Company wants ideas on how to implement Flexi Working

[klan8456]

robbieduncan said:

There is absolutely no chance of the company paying heating/electricity expenses! Offset that against your travel costs.

I do think this is a little unfair, as not everyone had commuting costs previously if they walked or cycled.

Once OH&S folk get stuck into assessing home environments, it’s going to be a complete nightmare. Too cold / hot, no chair, no desk, small screen, no space for any equipment to be installed etc... unless employer starts paying for people to have bigger flats, what can they do?

[Countdown]

klan8456 said:

unless employer starts paying for people to have bigger flats, what can they do?

They can either carry on providing an office, or [going forwards] they’ll only employ people who have enough space to WFH.

[klan8456]

Countdown said:

klan8456 said:

unless employer starts paying for people to have bigger flats, what can they do?

They can either carry on providing an office, or [going forwards] they’ll only employ people who have enough space to WFH.

Of course office will be there. There is zero desire to cut floor space.

Problem is right now the govt is telling everyone to WFH, and that will have gone on for 15 months by the time it’s lifted.

[Countdown]

klan8456 said:

Of course office will be there. There is zero desire to cut floor space.

Problem is right now the govt is telling everyone to WFH, and that will have gone on for 15 months by the time it’s lifted.

Well there’s loads of desire to cut floorspace in our company. London office lease renewal was being quoted at over £2m per annum (although that was before COVID)

In terms of Govt telling everybody to WFH I thought that was WFH if possible? Anyway it’s a moot point; for us the number of people who wanted the offices back open was less than 2%.

[klan8456]

Countdown said:

Well there’s loads of desire to cut floorspace in our company. London office lease renewal was being quoted at over £2m per annum (although that was before COVID)

In terms of Govt telling everybody to WFH I thought that was WFH if possible? Anyway it’s a moot point; for us the number of people who wanted the offices back open was less than 2%.

That’s a stunningly low figure. Survey results I have seen were above 70% wanting to return, many of them full time (including me).

It’s quite interesting to see the variations across companies.

Thankfully we own the building, else rent would be around £40mm a year and at that point you could understand some desire to cut floor space.

Edited by klan8456 on Sunday 7th March 09:03

[M22s]

richatnort said:

Just thought i'd get some thoughts from people about ideas I could put forward to a working group looking at what flexible working should look like post Covid. Some context being it's a big tech company based in West Yorkshire who have a new office that doesn't house everyone if say everyone came into the office at once. We have been working remotely for a year now (happy anniversary I guess) and they want some ideas on what they could do to help implement a flexible working policy & ways of working. The idea being that I would only have to go into the office (mandatory) 1-2 days a month. My ideas are:

Contributions towards gas, electric, broadband no matter your salary
web cams for everyone so they can be on camera in meetings (found I get a lot more engagement from my team when we do this)
managers able to expense travel to cafe's half way between manager people reporting into them to not have to go into the office for 121s
Interactive whiteboards at work to help with meetings and drawing stuff
New starters to spend a week minimum in the office to get to know everyone
X amount of money towards equipment for home working.

Would you add anything to this that you've experienced from working remotely all year too?

A couple of good ideas, couple of bits I’d question and some other suggestions.

Contributions towards gas, electric, broadband no matter your salary.
The offset in fuel/travel likely covers much of this, plus 99.9% of people have limitless data broadband already so this has no cost implication. I view this as a bit of a money grab.

Managers able to expense travel to cafe's half way between manager people reporting into them to not have to go into the office for 121s.
I’d only have this where the distance is greater than the manager would travel to the office.

I would also suggest that all office equipment required for home should be purchased by the company, rather than having an allocated amount of money. Printers is the tricky one as for some, it’s essential but it could also be argued that planning can prevent the need for them at home; but equally recognise some people prefer to print things to read at times (I do).

Rather than laptops, I am a big advocate for tablets, such as the MS surface as they allow for signing of documents rather than a digital stamp type sig. this also enables use of things like MS whiteboard or equivalent, rather than dedicated interactive whiteboards. These don’t replace the need for printing though - I use a mix of printed and digital media when reviewing things.

