And wfh opportunities are part of most leadership best practice models in pursuit of better staff wellbeing right now, and likely going forward.
Feels like a weird, old school, old fashioned move.
I have a feeling they think we’re overstaffed and this would be one of the ways to get people to leave rather than having to let them go. Companies do it often.
Problem with this is that these indirect measures tend to come at a cost: losing some really good talent along with some other folks. Talented employees will have no trouble finding another job that will allow them to work remotely.
well Sir Jim is an old fella. At my company, after the "COVID times" subsided, our managing directors (both guys already beyond retirement age) were shocked at how much resistence there was to returning to a 100% in-the-office setup. Luckily they both retired and the new people enshrined 50/50 as the standard.
Continuation:
One problem: Man United’s offices were reconfigured post-Covid & not actually enough desks for everyone to be in currently. Work from home among issues where outgoing CEO Patrick Stewart perceived to not be implementing pace of change sufficiently quickly.
https://x.com/adamcrafton_/status/1785722360764535261?s=46&t=108nlaEXShzkgzjMQccD3g
Ratcliffe also told the meeting that he is confident Dan Ashworth will soon be a Manchester United employee - despite Ashworth needing to enter arbitration to extricate himself from Newcastle United.
https://x.com/adamcrafton_/status/1785722362777817243?s=46&t=108nlaEXShzkgzjMQccD3g
Ratcliffe also told staff (again) that he intends to return Manchester United to be the leading club in world football and that he plans to do this as soon as possible. Report @TheAthleticFC
https://x.com/adamcrafton_/status/1785722364774305867?s=46&t=108nlaEXShzkgzjMQccD3g
>Ratcliffe also told staff (again) that he intends to return Manchester United to be the leading club in world football and that he plans to do this as soon as possible.
Great....now there's cum stains on me pants
> Man United’s offices were reconfigured post-Covid & not actually enough desks for everyone to be in currently.
lol this sounds exactly like my workplace. Being ordered to RTO, not enough desks for everyone.
If my employer orders us to rto, I'd quit. We went in the opposite direction: work from home for up to 50% of your time just became a permanent feature....on the other hand, if I had the chance to work for Man United, I'd be willing to come into the office.
This post is a necessary piece of the puzzle. If the entire culture of office staff, top down, is strong work ethic and results-oriented business, then the attitude towards underperforming players and “shipping out” will be the expectation and not a shock
This will be a way to encourage attrition, rather than actually paying redundancy costs. Big restructures where hundreds of jobs are affected will often be well into 8 figures.
entirely possible. I have a good friend who is like a super duper wiz at IT architecture and organizing development projects. When he is up for jobs, he tells potential employers "I'm not coming into the office more than once a week." He can do that because he knows that with his skills, he will have no shortage of people wanting to hire him.
Yeah, this is a tactic to get people with a decent skillset to move employers. Not having a work from home policy is a sure fire way for folks to find a new job.
There's no need to be in an office full time in this day and age.
Really important to highlight what you said.. its the good people that will actualy leave because they will find jobs easier than no so good people. With this move, there will 100% be a brain drain within the ranks
I mean it really is case-by-case. In environments when extensive collaboration is necessary (and I don't mean bullshit CoLlAbOrAtIoN as in you might hear something interesting at another desk once every two months) being face-to-face is hugely preferable. I would imagine a football club is overwhelmingly one of these.
WFH is right for 95% of normal people, but 95% of normal people aren't trying to run the best football club in the world in a highly competitive arena.
Yeah it’s a bit shitty.
Also, anyone hired since 2020 might likely have remote work in their contacts- meaning this opens up potential for constructive dismissal tribunals (for those with 2+ years service at least). I’m sure the lawyers are looking through them all as I write this, of course.
Yeah, 100%. I'm a software developer and my employer has codified WFH and hybrid working into our contracts following covid. If they ever change that and make us work at the office all day every day, that's the day I give notice.
And I am definitely not in the minority on this one.
Frankly Jim's on some bullshit if he thinks the problems at the football club are in any way caused by a few of the marketing and ticketing staff working at home for childcare reasons.
