A staff revolt is brewing at the Guardian over the newspaper’s insistence that staff return to the office amid concerns the new policy will give some employees less time to spend with their pets. The Telegraph has more.
Bosses have told staff they must come into the office for a minimum of three days a week from January after many failed to return following the pandemic.
But the mandate has been met with anger by the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), which has asked members for their views on the issue.
In a survey distributed earlier this month, Guardian staff were asked how much they agreed with various statements about the impact of returning to the office.
These ranged from concerns about the financial impact of commuting, to issues around work-life balance and distractions in the office.
Employees were also asked for their views on how returning to work would impact their personal carbon footprint, while another survey statement read: “I will have less time to care for and be with my pet(s).”
The NUJ is said to be angry about the working policy and feels staff were not consulted on the changes.
But others hit out at the union, arguing that journalists who were going into work were being let down by their office-shy colleagues.
One source said: “It’s ridiculous that people aren’t showing their faces and we have this big, empty office with rows and rows of empty desks. It makes people’s lives a lot harder.”
“And it’s absolutely ridiculous for people to even bring up the idea that their pets are going to be the ones that suffer. It just needs a little bit of professionalism.”
The NUJ declined to comment.
Worth reading in full.
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Oh FFS! The suffering these people have to go through! What ever next? an air ambulance for a broken fingernail?
Obviously they prefer the low intensity supervision and freedom of working from home.
And while part.of me detests them for the skyvers they are, a part of me half respects them.
If it was fine to work from home when the 0.1% IFR Covid virus was “decimating” the population, why isn’t it now.
They shouldn’t have let the genie out of the bottle in the first place. And the harder it is to put it back in then perhaps the more thoughtful they might be next time about turning society on its head.
I’m quite happy for the price of lockdowns and all other covid madness to continue to mount and irritate.
Had the same complaint in our firm (financial services). 2.5 days/week in the office is the sensible decree. Townhall meeting. Nay said many. My dog, my cat, my nanny, my….and I did notice they were in their 30s. Our sligo meeting board where you could post comments on the 2.5 days was full of such objections.
My objection would be show me the evidence that making me travel 3 hours a day and spend £5,000 a year makes me more productive.
You don’t have to live in London you know, there are other places
What makes you think I live in London? (I don’t).
I’d hazard a guess he meant work in London and live in the Home Counties or somewhere like that. An hour and a half commute was what I used to do and I’m shocked to realise more than £5k is about the price I’d have to pay these days.
Possibly. I would certainly advise young people to look outside London if their chosen work path allows them to, simply because it’s so expensive.
Assuming what you say the OP meant is what he did in fact mean, I would answer “so what?”. It’s irrelevant. The job of a business is to make money, so if there’s clear evidence that working in an office allows you to do more of that then go for it, but provide some evidence – and be prepared to lose some of your best staff to businesses that offer more flexible working. My most productive team member by far lives 200 miles away and hasn’t been to the office in years. Every business will be slightly different, but knowledge work of the type you can do from home seems to work out OK with a hybrid or fully remote model provided staff are managed properly – and proper management is NOT making sure they are sitting at their desks, but looking at the work they do.
…and they’ll stop paying our Internet and heating bills too!
You are of course 100% right. In many cases the evidence is hard to come by.
Lockdowns have inadvertently handed bargaining power to employees and employers regret it.
Easy answer. Shouldn’t have been so tacitly compliant when Boris Johnson gave himself the authority to put the entire country under house arrest. Time to pay the price
I am not clear why employers want to get people into offices – a lot of the time it seems like bosses prefer to survey their minions in person, and find empty offices embarrassing, but I don’t see much hard evidence. We’ve saved a ton of money by downsizing ours – money that has been shared among the business owners aka the staff as we’re employee-owned.
I agree.
But not all employees in all businesses are mature enough to be self disciplined enough not to try to take advantage.
Quite a few civil servants spring to mind. I wouldn’t know about journalists but I’ve never thought of them as the most disciplined of people.
“But not all employees in all businesses are mature enough to be self disciplined enough not to try to take advantage.”
