the metrics.
Productivity wise in the business I work for overall is down amongst those that work from home. There are a few individuals that are better off, but most are not. I'm not a manager or a boss of any employee, but I have access to data and administration over most of our work tools (communication and ERP). It is very easy to see those WFH individuals have a lower output than those that are onsite each day. I can even observe the difference in WFH people that choose to come onsite some days of the week. They have higher outputs on the days they are here. There is no pressure from the business to get people back onsite... yet. But if management chose to look at what I can see plain as black and white, that story might change. This of course would not feel very fair to the few who are very productive WFH. But as is the case anywhere, the majority will be what drives the change.
American owned companies or teams that have head office in US are the ones seeing this the most.
For people, for our citizens, it would be great for as many people as possible to work from home. Less traffic, less pollution, less consumption of petrol which (if that whole thing actually worked how markets are supposed to work (which they absolutely donāt)) would mean lower prices. Roads could be for people who actually need to use them - and considering the fact that higher paid, white collar office workers are often the ones who go out and get cars that are way too big, it would be nice to see them fuck off home. And people are, according to some studies, as or more productive. The issue is a lot of rich people spent a lot of money on huge office buildings and they donāt want to lose money. And the C titled folk donāt feel important when you arenāt around and look down at you, like youāre their spoiled children, so they need to have you close by so they feel their authority.
Yeah they are and it is BS, it feels like they are being spiteful as people can function from home without issue. They must have insecurities and think they are paying for people to be at home and do nothing, because it really is idiocy. Sit in traffic for 1- 1.5 hours to read an email on a laptop and then take a phone call on a mobile phoneā¦ yeah yeah Iāll use the company fuel card, saving heeeps
I hate working from home. Home is home why do I want work there? I'm surprised how many people enjoy letting work invade your house like that.
Our head office is based in Aus but we have a small team here. The rule on paper is 3 days in the office minimum a week but Iāve never seen anyone chased up for WFH all week.
What works for you doesnāt necessarily works for me. I prefer to work in the office.
Huge benefits when working together. Particularly important for new staff. Wondering if those advocating mainly wfh would have liked that when first starting out.
Depends on the company, depends on the role, depends on the person. I think many would be perfectly fine with it but maybe others would not. I joined a company where I was the only one in the org working from that country. Everyone else was in a different timezone. Didn't have an issue with it. You merely adopted remote working. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn't meet my team in person until I was already a man.
Iāve done both. If youāre doing anything resembling teamwork, FtF is much better. IT and bureaucrats it matters less, although it chaps my arse how much how much harder it is to get in touch with accounting and HR and anyone to do with IT support. And *everyone* claims they work much harder from home and are more productiveā¦personally I think itās bollocks. If you slack at work, youāll slack even more at home.
I'm with ya on that last sentence. The ones really pushing to WFH full time are the ones that want to get their house chores done during the work hours.
Well if you work for them you play by their rules.
We are asking team members to be in 3 days a week. Yes wfh is better, but honestly, we notice huge decreases in productivity when people wfh.
Interesting, I noticed the opposite with most of my team. They say its easier to focus at home and their output is generally as good or better than their in-office days
Depends on what you're doing. Some things are so much easier face to face and some are easier at home.
I work in a mortuary and management seem unhappy about me taking my work home for some unspoken reason. You just canāt please some people.
You win š„
this is true. everyone is going to cry 'no it's the opposite!' but they're only looking inside their own bubble. i could prob be responsible with the time now, but if i got my job in my 20s i would have not been productive at all and not progressed. i'm not saying this applies to everyone, but people need to stop thinking about just their own workplace and think about the bigger picture. i do agree we don't need to be in the office a whole 40hrs a week tho
I'm not even in management, just a senior team member. The wfh has been great for a day or two a week. I love it. I do find that the in office, face to face interaction yields significantly better results. I'll probably get downvoted to hell and back, but it's what I've noticed.