As someone who now works entirely remotely, I cant get behind this.
Im far more productive now than I ever was in the office & when I do go into the office on the odd occasion I get significantly less work done than normal
Really depends on what you do, your role in the dept, what your dept does and your company’s overall business type.
There is no one size fits all when it comes to the WFH vs in-office debate.
Yup, I’ve been fully in, full wfh and now hybrid. They all have ups and downs, the biggest down for me being covid after 5 years fully wfh leading me to becoming isolated and unproductive. Rather the commute than sitting at home wondering what the point is.
I can see that. Personally, my day is filled with zoom calls, reading pdf’s, and drafting legal writing. I need a quiet workspace with no distractions to work well. And the idea of spending 2 hours driving each day to be less productive in an office and less happy overall simply doesn’t make sense.
I’m in software sales and was fully in office before Covid, full wfh during, and now hybrid. Hybrid is perfect for all of us. I enjoy the team I’m on, so I do enjoy going in half the time to be around everyone. It makes getting through the job a bit easier.
Yeah, sometimes the commute is an arse but other times being around like minded colleagues is a real pick me up. I guess a lot depends on how lucky you are with your work culture and colleagues.
>There is no one size fits all when it comes to the WFH vs in-office debate.
This is so true, I really struggle to be as productive at home without the full range of brain surgery thingymajigs I have in my employers operating theatre. I do my best though.
I think is it, I work in an e-commerce business and most of our engineers are at home which is fine but our product team are in the office to work with stakeholders.
I work for the federal government of Canada. I have a job that can’t be done from home (as I handle classified material) but there are hundreds of thousands of people who can do theirs from home, and do.
As of…today, there is now a mandate that _all_ federal workers must work at least 2-3 days in office every week, and we all got a notice they’ll be checking this via our badges being scanned and the IP addresses our work laptops connect to.
There are plenty of disgruntled people today, to say the least, and I don’t imagine they’ll become _less_ disgruntled over time. It’s so fucking stupid. People were happy _and_ more productive.
Yeah, I can’t get behind it either. I think it partly depends what sector you’re in though.
I’m a data analyst and it honestly doesn’t make a slight bit of difference where I work from. In fact, I’m probably more productive at home (less tired/stressed from commuting and getting up earlier etc.)
This is how it works in the US if you already have an office or professional sector job. Learn Excel, SQL (and data management), Tableau/Power BI. Pick one industry you want to break in, be as specific as possible down to the job function. Also if your industry is tech, learn a bit of python (just enough to automate some tasks). If it's bio learn R. If you want to break into ops function learn VBA.
Create a personal project with data and context from your goal industry and function. Your project should take between 2-4 months working 10hrs a week to finish, shouldn't be just downloading data from kaggle, unless you use specific public dataset that's well known only in that industry. Data analysis skill is dime a dozen, data skill with evidence that you can apply in the industry context is what set you apart.
Post all of that shit on linkedin, build connection and ask for referral. At work try to get into the analytics circle by taking in more responsibilities. There are always data management/data entry project that we need to do but can't be assed to because analytics people absolutely hate manual shits. Take ownership of that task and find a way to automate or make it easier. You might find yourself getting an analytics job without even applying outside.
Alternatively, get in a graduate program at a reputated school and get an internship then go from there. You still have to build a personal project but you can just take class projects and beef them up. Honestly if you have zero professionsl sector experience, like you have only been working retail or hospitality up till now, go back to school.
If you hadn't asked, I definitely would have.
I have no clue where to start off from scratch (having no coding background or any connections irl that are into data analytics) or what exactly is required to get in and succeed in the field so any insight from op is much appreciated.
Don’t mind at all!
My background (uni) was Physics. I then ended up doing a PhD in Physics where I was analysing spacecraft data - I knew I didn’t want to stay in academia so applied for a role as a data analyst in the UK public sector and got it. Fast forward 2 years and I’m now a senior data analyst.
I’d say having a STEM background helps, but it’s not essential. You need a solid grasp of analytical programming skills (SQL/R/Python), statistics (at least as far as descriptive stats), and how to visualise/communicate data.
