WFH? WTF?

by Rab Bruce’s Spider

 

Mastodon: @RabBrucesSpider1@Mastodon.Scot

BlueSky: @RabBrucesSpider.Bsky.Social

 

 

So today is the day that Donald Trump has set for all federal employees to return to working in the office even if there aren’t enough workspaces for them to use. Working from home is, apparently, inefficient and unproductive, so workers need to be in the office where they can be supervised.

 

This is very similar to the claims made by other people in both business and politics. Who can forget Boris Johnson’s characterisation of WFH as involving trips to the fridge to stock up on snacks?

 

Now, some people do enjoy the atmosphere and environment of office working, but many people find that working from home is not only better for their mental wellbeing, it actually makes them more productive. With no stress of commuting, and being on hand to take in online shopping deliveries or simply to be around for domestic pets, it suits some people very well. And one thing never seems to be mentioned in the debate over home working. Given modern technology, it must be perfectly easy for managers to check on their workers’ productivity. If someone is not doing the work, it doesn’t matter whether they are in the office or at home, their output can be measured.

 

So why do bosses want workers back in the office? In my view, it is mostly a control issue. Managers think they aren’t managing if they can’t directly see what their employees are doing. It is an aspect of an authoritarian mindset which insists on controlling other people, and far too many bosses feel out of control if they cannot see people sitting at desks in an office. To my mind, this goes hand in hand with those people’s own way of thinking. They themselves would probably skive at any opportunity, so they think everyone else must be the same.

 

Of course, in any system which involves humans, there will be those who take advantage, but the majority of those who work from home probably contribute more than if they were forced to work in the office. I know this is only anecdotal, but I do know of one worker who worked from home all during the Covid lockdowns, but was forced to return to the office as soon as his bosses deemed it safe. This was, incidentally, at a time when Nicola Sturgeon, then First Minister of Scotland, was telling people to continue to work from home if it was possible. However, Boris Johnson, UK Prime Minister, had said it was fine for people to return to work, so my friend’s boss insisted that he resume office working. That probably tells you a lot about that boss’s political views. The thing was, though, that when he returned to work, my friend was accused of slacking because he wasn’t getting through the same amount of work as he had done for the previous months. His response was that this was because he now spent nearly 3 hours each day commuting to and from the office whereas he had previously spent those hours working. Even when faced with this evidence, his boss refused to let him work from home. As an aside, my friend handed in his notice a month later and went to work for a more reasonable company where he is quite happy to travel to the office to work because of the much more friendly environment, and where he is permitted to work from home when it suits him.

 

After that little digression, I return to the point that insisting on people working in the office has little to do with productivity, and everything to do with a desire to control, and to show who is in charge. When viewed in that light, it is little wonder that Donald Trump is against WFH.