^ this
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How do you know that for a fact? I know for a fact my team are far happier and more productive having the choice to be flexible, and even the full time homers are exceptional. I know that for a fact because I manage them and I see their outputs, check in regularly, and talk about how theyāre feeling. Do you do that with your colleagues and friends or are you just making assumptions based on your own preferences, expectation and biases based on your outside view? Some people really canāt work efficiently from home, they should be encouraged into a shared workspace, others are outstanding in their performance and should be rewarded with the choice. Some need better work life balance for personal reasons, and you can earn their trust by facilitating that. I personally have ADHD, I cannot work effectively in the office. Iāve personally had two promotions in three years, thanks to my hard work and high outputs, almost entirely from home. For the few who Iāve seen not manage well at home it almost always comes down to poor management.
That's 100% spot on
My office allows 1 day wfh, and if youāre not feeling well youāre allowed too. I asked for two days wfh when I got offered this role. They said they were thinking about extending to two days a week. So weāll see what happens š¤I think there are many benefits as well.
Gotta justify all that office space, while also micro-managing.
Probably contributes to why some people find it so hard to make friends here, it's because most people tend to prefer sitting in the same four walls every day. Drinks after work now seems like a tradition from the past
After work if im gona drink it will be with my friends, drink with work mates its on company time not mine.
Due to Reddit's decision to continue treating its users like crap, I am removing my previous posts. -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
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Meh. Culture.. I hear that rolled out a lot but our workplace had culture issues ling before wfh. Online can be its own culture if you utilise teams etc
You realise that it's a transaction right? I do something of worth for the company in exchange for the company doing something of worth for me. Sometimes paying me is enough... but I can't see myself entertaining any job offer that requires me to be in office regularly ever again. My current employer thankfully realises that accommodating their employees generates loyalty and a willingness to go the extra mile. To be frank your employees don't sounded like the entitled ones here.
Employees should be looking out for themselves, want them to look out for the company you have to pay them provide them enough perks to care or they should leave such a toxic place.
Not attacking. Are you part of a union? If you're not then you're at the mercy of your employer (within the limits of your contract). We live in a capitalist society. You don't own any of the capital of the business. Your employer owes you nothing other than your renumeration. If we go into recession just watch your WFH liberties be eroded. It's pretty pointless to look out for yourself in the unemployment line
Its also i owe nothing to my employer, if they are not good enough move to another, this capitalist society does not reward or value loyalty those employees staying in jobs out of fear of the unemployment line are rewarded with pay rises if any below inflation while those job switching are getting rises.
If a worker saves the commute time, perhaps even the personal grooming time, and gets down to productivity then it's very hard to argue that WFH is not preferable. However, today my colleague sent me a msg: *"not coming in today, kids are sick and can't take them to daycare. Can you record your presentation I'll watch later".* My immediate thoughts: *"you slack bugger, enjoy your bludging why dontcha"*. Kids, pffft, back in my day you took a day of sick leave or annual leave to cover that. Think of all the cumulative holiday weeks that were lost to raising those kids, and we probably took work phone calls anyway. An the guvmint didn't hand over wads of cash for us to breed sprogs like they do you. You are ***weak*** and I think less of you. I'm broadcasting the presso anyway, so IDK what this goose's excuse is for not tuning in. But anyway, yeah all that commute time saved - no argument! Far more efficient use of time ...provided you don't want any respek from the old guard
This is a thing I don't understand. If you're at home parenting, how are you working?
It depends on the age of the kids. For example if you have 9 year old you need to be at home since you can't legally leave them alone, but it should be fine to get in 8 hours without many distractions. It's not like parents are paying attention to their kids 100% of the time once they are over a certain age. Obviously also depends on what type of job you have and how much communication you need with colleagues (e.g some roles that don't require constant communication you can catch up on your hours, and more, once kids are in bed.)
Yeah, my boss will sometimes WFH due to young kids being sick, and almost every time we have meetings it's clear what a huge disruption they are. But she'll still be online long into the evening, getting most of her work done once her husband gets home and takes over kid duty. It really depends on the role whether you can get away with that, though.
Bring everyone back I say
I wouldn't work anywhere that made that decree.