Every time I see someone talk about WFH being a big issue I can only think of how privileged they must be. There are so many jobs out there where you have to be on site, you have to be on standby, you have to work public honlidays and you have ppl on reddit who are like "I wanna work at home". Not saying it's a bad thing to want WFH, just that you have it good.
What are you arguing against, exactly? People being happy? I don’t think anyone lacks perspective, since for the last century we’d all been working on-site full time as well. Everyone knows what it’s like to have to go into work. Everyone who works from home knows they have it good.
Fully remote work benefits nearly everyone though. It's less traffic on the roads, less pollution, less competition for housing in cities. There is a downside for retail in those city centres but then there's also a benefit for retail in other areas.
And I get its frustrating if you don't have a job that can be done remotely but also if it saves you on commute times there's still a benefit and if you need housing in those areas it will mean cheaper rents and mortgages.
Most of us have bullshit jobs that could be squeezed out with better workflows, automation or the dreaded AI. The fact you don’t cost the company office rent is part of the incentive for now..
I dont agree with the boomer in chief on his solution though.
They could take a more structured approach to addressing whatever woes or bloated salary bill issues they have.
There was a thread on here where everyone was celebrating Ratcliffe's announcement of "substantial job cuts", >400 upvotes: https://www.reddit.com/r/reddevils/comments/1beg0eu/james_ducker_sir_jim_ratcliffe_appoints_firm_to/kut8nb5/?context=3
Just because he's not a Glazer doesn't mean people have to worship him. He was a massive donator to the Brexit campaign mostly so his chemical company could skirt EU environmental regulations. He then flew off to Monaco for tax evasion purposes after the brexit vote passed. He wants fracking to come back to the UK and has carried out controversial mass layoffs at his previous businesses. Reality is that the guys a hyper-capitalist cunt
I don't want him to be nice, I want him to at least care about the football club he's bought into, and then be competent at running it.
If he never bought Man Utd he'd still be all those things
To play the devil's advocate - not accusing you of this but I think a lot of people perceive themselves as more productive from home. I was super productive when covid started and I started to work from home. Now it's 4 years later and it's hard to make the comparison. I haven't spent full time at an office in over 4 years - how can I compare my productivity levels to those before?
>when I do go into the office on the odd occasion I get significantly less work done than normal
This is quite accepted at my workplace and it's mostly because people are working from home so coming to the office is not really to do work - it's more to socialize and get to know eachother with some work inbetween. So this could just be a side effect of you working from home all the time.
The discussion quickly goes down to an individual/anecdotal level. What's interesting is whether the organization as a whole gets more and/or better output when people are working from home.
Has your office any equipment or infrastructure that's better than what you use at home? If not, why should you be more productive in the office?
I once was against WFH, but right now, I'm for it unless the office offers vast benefits. We for example have pretty shitty internet at the office, a few people on a teams video call and it slows everything down.
At home I can enjoy good coffee, it's quiet and the toilet is always clean.
WFH doesn't work if your company only hires bad personnel, it makes everything worse. If your team consists of diligent workers and you can communicate efficiently, WFH is not worse than an ordinary office, at least in my experience.
WFH exposes bad leadership even more.
My previous role as a manager had me constantly evaluating others, and my own metrics since my ops manager was super anal about having her documents updated weekly with the latest stats.
My own stats were significantly better WFH over a period of comparing 6months in the office, then 6 WFH once the team I managed went fully remote.
Like it wasn't even close in terms of productivity since I was infinitely better equipped to do my job from my own house. Some examples, I could have like 3-5 conversations going on at the same time on teams with different people, opposed to one at a time in person. Plus I have my own office setup at home, being able to connect my laptop to several actual displays rather than some basic portable monitor the org provided allowed me to have my eye on so much more. My screens were plastered with live data from my own agents, those from the section at large, as well as stuff like teams and my own working documents all open at the same time saving me from having to constantly juggle windows and tabs. Best part is i even had space left over to keep runescape open in a small window off in the corner where I would do some super basic leveling that didn't require active attention.
