MSE Poll: Are you working from home – and would you like to keep doing so?

MSE_Petar

Poll started 11 May 2021

As the UK gradually emerges from another tough lockdown, we want to know if you've been working from home over the past few months – and, if you have, whether you'd like to keep doing so. Having last asked this in July, we want to see how attitudes may have changed ten months on.

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Did you vote? Are you surprised at the results so far? Have your say below.
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Afourteen

Worked from home for over 8 years now.
Love it! good bits :- No loud people shouting down the phone, No one standing behind you watching what you are doing, Enforced desk tidiness, No one watching the clock - usually work 07:45 to 12:00, then 14:30 to 18:15 (in my lunch hour I cycle from and to work!); boss is happy as he knows I'm at work before the rest of his people and finish later. If I'm needed during lunch time I'm at the end of a 'phone call.
Bad bits :- no easy to 'bounce' ideas off colleagues, group meetings are not normally face-to-face (but Webex has made that better); Less storage.
Household bills barely affected.
Would I go back to an office to work? No way.

PaddyJG

Young people will force older workers back into the office. Young people need the office more to network, collaborate and build work friendships. Professional ambition and the need for work friendships tend to decrease with age (due to older people tending to have a family and shifting priorities); therefore, the need to work in the office is reduced. However, in many industries, older people will feel the need to be in the office when they see younger workers being present, networking and getting involved in face-to-face working. It's the nature of many industries that one's job is not as secure as one would like, and that there is often a sense of competition between colleagues.

hob_nob_bob

I've been working from home fully since March 2020, and I'm dreading the day when my employer makes us return to the office; they're keen to get us back in, even if just for two or three days a week, and they have already said that they will make this mandatory from June 21st. However, my workplace is still going to be socially distancing and will have people in on a rota basis. This just seems to defeat the point to me as the people I would tend to collaborate with may not be there on the same days I have to go in so I might as well just be at home?

My work/life balance while working at home is so good, my mental health is the best it's been for years, and I'm saving money on petrol/makeup etc from going in to the office each day.

[Deleted User]

No working from home for me; to many a new job where the Employer has been against.  I think I'm ok with it and get it would be different if you've worked somewhere more then 2 years/got long service behind you.
Ironically the 'remote' interviews offered were for public facing roles, didn't get that one at all.
The only job working from home was a 3 month contract doing 'admin' where they wanted terms to let you go with 24 hours notice should the work drop.  
Whilst I'm not really expecting the job to last, currently have a telesales job that is sitting in own office, although the boss does come through every couple of hours to check my results; product training is drip feed so home working would never have worked really and I'm aware the office ladies in the next room, actually have to make lunch for the boss. 

Thrugelmir

Phrase a poll question that way and the answer is obvious. Doesn't even start to address the flaws and shortcomings. 

BobbinAlong

Half of our team, including myself, have never even been to the office or met in person, as we started in the job after March 2020. The discussion about future plans favours maybe one day per week in the office which would suit me. Thanks Teams!

bargainbetty

Have just started a new job remotely. I'll probably end up doing one or possibly two days a week in the office, but there is simply no need to be there more than that. I love it. Less commuting, less stress, more sleep, better mental health, better life. 

jbrassy

I'm looking forward to going back to the office as I feel like I'm living at work rather than working from home. I mainly miss the social interaction with colleagues which can't be replaced through Teams calls. Nevertheless, I will probably work a day or two at home when things return to normal. 

To all those people who want to work from home 100% of the time, be careful what you wish for. If you can do your job remotely 100% of the time, why can't someone in Mumbai or Manila do it? I can see a world where a lot of lower skilled jobs are outsourced to the developing world, just as has happened with call centres. 
https://www.ft.com/content/192eb45a-f7c9-4897-ac56-57cb743ac2f2 

P.A._Ranoia

Since the various lockdowns I have regularly heard assorted gurus claim in the media that working under one roof catalyses creativity. Unsurprisingly this is often expressed by those who have a particular interest in preserving income, status, or their core beliefs, e.g. landlords of commercial properties, HR managers. I am curious whether there is anything other than anecdotal evidence for this.

Those who shine in an office environment tend to be people people. They enjoy social interaction at meetings and occupying a place in a group structure, preferably as leaders. They seek consensus and inclusion. They are interested in office politics and who is on their way up or down. They tend to be credited for successful innovation and may genuinely believe they fostered a group's ideas.

Others may be more introverted. They may be awkward socially, overlooked for advancement and colleagues may find them difficult to deal with. They set little store in what they regard as the irrelevant distractions of; committees, organisation structure, team building exercises, and office gossip / social events. But they may blossom freed from all this because they have a burning desire to pursue their own concepts and can interact online with other lateral thinkers. Apparently many innovators suffer from Asperger's syndrome. Isaac Newton, for example, was downright weird. He developed his laws of motion and made other advances while in lockdown due to an outbreak of plague at Cambridge.

I do not know which if either personality type or working environment fosters creativity more, but I would like to know if there is any hard evidence to support the current conventional wisdom that this is a team environment. The adage that a camel is a horse designed by a committee comes to mind.

[Deleted User]

It's great for the people who can work from home, but it's infuriating for people who want to get things accomplished. Time and time again I have had to hold on the phone for hours on end and then when someone answers it's the same excuse. "We're working from home because of Covid and we don't have the manpower to deal with everything."  Covid has been too much of an excuse, if you are used to working at home, then why the excuses and what's stopping you from doing your jobs properly?  I'm not saying all people who work from home are the same way, but I have called many people in many different capacities from Councils, to shops, to utility companies. It's always the same, an hour or 2 wait on the phone and then the excuse that they are "working from home" and all of a sudden everything is more difficult for them or more complicated.