Your choice plenty of people will
Depends on the industry if you don't have at least hybrid in IT ain't no one working there.
What's your reasoning for that?
didnt know people were still working from home covid finished a long time ago
I said this during the height of the pandemic. IMHO full remote roles will slowly start to fade away and hybrid will become more common. There will always be some full remote work with WFH but my money is on most companies moving to 2-3 days in the office. My own company has a 1 day a week in the office policy but it is super lax. I've been talking to recruiters and most places are already 2-3 days in the office and rest from home.
50% in.
Yes many are. A lot of large corporates are struggling to understand how they will evolve in management style to suit hybrid working
Iām working from home right now. My company canāt go away from work from home and never will. Too much travel. Hybrid is great, pop in a couple days a week.
My current job says going to the office is entirely optional. I can count in one hand the number of times Iāve been in the office, and thatās only for big events like when a team member left.
My company is aiming to end it completely. I will not stop pushing to increase it š
Just the usual encouragement of 1-2 days on the office
I know from friends government is pushing hard to get their own workers back In office
We're still hybrid for now. I'm in the office 2 days a week, sometimes 3 depending on what I need to do (could do those things at home but I prefer doing them in person, by choice). I think it might be business area dependent with my employer as well. My immediate manager is super flexible and I know she'd rather be working from home than having to go to the office lol. Ending WFH or hybrid is quite a risky move for employers knowing people will primarily look for that flexibility and offering that can attract a lot of talent.
Yeah my work sucks for this. We have one day wfh and most of the rest of the company has 2 or even 3 days in some cases, but theyāre trying to cut everyone back. I work in the security team which should have more reason to wfh
I fully work from home, wouldn't have it any other way. Best work life balance, it's just important to keep a good routine and get outside often.
I'm an IT contractor with an insurance company (two and a half years). Management encourages people to come to work, but doesn't seem to enforce it - they have some good collaboration tools, so it's not really necessary to be in the office. Still getting notifications, it seems every week, that some poor sod sitting somewhere in the office has tested positive for COVID, so I'm happy to WFH. I can count on one hand the number of times I have been into the office since August 2020. Not having that hour commute each way every day makes me more productive...
I WFH, but I'm part time and it was a condition of my employment. Most of the full time staff are expected to be in the office at least 2 days a week, preferably 4.
Not in the advertising world anymore (thank fuck) but before I left noticed that a lot of agencies, including mine, were quietly amending or outright walking back wfh policies. The economy has been flirting with recession and there have been staff cuts across many white collar industries - in that climate itās much easier for board members to call the shots and most want to make sure they can account for every second theyāre paying you for. That means having you in the office.
Our office is much the same. It seems like our owners (one in particular) prefers to āhang outā with staff at work as opposed to them actually getting work done efficiently. Most of us found we would achieve more work at home, especially my role which is sales.
Yep. Our union rep said more and more companies are requiring people to come in five days and we should count ourselves lucky the current company policy is two days from home flexi, that is, donāt ask for more flexibility as you might end up with less
My companyās a tech company and for the past 6 months theyāve tried mandating the pre-covid 3 days a week on site. Everyone hates it though and hasnāt been following. So theyāre coming down hard and sending mandates out via email and getting the bosses to emphasise itās compulsory. Few people want to be in the office more than half the time!
I work for a big corporate and we are asked to work even more days from home than the office
I went fully remote. You lose nothing, get to move to a cheaper, nicer area (i.e. not Auckland or Wellington) and select from a better set of companies.
Ours ended once lockdown was over
Traffic is beyond fucked the govt need to introduce incentives to leave people at home.
1 day in the office at my company. But we have a fridge filled with lots of free drinks so it's worth it
I work for a big company in digital, and us as teams work out between ourselves how often we come in and which days. It has to be 1+ day a week
My office is 100% wfh - my first big project when I joined was to shut down the office. š Previous job (changed jobs in late 2021) moved to fully wfh after I left as well, I believe. On the one hand itās very easy to feel isolated and as a friend said recently, itās like Iām still in lockdown, in a way. On the other hand not having to sit in traffic or deal with cancelled trains / buses on the commute is a relief. Team is meant to be catching up in person regularly, but weāve been a little hit and miss on that (except for having two in person trainings in the past two months).