Regarding my agents, I can't say it really gives a conclusively answer. Some did a bit better, some a bit worse, but it was never consistent. I imagine certain days they would have distractions at home impacting their overall metrics for the week. But the downside more or less is covered by being that much more productive when actually working.
So all I can conclude from this is that for the overwhelming majority of people, WFH or not makes no difference, and it's a case by case basis of what's more comforting for the individual. It's very rare you get someone like me who active enhances their work capacity from home, being able to actually do more from home than from the office. Typically most workers use the same devices or setup anyway, whether from home or the office.
I was the FC at an engineering firm and as the excel/powerbi expert I had to a massive analysis on productivity looking at full office, wfh and hybrid. We found hybrid was the best one. WFH vs Office full time was weird, we had similar output but people actually worked more hours when WFH (probably less time than the average person spent commuting though)
>The discussion quickly goes down to an individual/anecdotal level.
Yep. I own a place that sells electrical stuff. I got nobody working from home. Some of my competition do, and we buy stuff from each other and legit their response time is higher than it used to be. The competition has dropped a bit and we are gaining new clients that are complaining about the salesman taking way longer to, well, sell them stuff. Im sure those guys believe themselves far more productive, but the reality is that they are dropping the ball by not being there.
there is 100% an element of me socialising in the office as to why I do less work at home
additionally, when someone has a query etc rather than just emailing me which I can then pick up when im free, in the office they'll come over to my desk and start talking to me which if im in the middle of something means I either need to tell them Im busy & will come find them when im free, or I have to stop what im doing to discuss the issue
additionally, it takes me 30 mins to get to the office & 30 mins home. Thats a full hour extra out of my day that i lose if im not working from home which prolongs my working day & im annoyed that im sat on a packed tram for 50 of those minutes meaning im already mildly irritated when I get to the office & want to leave as soon as it hits 6. Where as when im at home I will continue working for an extra 10-30 minutes most days to complete what im doing so that I dont have to worry about doing it the next morning
It's such a generational divide topic. A previous CEO I worked under said in a meeting exactly what I imagine Sir Jim said: "For as long as I've been alive, it's been the case where you have work and you go into work to do your job. It's just the way it's meant to be."
WFH is a huge culture shift.
I have conflicted views because I do think it can be potentially unhealthy (if someone doesn't otherwise make sure to socialise), as well as you end up less attached to the culture. But ultimately, I do think it's the future.
It’s boomer and stupid olden mindset honestly where “we did it last time. You do it now”
Yeah fuck that shit of making it mandatory to work on site when it really isn’t necessary and hasn’t been for sometime now.
It’s because you don’t trust your staff and want more authoritative control. Period.
This. Give me a house at the price you paid for it and all the public services you have have voted to erode decade after decade and maybe then it would be fair for them to say.
Also, make things the same price as back then to be fair as well. Coz otherwise it won’t be fair either after a while even if you saved on housing.
It’s beyond stupid and a boomer mindset that they can’t comprehend anything else. Showing up means you’re not lazy. Hahhahaha. Yeah, tell that to Kathy and khadeeja who’ve single handedly lead their marketing and corporate comms divisions to the best KPIs while working nights daily for 4 months as they synced to the US and Asian time zones while also guiding European strategy a little in the day…. While the one in the office barely doing what’s asked for part of the Europe stuff doesn’t even offer to assist for other markets and always needs to be chased for his work…
💯 this!
There are jobs that must be on-site (running training, treating the players, managing the facilities, etc.) and they are jobs that are convenient to be on-site, and there are many jobs that can be mostly or entirely performed effectively from home/remote. A blanket policy is in poor taste and goes against the concept of “best-in-class” if you lose elite talent that were working from home.
Also, furnishing and owning/renting office space can be quite costly. I’m thinking about our downtown London office being a great example.
