How many days a week do you WFH?

[Plumdaff]

I'm that rare person who really doesn't get on with wfh, I can get far more done in the office and get less distracted, plus I think in my role it's better that I'm visibly in and approachable. Despite that I tend to wfh once a week due to partner's work arrangements and issues with shared offices and meetings. During lockdown I worked mostly from home because although I could have sent daughter in to school (keyworkers) we decided to keep her home schooled - that's a decision I might think over were something to happen again. I had to do a lot of very tough emotional work (at the time I mostly worked with people with PTSD) from a box room at home while trying to get a 9 year old to do some reading is something I'd rather not repeat.

Work policy is someone in my role should be in the office three times a week.

 

[rubbershoes]

I started a new job last year when my old firm descended into shit. My office is 70 miles away from home. It's not ideal but jobs at my level don't come up often.

At the interview, they asked how I'd cope with living so far away. I go in for a couple of days a week and stay over at Poole's cheapest ( but best) airbnb.

3 days wfh and 2 in the office. When I'm wfh I start work earlier and often finish earlier.

I can arrange my client meetings for the days I'm in the office but apart from that I don't need to be there. All documents that arrive at the office are scanned in, my files are completely digital (though we need to keep hard copies of some court documents) and digital signatures are allowed. Everyone else in my department is office based 5 days a week so I do miss out on lots of slices of birthday cake.

 

[moochedit]

I had about 3 or 4 months wfh in 2020 then I was back in office full time for 6 months or so. Then in 2021 i had another 6 months or so of wfh. But i've not wfh again since july 2021. It was good while it lasted but my boss and the majority of my collegues prefer (or had to do) on site work (i liked wfh). Also during my wfh periods i did sometimes have tasks that couldn't be done from home so i'd have to go into the office (which is about 30 mins drive away). I'm a pen pusher but some people at my work place have factory/warehouse jobs that were impossible to do at home so never wfh.

 

[kalmatthew]

I go into the office as needed (my need or theirs) currently this means very patchy office attendance but as a project I'm working on ramps up it's likely to be 1 or 2 days per week. Sometimes I go. In because it's a convienent place to park for a hospital appointment and decreases the time I need for that. I have been known to work in our London office so I can meet a freind for drinks more easily in the evening. Genrally it's in for meetings. Equally none of my peers or my direct report work in the same office as me so if it was argued I needed to be in to colabarate with my team I'd be arguing for at least 2 trips to Malaysia a year...

 

[quimcunx]

On average I go in once a month. I do what I need to do then go home again unless I'm going for work drinks.

 

[Bus Honeygun]

Two days a week. Was supposed to be three days a week or 60% over a month from last week (civil service) but I'm sticking to my two days and seeing what happens. My line manager is 400 miles away and has told me she won't be waving a big stick unless someone makes her.

I quite like coming in a couple of days. Just niggles me that through Covid we got the 'remote working is great' message and they took advantage of that to scatter us to the four winds. Now they've shifting the goalposts to get headlines in the right-wing press and I'm sitting in a deserted corner of the office on my own because the rest of my team are in Cambridge, Durham, Carlisle etc.

 

[jontz01]

Back when I was one of them, high paid, shiny shoed, suit wearing office jockies, wfh was never an option. But I kind of agree with OU on this one. Work space and home space should be two separate things altogether. Wfh would be so dull. Programming and datafelching was dull enough anyway, without the joy of colleagues, it would have been unbearable. I always worked with headphones on so loud tunes were never a problem. Smokers got first dibs on window seats. Yes, we smoked in the office. We rolled doobies in the bogs and nipped out at lunchtime for pints. We cavorted and flirted and got up to no good in disabled cubicles. There was no better feeling than leaving the office and firing up a big hooter, 10 steps out of the gate for the long walk home.

I have a friend who was writing code for the NHS, lives in a 2 up 2 down terrace. He sets up a laptop at the end of his bed. His wife is a stay at home mum. He clocks off at 5.30pm, goes downstairs to cook the dinner, watches a bit of tv and goes to bed at 10pm. I don't know how he does it. I'd be a mental wreck after a week. Living most of your life in a single room... no ta

These days I'm a landscaper, truck driver and machinery operator. Spent the day in the pouring rain, soaked to the bone doing garden maint on a 60 acre property. Smoked doobs ALL day long, pumped techno and French nu disco then cycled home in the rain. Wouldn't ever go back in an office or wfh situation for any money in the world. Couldn't bear it. And sorry for those who do it but don't enjoy it but don't have another option.