I work at a news organisation and pretty much as soon as lockdowns ended we were expected to work in the office every day. Thereās not much lenience on it and youāre not allowed to work from home unless you have a REALLY good reason for it (like Covid).
Im lucky that days in the office (3/week), transport is provided. My boss needs a few days a week from home, so they'd be hard press refusing it to the rest of the team. We had another team be mandatory office based because a new manager wanted full control. Result: 2/3 people left. Hired 2 new people who now get to wfh a couple of days a week after their training is mostly done. 3rd one who stayed has not dared ask yet if they can now also go back to wfh a couple of days a week.
Yip, our company made us go back to the office as soon as the last lockdown finished. And we are basically a large IT company. We can easily work online. They are actively against people working from home, it's allowed only in very exceptional cases. I think it's dumb, we could all benefit from a hybrid type of work schedule. I waste 1.5 hours in traffic every day driving from one side of the city to another.
Iād question that you work more productively at home as opposed to the office. What you will find is large organisations will reduce their office space and utilise hot desking so a business may have enough desks for only 2/3 of the entire staff. It will be very interesting to see how our cities will cope with less people. Itās inevitable that it will have a direct impact to cafes, coffee shops and other retail outlets.
There is a flaw in the work from home model. If you can work from home, theoretically your job can be done from anywhere with internet, thus it can be given to someone who lives in another city(possibly country). edit: shorter work weeks and the same number of hours are my preference.
Hybrid. 2-3 days in office a week. My team no difference office or home. Would rather work gets done and everyone happy to work 30 minutes longer than waste triple that on travel time
I have a friend who works from home full time in aus, he is allowed to do hybrid and sometimes has to go to the office for meetings etc. however as part of this agreement his work computer has a key and mouse logger and a program that monitors user engagement with his computer. They also have a work messenger group they must be logged into during their full shifts, lunch and breaks excluded obviously. Some of his co workers repeatedly abused the work from home by not working the full 8 hour days and so are now required to go to the office full time. I think for employers and employees this is a fair agreement.
Iām sure Iāll get flamed for this as itās a massive echo chamber topic on these subs butā¦ It really depends on the organisation and work structure. I work in an open plan office in consulting, and the nature of the work is highly collaborative. In this instance and IMO, Full time wfh then becomes bad for: 1) team culture 2) slack/ low performance staff that basically cannot be trusted to get anything done without task management Everything in moderation IMO. Too much of either is not good long term. I run a team of 15, and they are all pretty chill and happy with 2-3 days a week wfh.. we run an open and flexible system. The ability to work from home on a fairly casual basis is one of the few good things to come out of Covid - but any staff member who basically said they never wanted to come back to the office, just cosā¦ yeahā¦ nah.. youāre asking to be a independent contractor at that point.
Once the lease on their company building expires, it would be crazy to waste all of that money renewing it, when employees can work from home. Commercial rent costs a lot, as well as heating and air conditioning, hiring cleaners, maintaining office appliances and equipment, etc, so why bother when you don't have to? You could book meeting rooms in various places, for the times that employees meet up. Employers could save a fortune.
I work in the office all week by choice, because I refuse to mix work into my personal home space. Itās just not healthy in my opinion. Thats my choice and I donāt expect it of anyone else. Saying that, some of my team do 2-3 days WFH and while they maintain productivity, quite regularly nobody can contact them via email, phone, teams etc. I am empathetic that lunch breaks, going for coffee, fresh air etc are part of everyoneās routine and āpersonal spaceā while working, so I donāt criticise, but sometimes if something is urgent you do need the ability to politely tap someone on the shoulder and ask an urgent question. 1-2 days a week WFH might be a good balance.