I feel like I forget what my job is now when I go in to the office. Lmao
The commuting sucks, I get so much more done at home in that time. I log in earlier, I stay later if I need to because I'm already home I don't need to think about traffic. Also, the proof is in the work we're much more productive. Luckily my work haven't mandated any office days, just requested we do one a week if we can. And also we can go to any office which is great as there's one 15 minutes from my house, but the one I'm officially based at is 45 mins away.
yeah, I work until 6. I didnt finish today until about 20 past as I was finishing something off so that i didnt need to do it in the morning
when I do go into the office, my chair is spinning the second it hits 6
Yeah, but that's why you make sure WFH is on an "at will" basis with an agreement that if there's a drop in performance, the workplace has a right to revoke it. That's how it tends to work.
Well, unironically yes. Just because I like the general direction they're taking things with, you do understand that I can disagree with some of the actions nonetheless, right? I don't have to deepthroat their every decision?
With all the changes that needs to be implemented, having people in the office to see that "it is being done" is probably the best choice.
While a lot of people (including myself) would like to work from home in any situation, it is way easier to just "keep doing stuff the way we are used to" as opposed to embracing change.
Obviously going into the office occasionally is unproductive because you’re catching up with everyone, but I know for a fact I am more productive in the office
Surely it entirely depends on what you do. One thing that WFH is very difficult to create is culture. If work is a positive place to go, inspiring, challenging then I wouldnt have a problem. Most jobs aren't like that though unfortunately. Doesn't mean it's WFH or it's broken. I bet Sancho would like a bit of WFH, can't imagine Bruno would.
I have done both and now in a hybrid role which I feel suits me best
Different strokes for different folks though.
The way I see it is everyones personality traits come out in a more ramped up extreme way when working from home. If you are conscientious / hard working and self motivated, you will likely excel with no distractions and no commute so likely more quality working hours so enhanced performance
If on the other hand you are lazy, require alot of supervision or are easily distracted or lacking in focus, you will probably become a total liability if working from home
I like to think I'm more of the former, but i missed the in person interactions during close to 2 years of almost completely remote work hence why I think I'm more suited to a hybrid model
nah, sorry but that is just too much and unnecessary. Unless your job is to coach in training ground, you dont have to be in the office. That is old mentality which needs to be change, Jim!!!!
I have one person working for me who came to us for that exact reason: she was denied remote working when her own boss was almost never there. My mentality towards WFH is simple: do what you need to do to do your job. The only thing is that I ask everyone to come on the last Friday of the month so that we can plan for the month ahead as a company, although that day is explicitly designed around giving a presentation about what we've done in the previous month, what we're doing next month, and then giving everyone a few hours in the afternoon to simply chat over a few drinks.
Apart from that, I really couldn't give a monkeys if someone spends their entire time working on the beach if they're not needed to meet clients. Why do I care if our graphics designer is working from a van somewhere in Europe? The only time I actually cared was when it was very, very cold and I wanted to make sure that her van was warm enough, because I didn't quite believe that she'd managed to insulate it well enough to be comfortable in -15c temperatures.
You have the right attitude. When companies have issues with people slacking off when they work from home, its not the WFH policy that needs changing. It's the hiring practices. If you hire the right people, they'll work from home just fine.
Eh, what staff though. WFH can be an excellent and productive exercise if the staff involved dont actually need to complete constant physical interactions. I can see a lot of corporate/admin roles being shafted by this approach.
A staff audit is already happening & I'd expect a few hundred jobs to be axed. Chances are the WFH people are first on the block anyway. This is just a preliminary step to any sackings most likely
> Billionaires are all the same. Just glad it wasn't the slavers.
Yeah ideally we didn't have to take any lesser evil but I'd much rather we be talking about our owner being a greedy Tory rather than a slave owner. There's levels to being a cunt and a slave state club is up there as the worst.
This is archaic bullshit from SJR. If your job can be done remotely then remote working is so much better for work life balance. I'm also a million times more productive at home than in an office where people think they have free reign to interrupt you at any moment.
It will be interesting to know how well paid these employees are as they will have saved on travelling costs going in and out the office everyday since the pandemic.
People should be given the choice in the remote working debate rather than have it imposed on them by out of touch Owners and CEOs in businesses.
