What are your thoughts on home/hybrid working?

[Matt N]

After years of primarily in-person working, the COVID-19 pandemic ushered in a new world of home working. Even with some return-to-office drives, recent estimates suggest that just over 40% of the UK population has some degree of home working involved in their job. This new innovation of widespread home and hybrid working is divisive; some like home working, feeling that it improves wellbeing and makes people more productive, while others dislike home working due to the isolated nature and feeling that people are less productive and exploit it for their own means. With this in mind, I’d be interested to know; what are your thoughts on home/hybrid working? If you have the choice, what is your favoured working style? Are you a fan of full working from home? Are you a fan of full office working? Or does a blend of the two work better for you?

Personally, I can see the benefits of home working, but perhaps controversially for someone my age, I don’t think I could do a fully remote job and would want some degree of office attendance in my calendar. In my last job, I worked in the office 2 days a week, and this suited me well. It meant that I didn’t have to commute into the city every day and could have some quieter working days at home where it was just myself and my work, but it also meant that I still got to know my team and felt like a part of the team, and that I didn’t feel too isolated. I looked forward to my office days, and I did find that when I was in the office, I quite valued having chance conversations with my colleagues about different work things as I felt like I learned about things in a way I wouldn’t have working purely from home. As much as I’m an introvert and value my own space and time to myself, I think I would find a fully remote job too insular, and I found that going into an office a couple of times a week and having that occasional social interaction with my colleagues did improve my wellbeing.

The job I’m waiting to start has an advertised 60% office attendance requirement, but my team sounds a lot more geographically distributed than my old one and I’m told they are resultantly “flexible” on office attendance, so I’ll have to see how I find attending the office in the context of not having a team based predominantly in one location as I did before. But currently, I’m sceptical on whether I’d enjoy full home working and am an advocate of having some office attendance in the working calendar.

I’d be interested to know; what are your thoughts on home/hybrid working, if your profession offers you the option? Or even if your profession doesn’t offer you the option, I’d still be interested in knowing whether you’d value being able to work from home!

 

[CanobieFan]

Not available for my Job

Although a lot of my friends who have the ability to work fully remote have eventually opted for hybrid, just to get out of their houses. If I was in the position to be able to work remote I'm not sure if I would be committed to doing it 100% because I feel like I would miss the social aspect of it all. But I've also never really had traditional jobs

 

[Burniel]

Started a job in a traditionally office-based industry about 3 years ago, have been hybrid throughout and always found it strikes about the right balance. While many aspects of my job can more easily be done without the distractions of a busy office, there are definitely some collaborative activities that are better (and nicer) to do face-to-face.

I do think there are different flavours of hybrid to watch out for though. "Come in as often as you want/need in order to get the job done" is a very different proposition to "you must be in on these specific two/three/four days every week".

 

[Nicky Borrill]

I kind of have no choice, I cannot escape working at home. My home is my work place.

I do wish I could work remotely too though, as in whilst travelling. This would have been possible in my previous career, maybe I'll go back to that one day.

 

[Hyde]

I’ve worked in various office settings, including cubicles, open layouts, and remote work since 2019. While remote work has its advantages, it’s not suitable for everyone. It demands a high level of discipline and the ability to separate work from personal life. I genuinely miss the drive to and from work, which creates a transitional space that helps me compartmentalize work and home life.

Another big thng I miss is the lack of spontaneous interactions with coworkers. Quick chats or troubleshooting sessions that could be resolved in a few minutes on Zoom can take much longer. I also worry about younger workers who have only experienced remote work and may miss the interpersonal skills they develop through in-person interactions.

 

[Matt N]

This is actually a very opportune revival of this thread @Hyde, as I recently started a new job where my team are significantly more dispersed geographically and I’m the only one in my office location, and it’s given me a new perspective!

My organisation, on paper and in the job adverts, mandates 60% office attendance, but my immediate team are very non-plussed about enforcing this and many of my colleagues haven’t attended the office in months, if not years. As such, getting an office pass was very slow and non-urgent, so I spent the first few weeks of my new job entirely remote before recently starting to try and go into the office again.

I wondered if having a geographically dispersed team would make me gravitate towards wanting fully remote and struggling to see the point of office attendance… but I still think I need at least a bit of routine office attendance. As weird as it probably makes me sound, I feel like I mentally benefit from just being in a different and more public environment on a moderate basis, and going through the ritual of leaving the house and entering an actual place of work every so often rather than just staying between the same four walls 5 days a week. I think I would have struggled to hack fully remote for very long and I’m now back into a routine of office attendance 2 days a week; I found fully remote working a definite slog compared to hybrid for the few weeks I did it for.

The thing for me is that if I worked fully remote, I genuinely think I might go days without leaving the house, and indeed, I did in my first couple of weeks in the new post. I don’t think that’s good for a person (or certainly wasn’t good for me, at least).