Back to the Office

[Mister Pops]

Hospitality is a real meat grinder Hawk, you have my sympathy and admiration. Your need to vent over mediocre* Marvel movies seems more justified.  I did sixteen years on and off, part-time and full-time, for crimes I didn’t even commit. Hard work is rewarded with harder work. I very nearly got trapped, be careful you don’t. It is the most under appreciated and underpaid trade there is.

*which is worse than being bad

[The Legendary Shark]

Hear, hear.

[Funt Solo]

The big surprise for me when I worked hospitality was visiting Australia (this is in '95) and seeing how well staff were treated over there - it was all unionized so you were guaranteed time and a half on Saturdays and double time on Sundays. After something like 10pm, the employer had to pay to get you home, and the wages were decent as well. Back in the UK I had to double check every pay packet to make sure they hadn't stung me on what were already poor pickings. It's a tough gig, right enough.

[Mister Pops]

The big surprise for me when I worked hospitality was visiting Australia (this is in '95) and seeing how well staff were treated over there ...

In my experience, this is true for all hospitality staff outside UK/US/Ireland. Most other countries treat it as a proper profession, whereas in these parts it's treated as an idiot's job for students. It's the equivalent of treating chefs as idiots who can barely work a microwave. And chefs are treated pretty badly anyways, hence all the alcoholism and drug abuse.

[Tjm86]

Dunno. I think it's more the kind of business, how long its been running, and possibly a generational thing with senior management. My wife's office (the UK head office for the business) is in Nottingham. A friend of mine works for a software company out of their Leicester office. They've completely closed all their other sites (mostly down south, saving them a fortune)

Possibly but then again it also supports the hypothesis that this is a geographical issue (albeit not limited to us "out west" so to speak).  Perhaps there is something in the tin-foil-hat brigade's belief that it is Tory donors driving this?

Whats that, those 12 staff members are tired and complaining they want adequate reimbursement for their work? Well they get their hourly contracted so thats not our problem, if they keep complaining terminate them, they're within their six month probational period.

... and they wonder why they have a staff retention problem! Crap pay, crap conditions, crap management attitudes.

We stayed in one of Manchesters "premiere inn's" last summer.  Covid had laid off most of the staff and the cleaning staff had told management where to shove their demands that afternoon so half the hotel was unavailable.  About all they could manage was manning reception.  Remaining staff did a cracking job all things considered.

It does seem to be a constant in British business, industry and the public sector: staff are a waste of time, space and effort.  At the same time the biggest complaint is that businesses face a recruitment and retention crisis.  Gosh.  I wonder why.  8-/

[Hawkmumbler]

I do fortunately have experience and transferable skills in other industries, and have been applying like a madman to get out of this toxic pit of exploitation. Oh I'm not saying an office or admin job will be any easier or free of its own problem, but I'll at least have consistent hours, a schedule that isn't ever changing, and some semblance of change.

I do have the fortune of being in a workers union but as folks have previously pointed out, any attempts at making the hospitality workplace a more fair or equitable industry is kind of hamstrung by a broad disdain for it by the British public. Its a catch 22 that I don't think will ever improve, only get tighter until the heat death of the fucking universe.

[Barrington Boots]

Dunno. I think it's more the kind of business, how long its been running, and possibly a generational thing with senior management.

I think this is a major factor. I work in a tech field, and a lot of my friends in similar roles have either fully adopted WFH / hybrid working or have moved jobs to companies that embrace it: a couple of guys I know switched jobs last year when we had our small post-Delta, pre-Omicron lull. In theory you'd expect my place to be the same, but my boss takes an old fashioned view on this and it seems just won't have it. Business cases and the like simply count for nothing, although we've presented one, so we'll see if it washes. Funnily enough the 'government advice' line has been played as a justification.
What's especially crazy is that generally management don't attend the office and we work unsupervised the bulk of the time anyway.

I definitely don't have it as bad as Hawk however. Hope you get out of that field dude - sounds like you're being ground to dust by a very uncaring industry.

[Jim_Campbell]

Funnily enough the 'government advice' line has been played as a justification.

Yep. The missus is getting this too, despite pointing out that the government withdrawing advice that you "should work from home if possible" is not the same thing as the government saying "you must work in your office".

[CalHab]

It would be interesting to see how much of a geographical spread there is on this.  Out west here the tendency seems to be more towards hybrid working. 

My dad works for British energy over in Gloucester.  He was saying that they are selling up their old office and moving to smaller ones.  Staff will homework for the most part but book desks when they do need to actually be physically present.  One of our neighbours works in Bristol and works from home most of the week.

It does feel a little bit like companies closer to London are pushing more for getting folks back to the office.  There is a cynical view that some of this is driven by Tory supporting property developers who are worried about all those shiny offices in London and the South East going empty.

How much truth there is to that, I don't know.

Proximity to Head Office is key, I think. WFH/hybrid doesn't seem such an issue in satellite offices, but attendance is expected at HQ.

[Barrington Boots]

I'm back in today and the place is a seething cauldron of discontent. There's been a serious miscalculation here from management about how this has gone down and it's definitely going to lose us staff we don't want to lose.
Management aren't in themselves, of course....

[Proudhuff]

of course.

[Hawkmumbler]

I ended up handing in my notice at work this morning after an altercation with the 'regional consultant' (the area manager. He just holds that title so when shit hits the fan he get the heat taken off him as he's only a 'consultant'. Would you be surprised to hear he's the CEO's step brother?). We've been down to a quarter of the staff again due to positive test results, with no measures being put in place to insure staff safety on an hourly wage, its just not worth it at all and his complete apathy at our collective concerns is telling.

[Proudhuff]

 I don't think you'll regret it its good to get away from poison like that.. Its the start of something good!

[Dandontdare]

I hated WFH and have been back in the office since July 2020. It's starting to fill up a bit now, but I'd say we're never more than 25-30% full. Be interesting to see how they attempt to pull people back and what the reaction will be. We're having a "team day" this week when all of our team will be expected to come in just so we can have a physical catch-up after so long apart, but at the moment I'm the only in  team of 12 that works from the office.

[IndigoPrime]

One company I work with did a team event day in December. This was swiftly followed by “everyone has COVID now” day. Not the smartest move.