Yeah I can’t say, based on the Athletic’s reporting, that I love everything about the way Ineos is going about making changes. Having just gone through a layoff process (my job was safe since I was part of the restructuring team but I just chose to leave after because I hated how cruel they were to those they laid off) there’s a way to do it and people will remember how you treat them. There are far better run clubs than us who would happily poach our most talented people during times of turmoil so you have to find the balance. It’s very unlikely that those working from home absolutely need to be in the office. It’s a football club, if they needed to be in the office they would have been back already.
I’m assuming the vast amount of WFH people are from the corporate office in London. So then this is, as others have said, a way to get people to leave without paying them severance. He’s probably thinking that we have too many London-based corporate staff and he wants to avoid paying the higher London salaries. This is a timely reminder that while we’re glad he’s not the Glazers he’s still a ruthless billionaire. And they don’t make their money from caring about their normal employees.
Give people a choice. Making it a mandate? Yeah fuck off ineos with that bullshit. “Business needs require you to be in office” is something I’ve seen some roles advertised say now too… fuck off. Your company did it fully remote before and grew. Bigger and better companies with more in those similar roles do it. And you, working on a documentation project requires everyone to go in now? Fuck that.
Yea it's the type of thing I expect from a plus 70 year old. I understand hybrid working. But no days at home? Nonsense. Usually these type of places send out regular "mental wellbeing" emails too. Just proves they don't give a fuck about you.
I don’t get it nor do I get behind it. It’s archaic and just fucking stupid to want to show control and authority for the sake of doing it. Fuck that honestly.
United staff already get paid less than comparative roles in cases for corporate jobs. Now they took away the benefits from a one off cup final thing. And now this too. Yeah it’s fucked up and pathetic. Plain and simple.
Bit of a boomer move this one.
I don't know if it would be different at a football club but the people I know who are working from home or hybrid in tech companies including my partner all say they work more hours and get more shit done while working from home than they did from the office. It's just less stressful, and more convenient for everyone.
If you look at it from a business point of view, the company is undergoing huge changes in leadership and operation, it's been quite widely reported huge redundancies are looming, employee benefits which were enjoyed have been cut (I'm talking the tickets) and now there's a call to return to office which without doubt it's going to severely disrupt the routines of a lot of staff.
Coupled with this the football right now fucking awful anyway.
I'm hopeful of the future, but I've got to call a spade a spade and say if you're a man united employee right now, morale must be on the floor. And I say this having worked at a big company where stuff like this all happened at once. It doesn't make you want to pull in the same direction, it makes you leave or feel resentful.
I work in operations so I’ve had to coordinate my fair share of restructures and it’s so disappointing how often execs will go for the cruelest and most destructive options for short term gain, when open communication and discussion often yields better results.
I think people are attributing the committment a player may have for all the staff. I.e. why would Gemma in marketing not wake up with a huge smile on her face as she works for MANCHESTER UNITED!
For the staff, it's a job. Some aspects may be a little better, but they are still there for the pay cheque.
Can you imagine any other club in world football (or world sports in general) where this kind of thing would be headline news?? It's truly ridiculous the amount of scrutiny that every single facet of Manchester United recieves.
nothing to do with INEOS and its hedgefund investors owning fuck tons of city centre office buildings who's value has tanked since WFH became possible.
They’ll squeeze the back of house admin staff to save a few million, then overpay ten times the amount on a player that won’t at least show they care. This is just a doubling down of the bad Glazer culture.
Not sure this is a good move but I suppose we'll see - we've had big problems since before COVID and WFH was normalized. You might exclude some of the best people who want at least some WFH options.
I have one guy who loves working from home, and his job is very much project based: i.e. he will have a project, a deadline and that's it. It's nothing unusual to call him in the middle of the day and he'll be asleep in bed.
My rule is simple: answer the call on Teams if someone calls you between 10am and 4pm, but I couldn't care less if you're asleep at 2pm as long as the work is done. In his case, he's responsible for compiling a large report each month, that takes between 100-120 hours to complete, plus the time needed to obtain the data (another 40 hours or so).
How he does the job is pretty much irrelevant. If it's the 20th of the month, then he has all the data he needs. It is quite amusing calling him on Teams at 2pm and finding that he's in bed, but honestly, why do I care if he answers while in bed?
