Is your business back in the office - even some of the time? - General - Flexible and hybrid working

9 Is your business back in the office - even some of the time?

Alun | 0 Posts

18 Oct, 2021 08:54

We are a tech company, who at the start of the pandemic, promptly upped and moved all our offices to remote working from a previous full time 9-5 pattern office based. It was a relatively easy move for use as we already had all the tech in place and system supported easily.

Roll on 18 months + and we are all still working remotely apart from a small group of people who have chosen to get back into the office as it works better for their personal circumstances.

Our management team have a future hybrid working policy agreed at nominally 60/40 in the office so going forward this will be our future.

The question being asked is when do we implement this.....

My position is start with a 1 days a week in the office for all in November then maybe 2 in December with 3 (60/40) planned for January.

I'm being asked how many other office based firms are back in the office now even part time...? It's not very easy to find but from news, and fourms my gut feeling says the majority are back in now.

Any evidence or info or just your personal positions would be super.

817 views

Keith | 0 Posts

18 Oct, 2021 09:07

My question would be what you hope to gain from so rigid a structure. Its likely you will lose talent going forward unless you can be more flexible

We need different thinking going forward not a return to rules based approaches
- Cancel
Alun | 0 Posts

18 Oct, 2021 09:18

In reply to Keith:
It's more flexible that perhaps I have outlined, it nominally a guide to trying to get people back into the office space as we really feel that having fully remote working isn't helpful to our culture or collaboration. We also completely see that people enjoy and want greater flexibility. Therefore a rough guide of around 2-3 days a week in the office as an average was agreed but these days can be agreed with Line managers locally and should be as flexible as required.
- Cancel
Maya | 0 Posts

18 Oct, 2021 20:47

We’re back in. For our non-customer facing staff, we’ve got a ‘baseline’ of four days in, one day at home. In reality most people are doing whatever suits them best - some are in every day, some have agreed different (higher) levels of home working with their line managers. Pretty flexible. We’ve reduced our office space/desk numbers accordingly.

Our customer-facing staff were at home on furlough for a month (April 2020) and have been back in since then, albeit making use of the (flexible) furlough scheme to take in to account our temporarily reduced numbers of clients on site. So they’re pretty over the working from home debate to be honest…!
- Cancel
Alys Martin | 0 Posts

19 Oct, 2021 10:14

We're a tech company too and unofficially, the aim is for people to come in three days a week (and for the sales team - one day - we're anticipating they'll be with customers other days). In practice, there are a core group that come in every day and others who work in more of a standalone capacity who come in less than that.

My ideal would be to keep it this flexible and leave it down to personal choice whilst saying that if you are needed to be in for a specific reason, that we'll give you plenty of notice but we'd expect that to happen. Like Maya, we're looking into having fewer people in the office and reducing our office space as a result.
- Cancel
Valerie | 0 Posts

20 Oct, 2021 08:55

Alun

We've adopted the same as you, hybrid working with a 60/40 split and easing everyone back starting from next week with 1 or 2 days in the office until the end of the year, working up to the desired split from January.

We were entirely office based but we are missing some of the key elements that makes the company work best, which is the face to face collaboration, inspiration, coaching and water cooler moments that working from home entirely isn't delivering for us.

Anyone who wants to work full time in the office can and already are, but we have taken the route that we want to slowly introduce people back to the office, to avoid the stress that was unavoidable when we were forced to send everyone home last year, most of whom had not worked remotely before.
- Cancel
Nicola | 0 Posts

20 Oct, 2021 09:15

We've been back in full time for several months now, and it has been fine, maintaining some covid measures (hand sanitizers, spacing between desks etc). When we first implemented the return we started on the basis of a couple of days in the office and gradually phased up to full time. Some people were naturally a little anxious but they have since commented that it was far better returning than they thought and they were pleased to be back. While we were able to function remotely through necessity, the difference and improvement of team interactivity now they're back has been quite significant.
- Cancel
Elaine Helen | 0 Posts

20 Oct, 2021 09:31

We have only just allowed office staff to return, a maximum of 1 day a week. Likely to be the case for the next 6 months or so.
- Cancel
Paulette Graham | 0 Posts

20 Oct, 2021 15:03

We are back in, officially since w/c 6th September. We have a minimum of 3 days a week in the office and everyone has to be in on a Wednesday. This seems to be working well for us and it's nice having a noisy and buzzy office again although only 1 day a week.
- Cancel
Anne | 0 Posts

20 Oct, 2021 15:51

Hi
I have a range of clients and the general pattern reflects the experiences outlined here - hybrid model, some more than others due to preference or circumstances, and a phased/ gradual build up from one day a week to three, on average. And a day where everyone is in (space permitting) on a weekly or monthly basis, is also popular.
- Cancel