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I'd prefer it to be flexible. Work from home if I want to, E.g. have builders coming in, big delivery etc. but mainly in the office.

That's about my position. Between lockdowns I had every Friday at home, and plan to continue that, but I prefer the office for most of the week.

Flexible for me too. Prior to lockdown I already worked from home most of the time, but I did used to travel every few weeks to meet customer contacts, team members and the likes. After almost a year, I do miss that to some degree, but I wouldn't want to lose the WFH aspect of my job.

...I'm redundant at this time. So five days at home is my only choice.

Ditto: recently retired though.

Sorry to hear that, mate. Just created a poll answer for folks in your situation. best of luck finding somewhere else to work.

C.

I'd be quite happy to continue WFH all the time, but going to the office one or 2 days per month. Even prior to Covid I was doing 2-3 days per week from home due to a nasty 4+ hours per day commute. I'm lucky to work for a company that is flexible in this regard and I can understand why some prefer the office, others prefer to WFH, and all variations in-between. Some jobs require or benefit from working together in an office, whilst others benefit from being away from the constant interruptions and noise that you get in an office. A mix of all of these seems to me to be the best balance. Flexibility is the key.

I actually did four years of this sort of thing (but 3 days/month) ending last year; I think it worked ok but imo going to fewer days would have progress would have suffered too much. The in-person discussions and being able to work long hours those few days helped clarify what to do next considerably.

Is your office open plan? If so, definitely working from home is preferable. However immune you feel to distraction, it degrades performance for everyone. A your colleagues obnoxious? Ditto.

But seriously, flexibility is preferable to any static regime as life throws surprises. The test of successful working should be the results, not the procedures and working arrangements.

The best contract I ever had, I was given an objective, told the progress reporting schedule and left to get on with it entirely at my own discretion. Not surprisingly I delivered all that was required, despite relocating by over 700 miles three quarters of the way through the project.

The problem I found is that irrespective of which days I'm in the office there are people I need to meet with who are WFH. Because we have few quiet rooms for online meetings now, it can be very difficult to schedule useful meetings.

Covid distancing rules have also meant that large meetings can no longer be held in a single room, so some attendees have to find somewhere to remote in from. In one instance, it seemed that all the meeting spaces on our floor were taken up by individuals remoting into the same meeting!

Apart from the social aspect*, every other reason for going into the office has been negated for me.

Gather around someone's desk for troubleshooting/code-review/pair-programming? No, not until Covid is more under control.

Big meetings? No, our biggest meeting room is now down to a capacity of 6 due to social distancing.

Need to print something to refer to in a meeting (non-laptop user here)? No need, I can have that on-screen during a Teams/Zoom call.

As I was in a branch office, the company servers were not local anyway. My home ISP + VPN connection is faster and more stable compared to working in the office.

* And overhearing other staff mention a problem that I already know the answer to from another project, or vice-versa.

Entirely depends on your role, the stakeholders you interact with, the company's attitude and just how good everyone's connectivity is.

I have been WFH for a couple of years, since way before Covid. This helped me avoid 3 wasted hours of travel a day where it wasn't possible to be productive. Fortunately, the company I work for is quite able to handle this sort of behaviour and has cloud-based infrastructure anyway. It should also be said that this attitude and approach has allowed the business to hire folks across several timezones without fuss or bother.

The downside? I work longer hours, so my rate of pay is effectively diminished. And even then there aren't enough hours in the day.

> "Yes, meetings start earlier and end later now, but I have put my foot down and am protecting my time, and I have seen the meeting hours scaled back recently due to universal fatigue,"

For a techy, work is a productive and often creative activity. If businesses are wasting their technical talent by requiring them to attend significant numbers of meetings, then I would regard that as a sign of poor management.

Could it be that the only people motivated to fill in such questionnaires are those non-techies who have very little actual, useful, work to do. So therefore are the people who spend all their time in meetings?

I've been moved from field engineer to helpdesk. Ok then, I can do that from home. No, we need you in the office.

Currently sat in a deserted-but-for-me office.

