Yup. Last week my boss slashed £400 off my wage with a smile on his face by increasing my office days.Â
Now, he don’t owe me shit. But I’m absolutely going to go get paid the same shit wage at somewhere with one office days a month.Â
AnotherKTa on
Which is the entire point for some organisations: it avoids the complexity and costs of making people redundant.
Optimism_Deficit on
Fair enough. There have been plenty of people smugly relishing other people being ordered back to in person, in office, working, even if it doesn’t affect them personally. They just don’t like anyone getting something they don’t.
A common line from those types is basically going ‘nah nah nee nah nah, if you don’t like it, then go and find another job….’.
Well, yeah, people are. I expect those people will be making sure it’s written in to their contracts now as well.
Secure_Ticket8057 on
This seems like a great way to lose members of staff you have who are good enough to get jobs elsewhere and be left with the ones who can’t.
NoDG_ on
My place keeps poaching good staff from our competitors with highly flexible working. It’s a nice quality of life benefit.
Downtown_Letter_9853 on
I think what people may find is that unless you’re on minimum wage, jobs offering the sort of flexible working that people want will pay less than those firms that don’t offer such flexibility.
The reason is simply that those offering more flex will be inundated with applications and can obtain the talent they need at a lower cost per hour.
Note, if they can employ you remotely, they can employ someone in India or the Philippines at a fraction of the cost. So watch what you wish for.
Whether its more or less efficient is a matter for the firm to decide, they, after all are paying the bill.
ClosedAjna on
Good. This job market has had no attrition for months now. I’ll happily take someone’s job if they don’t want to go in 5 days a week. No judgement on them, but I have no problem with doing so and them wanting to do something else does me a favour in the near term.
kahnindustries on
It’s the intention. It’s a sneaky way to do redundancies
ArtistEngineer on
The company I work for made 1/3 of their UK staff redundant this year, and moved the jobs to India.
We work with people in offices around the World in different timezones, so it’s not unusual to have a meeting at 7am to meet Asian time, and a meeting at 7pm to meet US time.
Previously they gave us the flexibility to work from home which is fine for meetings at odd hours. But now they are also saying that we need to be in the office 4 days a week because “company culture”. If we don’t comply then it’s “bye! bye!” as the CEO said in the recent all-hands presentation and Q&A session.
This is the same company “culture” that sacked people, broke up teams, shipped the work to another country, and then expected people to do more work with fewer people and insane hours.
LukeBennett08 on
This was me. I WfH happily for 2 years (I joined after Covid). It was basically agreed I’d go in every now and then, which I did. After 2 years they decided to start enforcing a long unenforced 2-Day-A-Week rule.
So I started looking, it’s taken me 7 months but I start a new job next week.
I don’t even mind going into the office. I will be at my new job. But if one of the few things in the roles favour is WfH, don’t take it away and then be micro-managing dicks about it. I’ll either look for another remote job or a more fulfilling one that’s also hybrid.
crapusername47 on
This is just constructive dismissal with extra steps.
BobBobBobBobBobDave on
I work in a team with people around Europe. The offices in a few countries tried to enforce this last year, with a 3 day in the office minimum, and my boss had to beg the local managers to make an exception for his team members, because we were going to lose quite a few people who were suddenly going to have to do long commutes a few times a week, and many of whom had joined wlsonxw 2020 and had been almost totally remote with no issues.
It is counter productive.
i-am-a-passenger on
Return to office doesn’t even make sense as a business decision. Since going fully remote, by (previously) London-based employer hasn’t hired a single person who is based within the M25. Instead they are able to hire the best people from across the entire country.
SmashedWorm64 on
I cannot be the only one who actively asks if staff are required to come in; it’s such a red flag for me if everyone works from home.
14 Comments
Yup. Last week my boss slashed £400 off my wage with a smile on his face by increasing my office days.Â
Now, he don’t owe me shit. But I’m absolutely going to go get paid the same shit wage at somewhere with one office days a month.Â
Which is the entire point for some organisations: it avoids the complexity and costs of making people redundant.
Fair enough. There have been plenty of people smugly relishing other people being ordered back to in person, in office, working, even if it doesn’t affect them personally. They just don’t like anyone getting something they don’t.
A common line from those types is basically going ‘nah nah nee nah nah, if you don’t like it, then go and find another job….’.
Well, yeah, people are. I expect those people will be making sure it’s written in to their contracts now as well.
This seems like a great way to lose members of staff you have who are good enough to get jobs elsewhere and be left with the ones who can’t.
My place keeps poaching good staff from our competitors with highly flexible working. It’s a nice quality of life benefit.
I think what people may find is that unless you’re on minimum wage, jobs offering the sort of flexible working that people want will pay less than those firms that don’t offer such flexibility.
The reason is simply that those offering more flex will be inundated with applications and can obtain the talent they need at a lower cost per hour.
Note, if they can employ you remotely, they can employ someone in India or the Philippines at a fraction of the cost. So watch what you wish for.
Whether its more or less efficient is a matter for the firm to decide, they, after all are paying the bill.
Good. This job market has had no attrition for months now. I’ll happily take someone’s job if they don’t want to go in 5 days a week. No judgement on them, but I have no problem with doing so and them wanting to do something else does me a favour in the near term.
It’s the intention. It’s a sneaky way to do redundancies
The company I work for made 1/3 of their UK staff redundant this year, and moved the jobs to India.
We work with people in offices around the World in different timezones, so it’s not unusual to have a meeting at 7am to meet Asian time, and a meeting at 7pm to meet US time.
Previously they gave us the flexibility to work from home which is fine for meetings at odd hours. But now they are also saying that we need to be in the office 4 days a week because “company culture”. If we don’t comply then it’s “bye! bye!” as the CEO said in the recent all-hands presentation and Q&A session.
This is the same company “culture” that sacked people, broke up teams, shipped the work to another country, and then expected people to do more work with fewer people and insane hours.
This was me. I WfH happily for 2 years (I joined after Covid). It was basically agreed I’d go in every now and then, which I did. After 2 years they decided to start enforcing a long unenforced 2-Day-A-Week rule.
So I started looking, it’s taken me 7 months but I start a new job next week.
I don’t even mind going into the office. I will be at my new job. But if one of the few things in the roles favour is WfH, don’t take it away and then be micro-managing dicks about it. I’ll either look for another remote job or a more fulfilling one that’s also hybrid.
This is just constructive dismissal with extra steps.
I work in a team with people around Europe. The offices in a few countries tried to enforce this last year, with a 3 day in the office minimum, and my boss had to beg the local managers to make an exception for his team members, because we were going to lose quite a few people who were suddenly going to have to do long commutes a few times a week, and many of whom had joined wlsonxw 2020 and had been almost totally remote with no issues.
It is counter productive.
Return to office doesn’t even make sense as a business decision. Since going fully remote, by (previously) London-based employer hasn’t hired a single person who is based within the M25. Instead they are able to hire the best people from across the entire country.
I cannot be the only one who actively asks if staff are required to come in; it’s such a red flag for me if everyone works from home.