 

[Poot]

I hate wfh. I receive phone calls from absolute arseholes as part of my role and I get very resentful at doing so in my own home (usually my bedroom, actually.) There's nothing like being shouted at by a dickhead and trying to stay professional while knowing that it's going to haunt you at 3am in the bed you're literally sitting next to. If it weren't for the dickheads I'd probably quite enjoy wfh at least for admin tasks.

I have my own office at a satellite site so I just go there. And I'm in site meetings a lot of the time anyway.

 

[Voley]

I'm supposed to be in 2 days a week, but it's usually just 1. I have the sort of job that really is easier to do at home without distractions- I'm in the office today and I'll probably get about 2/3rds done compared to a wfh day.

If my team were actually based in my office I'd come in more often but they're all in different counties so it feels really pointless even doing the commute tbh.

 

[MBV]

I WFH the majority of the time but I'm trying to move to doing 2 days a week in the office to improve my focus and productivity. This week I worked Tuesday and Wednesday.

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

I'm supposed to be in 3 days a week technically speaking but most weeks it's two at the moment, we'll see if I get called on it I guess. I actually don't mind coming in to be honest, the main reason not to is that it would mean more expense to put the dog in daycare more often.

 

[Looby]

I generally go into the office 2 days, sometimes 3 and I like the hybrid model. We couldn’t all fit in at once now and there’d be nowhere to do calls or meetings.

My previous role was home based with visiting and it appealed initially but I grew to hate the isolation.

WFH in my field was unheard of before the pandemic unless you were agency/freelance.

People only worked from home evenings and weekends to get all the work done (unpaid) and we didn’t even use teams until we suddenly had to.

Now I think we have a good mix. Meetings don’t have to be f2f and we save a shitload of time and money not travelling around the county to bring 15 people together in a room if we don’t need to.

Mostly our appointments are f2f but some choose online.

There are days though when I really wish I’d been in the office for some tea and a debrief which is harder on teams.

 

[Griff]

Last time I was contracting back in 2021 it was five days a week working from home which was ten months from the first lockdown and I just found it so depressing. But instrumental in my thinking to just jack it all in and never look back.

 

[baldrick]

Having a dedicated workspace is really important for WFH. I don't think I could do it otherwise, I think I would much prefer going to an office.

I do work longer after my finish time sometimes because it's convenient, but I get out of my chair, shut the door and I don't have to look at any of my work stuff until the next morning.

The isolation has taken a bit of getting used to, but I'm in a routine now. I try to get outside for a bit every day during work hours, even if it's 15 mins round the block.

 

[BigMoaner]

1-2 days which i am happy with. don't like the isolation. and the only place i can sit really is a drafty kitchen. fuck that. i like being otu and about. it feels better for me.

 

[magneze]

5. They're trying to force people back 3 days per week. This year will be interesting to see how that plays out. No-one I work with or even know is going to the office which makes it a difficult sell.

 

[magneze]

I've got used to the isolation of WFH. As others have said the key is having a dedicated space, good end of day practices (turn it off, put it away) and getting out the house during the day (preferably for exercise).

 

[colacubes]

3 days (which is full time for me at the moment). My company has been fully remote since it was founded 10 years ago. Consequently employees are dotted around the country geographically and we try and get together face to face a couple of times a year. I have to attend client meetings in person a couple of times a month and I try and catch up face to face with my direct boss every few weeks but we don't live far from each other so it's easy.

I'm one of the few people that Covid wasn't a total culture shock to.

 

[kalidarkone]

Worked all through the lockdown and have never, and still don't, worked from home.

Same and added to that I will never work from home as my job as its hands on clinical in a hospital.

I work 3 x 11.5 hour shifts per week. (Not including breaks. I'm actually at work for 12.5 hours)

Even if I changed to a different kind of job, I need a strict boundary between work and home.

 

[moomoo]

I totally get that. Covid was a game changer for layabouts around the country such as myself. I'm sure you wouldn't say no if it was an option?