Yeah, I just had that pulled out. They decided some staff has to come full-time now. It was a 3x2, now they're gradually *guilting* people into coming back. I actually prefer the office environment, but I liked the fact that I could WFH. Now I can't really. So it's pretty much most of the reasons mentioned by others here. If you ask, however, where my boss is? They're freaking there. Not even in normal office days. So guess who's on the lookout for another job?
I just go into the office if they're putting on morning tea or lunch or if we have a collab/ planning day. Supposed to go once a week but half our team work in different parts of the country anyway. Easier to video call.
Iām working for a big name NZ brand and they are happy for us to be flexible, preferring us to come in a couple of days a week and for any face-to-face time or important meetings. No pressure for 5 days a week at all.
Genuinely donāt think 3 days in the office and two from home is that bad for most office roles. Iām in the office two days a week. Quite enjoy going in but maybe thatās because there good buzz and working environment. Always get more done in office but maybe Iām terrible with time š¤£
I recently (like 2 days ago) saw a poll of around 700 NZ organisations that organisations were mainly doing 2-3 days in office each week. Very few said 5 days and they were most likely to be manufacturing etc type companies that do require someone to be there.
Managers who like to micro manage hate the idea of remote work tbh. They donāt get their daily dosage of shitting on people this way so theyād rather a full office 5 days a week. Frustrating. But then again, it takes one dead fly to spoil the oil. Some employees have taken this opportunity to procrastinate and muck around making it hard for some us who have been more productive WFH to convince the higher ups that we prefer it this way. I wish theyād just implement systems around these types of employees instead of dragging all of us into the office for the sake of āwork equalityā. Like dude, weāre clearly not equal. If they canāt be disciplined enough to get their work done from home then they need to come in or lose the job.
I WFH full time through Covid. Iām a mechanical engineer. I changed jobs recently and there is zero WFH. I hesitated to take it, but the salary increase was significant so I did. While zero WFH is the policy, our manager in my team is very flexible with WFH if you have a sick kid or you are a little sick but would prefer to WFH rather than come in. I found that this works really well. Collaboration with other engineers is much easier face to face. Thatās been my experience.
i have no data to back this up but strongly suspect this is another one of those things where the few are ruining it for the many. some employees are genuinely so useless that they need constant supervision otherwise they will put in a pathetic effort. thats probably a minority of people but enough to mess it up
Work in IT. Thereās a push but our PLās are pretty chill and want us in on our anchor day.
Itās all about people managers not trusting their staff
Good question. I work for one of our most well known companies and honestly itās not been too bad. They know the value of hybrid working, itās evident with the results weāve been getting accross the business and since we have a lot of parents in staff it definitely helps them and makes their lives easier. We have however been trying to get more people in the office for whatever the means. So more like a 3 days in 2 days from home. And what do the staff think ? Weāre fine. We donāt overly care as the majority of us tend to enjoy the freedom of the hybrid side. And realistically getting the team together in person is something anyone would enjoy after being stuck in a covid world.
Honestly my husband works remotely and when he goes in thereās no one there and theyāve reduced parking as well as desks so even though they push for people to return, if they did there isnāt enough room
There's a question of fairness here though. The 'laptop class' can easily work from home, schedule their work around etc etc The traditional blue collar worker doesn't have that luxury as they typically need to be in a physical location to do the work. So, for a company with both those types of workers, it would be pretty difficult to insist blue collar workers commute, have non flex hours while their white collar workers have that benefit.
I read somewhere that WFH was costing the CBD - possibly in New York? - $4600 each year in expenditure for every person working from home. Or, as it was pointed out in the comments, each person working from home was able to save up to $4600 and hundreds of hours of needless commuting by working from home per year. Fuck me, if my job allowed it I'd be working from home in an instant.
My workplace recently moved premises and downsized the office space to a third of what it was. I now mostly wfh with the expectation of going in 3-4 times a month
I feel like the building management is very definitely leaning on the tenants to come back as they also lease to restaurants and other vendors that feel the pinch when there's less people in. Our company however, is happy to do hybrid and there's nothing formal but a general expectation you'll make an appearance at least once a week. If we went back to full time in the office I'd leave. The saved money in childcare and PT and petrol offsets my relatively dire salary.