WFH - How on Earth Does It Help the Consumer Experience or Indeed the Employee's

It works well for us - although we have now settled on 2 days in the office a week, the rest at home. We still get together for important team meetings and our office space has been reduced to 25 desks down from over 100 so it has saved the hospital a lot of money. Bus fares down to £8 a week from £20 which helps too. If the circumstances are right then its a win win.

It definitely depends on what job you're doing. Some people are going back to the office as they hate being home. One issue I can see is if you are sick you may get pressured into work from home instead of sleeping it off

I honestly wouldn’t like to work from home. I like being out and about, being home doing work would drive me crazy

My husband used to work in an office all week but after pandemic has worked from home ever since. We prefer it. He doesn’t have to walk in the dark home now or in horrible weather. He is very disciplined and even still dresses office like and keeps to time. They are now required to go in for 1 day a week though so everyone can face to face teamwork.

It's not for everyone I guess but it obviously works well for many in so far as the they are disciplined and the work actually gets done.It keeps company overheads down to a minimum as well.Personally I prefer to be out and about in the real world while I yet can but hey ho.Something for everyone eh?

As expected , all the replies appear to be from people who WFH . I am retired now and to be fair I always worked in jobs that could not be done from home .

I remember call centres (when they were in the UK ) . You were put on hold for a few seconds while the operator asked advice from a supervisor . But In my experience I normally got clarification of my query .

I may have had unfortunate experiences recently . Sent a discount code from Domestic and General for extended warranty (from Domestic and General ) -too difficult when I rang ,possibly because of screaming kids in the background ? Left on hold for 10 minutes while the operator "checked with their manager" / fed the kids . The manager hadn't heard of the genuine offer I received ? Bye Bye Domestic and General for ever .

Equally EON are totally useless , a book company ( I cannot recall the name ) equally useless for customer service (obviously WFH or was I just unlucky in several attempts to get clarification for a simple query ?) .

To balance the books Yorkshire Building Society and TSB (WFH or not ) are excellent in answering querys in my experience .

If the employees working from home are experienced knowledgeable and competent in their "trade" then perhaps it can work ?

Perhaps those that WFH don't realise that they are one small step from being replaced by AI ? Why have a human working off a crib sheet when a computer can do it even cheaper -- but never better !

Depends on the job. I find it tends to be management that take advantage of it most…and as long as they’re doing it, they will advocate it for the workers they manage (and in most cases, management can certainly be replaced by AI)

Unfortunately it could be out of sight out of mind ? At least in a working environment you are there to give /share/accept advice and ideas . Indeed to add to the culture of your company .

Farmed out at home how long before your role could come under scrutiny ? To be fair "not being around the water cooler" you wouldn't even know of any rumours re possible "streamlining" .

I guess its all down to how wells its managed and how good the team is. We are lucky with a strong team ethic and we are well managed and more importantly trusted by our managers.

I would have loved the ability to work from home sometimes- sadly when I was still working it was not an option. But the flexibility of doing a bit of both would have been really helpful.