I would. I couldn’t think of anything worse. I’m not disciplined enough and would spend all day lying on the sofa watching Homes under the hammer and eating biscuits.

My daughter works from home a lot. She seems to spend most of her day doing handstands.

 

[Lord Camomile]

Depends on the week, but generally varies from 2-4 days WFH.

I'm splitting my role at the moment, but will soon go back to my substantive post F/T, at which point I'll be expected to be on campus at least 2 days a week.

There's a large variety of roles in my dept., so there's a large variance in terms of how much someone's duties and responsibilities requires them to be on site (e.g I can deliver a workshop/1:1 online, but other colleagues can't process books from home, because that's not where the books are...). It's a tricky one to balance, and has caused friction/tension, for sure.

Instinctively I've been very pro-WFH, and for a long time was having to remind people that the default of"in person is better for everyone" simply isn't true for a lot of people.

That said, I think I'm coming to realise that WFH so much possibly isn't quite as good for me as I initially thought, and I probably would benefit from going out/onto campus more often. But it's in an "eating vegetables would be good for me" sort of way, where it may be true, but the benefit is delayed/hidden and so it's a case of having to push past my base instincts.

It's been interesting to see how varied the experience is in terms of ability to get work done. I get far more distracted on campus, because there are people to talk to. Obviously that's part of the point, but there's been plenty of times where I've got little done for hours because we're nattering so much (sometimes work-related, sometimes... not), whereas at home I generally just crack on with things.

 

[Lazy Llama]

Our "recommended" pattern for "blended working" (everyone else seems to call it "hybrid"), is 8 days a month in the office. I usually manage 1 day a week.
My team is spread across UK (contractors and permies), Egypt and India. I'm the only UK person coming in to the office each week, so spend most of my time on Teams meetings or skiving, sulking, working alone at a random hotdesk.

 

[Petcha]

I would. I couldn’t think of anything worse. I’m not disciplined enough and would spend all day lying on the sofa watching Homes under the hammer and eating biscuits.

My daughter works from home a lot. She seems to spend most of her day doing handstands.

It's definitely affected my mental health. I get very nervous about going into the office and doing officey things like chit chat about our weekends etc. And I've completely exhausted Frasier and Come Dine with Me. I've seen them all about 3 times each.

 

[Petcha]

Oh and day drinking has become a regular part of my life, but im not alone there

 

[scifisam]

All five days a week. I'm lucky in that I was able to set up a home office at the end of my hallway - it's tiny, but it's so much better than taking over communal space or working from my bedroom.

WFH people seem to be in such an ignorant bubble that they cannot imagine that many of us (perhaps the majority?) don’t work from home, have never worked from home and will never work from home.

...And some people are very restricted in the jobs they can do because they can only work from home.

 

[Sue]

Five in general. I was going in one day a week to tie in with a night class so guess I'll start doing that again when it restarts.

My team are in other countries, as are the people I generally work with, so there's not much point being in the office really. (Apart from the decent coffee and good snacks.)

 

[Fozzie Bear]

5 days a week but one or two days a month I have meetings in the office.

It has its downsides but so did commuting everyday and hot-desking and all that.

Like baldrick says I’m quite lucky because I have a spare room for the work stuff and I use the morning commute time every day for an hour’s walk. Plus I have a partner and a cat.

 

[seeformiles]

Mrs SFM WFH 4 days a week. Yrs truly has a job that doesn’t allow for that but I’m part time so it’s cool.

 

[BoatieBird]

5 days a week generally, although I do try to go in a couple of times a month.

 

[marty21]

I hate wfh. I receive phone calls from absolute arseholes as part of my role and I get very resentful at doing so in my own home (usually my bedroom, actually.) There's nothing like being shouted at by a dickhead and trying to stay professional while knowing that it's going to haunt you at 3am in the bed you're literally sitting next to. If it weren't for the dickheads I'd probably quite enjoy wfh at least for admin tasks.

I have my own office at a satellite site so I just go there. And I'm in site meetings a lot of the time anyway.

Yep to this, during the early days of lockdown , I hated work being in my home , I occasionally have very difficult conversations , with victims of harassment/DV or with the perpetrators , I didn't like doing this at home.