This is indeed true, in the business I work in and I am sure elsewhere. To which I would answer:
1) You manage them – give them incentives, penalties, consider asking them to come to the office if you think it will help. That’s part of running a business and good practice regardless.
2) In my experience, those same people were the least productive in the office too, but it was masked because others did their work for them. Harder to hide behind others if contacting them is that tiny bit more difficult.
I do have concerns about WFH for some, especially the young and those without much in the way of a social life. This applies to people on my team – but I am not their mum and they can go to the office if they want to – it’s a very nice office, too.
I also think that furlough has damaged a lot of people’s already-fragile work ethic, regardless of WFH.
I think there is a sensible debate to be had about WFH, but glib articles about easy targets like Civil Servants and Guardian journalists are not it. I have issues with Civil Servants and Guardian journalists regardless of where they work! Anyway, the market should decide.
That’s worth many ‘thumbs up’. Have one on me.
And of course we know the impact it has had on education
What sort of business are you in though?
Software
So a work supplied computer with a key logger, locked down operating system and only approved programs on it (suitably documented, and agreed of course) would ensure sufficient work (or at least surfing the web) has been done during the day.
It’s not quite that simple as one needs to take into account the complexity of the task and the requirement for thinking time.
Activtrak have seen their software sales soar.
>Lockdowns have inadvertently handed bargaining power to employees and employers regret it.
That’s a big part of it. It was taken out of the hands of business owners. It can be very hard to run a business and to have the government forcing you to do something without planning or consultation will sting.
Plus if further puts a further divide between office and manual workers. Office workers tend to get paid more (not always justifiable) and now they’ve been given a further bonus of saving travel, wear & tear on car, child care costs etc.
Just out of interest would you have your pay cut by that £5000 now you no longer have to shell it out on travel, and if not why not?
Why would my pay get CUT? I’m saving the firm money by not going in, money that flows into the pockets of ALL staff including the ones that still use our expensively located office.
Because when you were employed, the salary you agreed to factored in these costs. You’ve now saved these costs so you don’t need as much?
Er, salary isn’t really related to “need”. Obviously salary needs to cover basic needs, but it’s related to aspirations more than needs and determined by the market. I guess we could have tried cutting people’s salaries – some may have stayed and been “happy”, others would have stayed and been unhappy or simply left. Doesn’t sound like a smart move to me. As I said, I and the others who never use the office are saving the firm money as we downsized so if anything they should be paying us more. As it happens we shared the dividend among the staff as that is our style.
And this is important because….?
The report from the Torygraph mentions a “pandemic”. When was this? The Black Death?
Is it just me, or does Owen Jones have by far and away the most ‘punchable’ face on the planet?
Put him some plaits on and there’s more than a passing resemblance to Saint Greta
its the extreme smugness of their expressions. But Jones’ cat knows who’s the superior of the two in the photo.
How does the Firemans pet survive when he is up a ladder saving lives? How does the Footballers pet not die of loneliness when he has to travel to Istanbul for a Champions League match? How does the Welders pet ever recover when he is doing a 12 hour shift ? ———-Snowflake is a term that now needs to be in the dictionary.
The term ‘Journalist’ should possibly be replaced by the more exact term ‘Propaganda agent’.
I remember the days when (physical) newspapers used to be fascinating reading, learning the background stories behind political decisions, both national and international. But those days were long, long ago. Sad really.
The NUJ is said to be angry about the working policy and feels staff were not consulted on the changes.
No, and they weren’t consulted about the changes to working practices in March 2020 either.
Out brothers. Out!
I think you’re only allowed to suggest such things if you’re a councillor in Ireland.
Alternative headline: “Guardian staff are revolting”. You’re welcome.
If you have real animal connection then you will devise a pouch to carry your animal around in and you and them will become as one in perfect synergy.
Aim higher. In ancient Egypt you had leopards controlled by telepathy from the priests. That wasn’t long ago. Establish telepathy with a cat and you are already halfway there honestly.
Owen Jones stroking a pussy ? He’ll sue you know…
Their cats would vote for them to work a five day week at the office. And preferably a half day on Saturday.
Good lord. You know something is up when even The Guardian starts talking sense.
Oh well. Bill Gates is paying anyway, so who cares?