Plus Options for -
Wireless headsets.
Mobile phones for those without company ones.
Webcam & tripod (the ones on laptops are not ideal if used regularly).
Equipment to get screens at the right height.
Mouse & keyboard - using laptop keyboards and tracker pads all day isn’t ideal and some find it very uncomfortable.
Efficient PAT testing process (not everywhere will feel the need to do this).

For the office - hot desks are fine, but make sure to provide personal storage and ways for people to move their ‘stuff’ from storage to their desk for the day. Make sure monitors can be easily adjusted. I will say though, that I hate hot desk’ing.

The big’y though - make sure people are able to come into the office ad-hoc as well, and don’t have a rigid rotor. I think someone suggested having a booking system - let people book on in real time ie having a crap morning, want to come in, in half hours time.

There will be as many people disagree as agree with my thoughts though, as it’s quite personal given everyone’s home circumstances differ.

Edited by M22s on Sunday 7th March 10:04

Edited by M22s on Sunday 7th March 10:05

[Mojooo]

Countdown said:

klan8456 said:

unless employer starts paying for people to have bigger flats, what can they do?

They can either carry on providing an office, or [going forwards] they’ll only employ people who have enough space to WFH.

This may actually end up being a real problem for some

I work for a large organisation that has all sorts of workers.
We have office space open at the moment for those who don't have space to work at home properly.

[Ruskie]

klan8456 said:

Ruskie said:

I suggest you read up on your entitlements if requested to work from home. It's not as easy as telling you to do it. The employers duty of care isnt excused.

I think in many instances this is being ignored, and I mean within very, very big companies which make tens of billions of dollars profit a year.

If someone lives in a flat share and doesn’t physically have room for a desk and chair, what can the employer do? This is quite common with younger staff in London.

Edited by klan8456 on Sunday 7th March 08:40

They can offer and if that person doesn’t take them up on it, they have met their duty of care.

I have this argument with my OH all the time, she uses her own laptop and own phone to work from home. She won’t rock the boat when I point out she is entitled to equipment that enables her to work from home.

[Challo]

I work for a Global IT company, and once COVID hit they fundamentally changed their office strategy. Over the years they had invested heavily in real estate setting up large campus style sites but with out-sourcing and move to more people WFH they become less used.

They have decided that everyone in the company is now 'working from the edge'. This means that you are aligned to a local office, but there is no requirement for you to attend each day. They want you to work from home/remotely as much as possible, with attendance into the office twice a week on average but these days should be used to collaborate with colleagues / attend workshops or meetings.

When COVID hit we where allowed to attend the office to collect our personal equipment but also take home your docking station, mouse, keyboard, head sets etc. We all use laptops anyway with camera built in for Zoom meetings. We also received a one time payment of £400 in Feb to purchase additional equipment to use at home to make your working life a lot easier.

We have had no changes in salary/benefits etc from now working from home.

[Countdown]

Challo said:

I work for a Global IT company, and once COVID hit they fundamentally changed their office strategy. Over the years they had invested heavily in real estate setting up large campus style sites but with out-sourcing and move to more people WFH they become less used.

They have decided that everyone in the company is now 'working from the edge'. This means that you are aligned to a local office, but there is no requirement for you to attend each day. They want you to work from home/remotely as much as possible, with attendance into the office twice a week on average but these days should be used to collaborate with colleagues / attend workshops or meetings.

When COVID hit we where allowed to attend the office to collect our personal equipment but also take home your docking station, mouse, keyboard, head sets etc. We all use laptops anyway with camera built in for Zoom meetings. We also received a one time payment of £400 in Feb to purchase additional equipment to use at home to make your working life a lot easier.

We have had no changes in salary/benefits etc from now working from home.

That sounds almost exactly what happened to us except that we're all getting the £26pm working from home allowance

[anxious_ant]

Challo said:

I work for a Global IT company, and once COVID hit they fundamentally changed their office strategy. Over the years they had invested heavily in real estate setting up large campus style sites but with out-sourcing and move to more people WFH they become less used.

They have decided that everyone in the company is now 'working from the edge'. This means that you are aligned to a local office, but there is no requirement for you to attend each day. They want you to work from home/remotely as much as possible, with attendance into the office twice a week on average but these days should be used to collaborate with colleagues / attend workshops or meetings.