I’m currently about 19 days WFH, 1 day in the lab.

I expect I’ll end up 9 WFH, 1 W@W

That’s not in your poll!

I prefer the home/office balance.

In the office, have a chin wag while having a coffee, bounce ideas off each other, what's for lunch? pub? usual stuff.

For "home working" days, extra hour or 2 sleeping in or if it's raining and CBA travelling to office.

Exactly - the coffee-machine "small" talk is valuable, especially if you catch a colleague that you can then ask "oh, and by the way, I need this information...". Just stumbling over to a colleague's office and asking them one of them small questions is really helpful as well. As others remarked, sod's law tells you that exactly those colleagues are WFH on exactly those days, though.

So I'm at home and at the office 7 days per week.

Your boss is quite demanding... (good on you, not my taste though)

Yes, she is ... but I knew that when I married her, so I can't complain.

I was working from home 4 days a week before corona hit and was actually planning on reducing that to just two.I was missing the interaction with my colleagues and since I'm currently in 2 teams, I felt I needed 1 day to spend with each of them and 1 to keep up connections with the rest of my company network. I've been working from home 5 days a week for over a year now and look forward to ending that period. Working from home certainly has a lot of advantages, but days seem so much longer. When I get up the first thing I do is get behind my laptop and check if anything happened overnight. I'll have been busy for an hour before I get to breakfast and my first cup of coffee.

I manage a team in Eastern Europe +2h gmt , and work with US teams in several states (-5 - -7), while based in the UK. My daily commute was 50 minutes each way. TBH, the flexibility to meet early and late, with time for myself in the middle (rarely have less than an hour for lunch now) is a real bonus. I usually try to cap my end of day at the time I would have been travelling either end - kinda in exchange. TBH I would have had regular meetings AFTER my commute in the old days which I can schedule better now.

Total hours worked remain basically the same here. I was already doing one day per week at home (usually mid week), and have only returned to the office once since covid started.

There is some benefit with this WFH lark for both employer and employee.... In some roles anyway.

WFH wouldn't be as bad if I didn't have to foot the bill for the extra electricity and heating. HPE are saving a fortune by forcing us to WFH but instead of compensating it's workers for the increased costs it's pocketing the cash instead, probably diverted to the VP bonus pool.

Extra electric, that is not much. BUT.

Savings in tractor juice, substantial.

Savings in rubber, was looking at a full set late spring last year, still legal now, substantial.

WFH was great when I the only one doing so. We've replaced the crowded corridors of co-workers with crowded neighborhoods of aimless people we wish would go to work. I miss being able to take a walk without 30 needless 'Stay Safe' exchanges. Starting to rethink retirement due to the now complete lack of alone time outside.

I am working primarily from home, but I go in to the office on an ad hoc basis when it is actually required for various reasons. I must say the company is highly supportive of that including all the equipment including desks and chairs for home office if required.

Currently that is averaging out at about 1 day per month in the office.

Used to take 35 - 40 minutes but around 25 if traffic perfect. Half hour in really bad weather so cars stay home.

That is over 1 hour per day extra life I now have.

Not giving all that up.

As to office, not until jab2, jab1 next week.

I work with a couple of research bodies based in the US and Canada (And Europe!); but the point being conferences over the Atlantic regularly eat into UK evenings. Participating and learning from that global effort means having flex rather than rigid 9 till 5.

As for time in the office; well, the point has been made that this 5-days-at-home malarkey is actually more like sleeping at the office. Whiteboardy videoconference tools are pretty good; but direct interaction generates ideas and information that just doesn't happen sat at home. And then there other times when all you need is an enormous spreadsheet and multiple monitors to grind something out. Those situations, sat at home undisturbed are an advantage.

I'm sure I would not have the same opinion of the office being a good thing if I was traipsing into central London everyday doing 3 hrs on a train regular; as opposed to a 20min bike ride through a park and riverside filled with herons & other wildlife (at least that what it was pre-covid).

All things considered, flexibility is king. I wouldn't mandate particular days as office days. But I would want to bring the team in at least some of the time.