When COVID hit we where allowed to attend the office to collect our personal equipment but also take home your docking station, mouse, keyboard, head sets etc. We all use laptops anyway with camera built in for Zoom meetings. We also received a one time payment of £400 in Feb to purchase additional equipment to use at home to make your working life a lot easier.

We have had no changes in salary/benefits etc from now working from home.

That sounds great and I suppose makes more sense being an IT company. I am hoping this starts to trickle down to other industries (I work in global telecoms co),

[Pinkie15]

I'm not finance/accounts, but OP, careful on payments and mileage claims as these have tax implications.

Thought all laptops have cameras these days, so that should cover the video element of Teams/Zoom/whatever platform you use. Would expect company to provide all necessary IT equipment (computer, keyboard, screen, mouse, headset)

Company should either pay, or provide guidance, for the WfH allowance from HMRC.

Desk/chair - a bit more difficult, would expect some sort of allowance, either one off salary top up net of tax & NI, or claim back through expenses.

In person catchup good, but could be done in office when we go back.


Saying that the greatest issue for my employer has been under-investment in IT infrastructure though ('external' connections into servers, servers themselves), these have caused most issues as they couldn't cope with the remote access at the start and the VPN was hopelessly underspecced

The other aspect is expectations on 'availability', awkward to manage at times. This is a nightmare for 'micromanagers', and also don't forget that some people do actually like to be micromanaged.

[Challo]

anxious_ant said:

Challo said:

I work for a Global IT company, and once COVID hit they fundamentally changed their office strategy. Over the years they had invested heavily in real estate setting up large campus style sites but with out-sourcing and move to more people WFH they become less used.

They have decided that everyone in the company is now 'working from the edge'. This means that you are aligned to a local office, but there is no requirement for you to attend each day. They want you to work from home/remotely as much as possible, with attendance into the office twice a week on average but these days should be used to collaborate with colleagues / attend workshops or meetings.

When COVID hit we where allowed to attend the office to collect our personal equipment but also take home your docking station, mouse, keyboard, head sets etc. We all use laptops anyway with camera built in for Zoom meetings. We also received a one time payment of £400 in Feb to purchase additional equipment to use at home to make your working life a lot easier.

We have had no changes in salary/benefits etc from now working from home.

That sounds great and I suppose makes more sense being an IT company. I am hoping this starts to trickle down to other industries (I work in global telecoms co),

To be honest with all the chopping and changes over the years most teams don't sit in the same office or country as each other. Most communications are done via online meetings in voice or video format. I'm based in a WW team and my colleagues are in Scotland, France and California, with the majority of my meetings with various other country teams. I previously WFH 3 days a week anyway and I think the company used COVID as a reason to change everything and save themselves some money on real estate. I will still go into the office to see friends, and break-up the week.

[anxious_ant]

Challo said:

To be honest with all the chopping and changes over the years most teams don't sit in the same office or country as each other. Most communications are done via online meetings in voice or video format. I'm based in a WW team and my colleagues are in Scotland, France and California, with the majority of my meetings with various other country teams. I previously WFH 3 days a week anyway and I think the company used COVID as a reason to change everything and save themselves some money on real estate. I will still go into the office to see friends, and break-up the week.

Fair enough. I’ve worked in companies (both UK and Global) that has a very anti WFH policy. Must say the pandemic is slowly changing their views.

[BoRED S2upid]

Don’t contribute towards costs let them decide if they WFH costs could become a proper headache. Do provide equipment desk, chair, computer obvs, headsets etc... don’t make wfh compulsory some will suffer mental health issues or won’t have suitable home office spaces.

[Challo]

anxious_ant said:

Fair enough. I’ve worked in companies (both UK and Global) that has a very anti WFH policy. Must say the pandemic is slowly changing their views.

My company where the same. About 3 - 4 years ago they had a 'back to the office' scheme to get people using the buildings more. Initially it was a good idea, but issues related to some managers enforcing it and saying you have to come in 5 days a week, and others not bothering to enforce. Didn't create a good working atmosphere.

The bad thing about the 'back to the office' it highlighted people that had moved away and couldn't make it back to the office. Technically they never where re-classed as homeworkers, and they where the first on the list to take redundancy when we made cuts a few years ago.