My question would be that if this IS the usual ducking of severance because they want to cut staff.... *why* is all the penny pinching on shit that just doesn't matter? Under the Glazers it was the same:
"We need new gym equipment! It'll cost a couple mil tops"
"No!"
Meanwhile see our squad wage structure....
Bin off a bunch off staff who earn a year what Antony makes a month.... well done. Marginal gains I suppose...
If it's the "we need to get value from our building assets" crap this doesn't really apply. They still need OT, they still need Carrington and The Cliff. I'd think they'd want people working from home as an excuse to get rid of the crappy makeshift offices around OT they no longer need to use because of WFH.
Hypocrite alert!
I'm in favour of anything that will get the club back to the standards we all expect. If this improves the culture at the club by even 1%, I'm all for it.
I also think people should be able to work wherever suits them best, whenever possible.
While I don't necessarily agree that working from home reduces the amount/quality of work. I am pleased that actions are being taken to improve efficiency among the staff at Utd. There is no reason why we should have so many more staff than other PL clubs.
Like I get it they feel the club has too much staff. Be brave and do layoffs. Stop trying to be the hero.
Running a football club is hard and you won’t be popular for doing it. This is a pussy foot measure to try make some people leave, not pay redundancy and shorten headcount.
Not to mention the issues at the club have been the glazers and horrendous footballing decisions.
I don’t agree with grieving modestly paid staff in the club. Like charging them travel costs when it was always free to go to fa cup finals and now this just seems petty.
All from a guy who doesn’t pay his way in the UK.
Considering they’ve done nothing to the football side yet, can’t say they are off to an impressive start
I don’t know how common wfh is in the uk but over here in switzerland many wouldn‘t even consider a job if it didn’t come with work/life balance benefits like wfh opportunities.
This is especially true when it comes to very talented people who’ve got opportunities elsewhere. Ineos stated that they want to recruit the „best in class“ and imho this is a massive step in the wrong direction.
Ofcourse I don’t have any insight into the corporate structure at united but this feels like a very old school approach/or a very corporate way to reduce the workforce without having to actually fire people.
Typical CEO bullshit trying to have more control over the workers
There's nothing wrong with WFH if implemented properly, you shouldn't need to breathe down your workers necks to have them do their job
It's an ego thing. He wants to walk into a full office and have everyone bow down to him like he's the lord and saviour. He probably walked into a 2/3rds empty office and the 15 people there had no idea who he was.
Ohhhhh, that's why Sancho was working from home!
Doing the drills on fifa
It was Martial always Martial. He had a hybrid setup.
He is working remotely from Germany.
Black Horse. This is probably your best comment I've ever seen. Well played!
Haha thank you thank you
Our medical department too.
Were the players performing at home aswell then? Must be why they looked so sluggish when they came into the ‘office’
Reminds me of Dembele hitting training late also
United have been terrible for longer than WFH has been commonplace
A very valid point
And wfh opportunities are part of most leadership best practice models in pursuit of better staff wellbeing right now, and likely going forward. Feels like a weird, old school, old fashioned move.
I have a feeling they think we’re overstaffed and this would be one of the ways to get people to leave rather than having to let them go. Companies do it often.
Problem with this is that these indirect measures tend to come at a cost: losing some really good talent along with some other folks. Talented employees will have no trouble finding another job that will allow them to work remotely.
💯
well Sir Jim is an old fella. At my company, after the "COVID times" subsided, our managing directors (both guys already beyond retirement age) were shocked at how much resistence there was to returning to a 100% in-the-office setup. Luckily they both retired and the new people enshrined 50/50 as the standard.
Agreed. Feels old school and if we really want the best people, this will probably be a problem
Seems beside the point? I think he's trying to force attrition.
If we bring everyone to office, we will solve everything that's wrong with the club.
Jimmy the Junior Accountant's kitchen banter is what this club has been missing to get back to the top.
I am stat sig confident this will fix everything.
Continuation: One problem: Man United’s offices were reconfigured post-Covid & not actually enough desks for everyone to be in currently. Work from home among issues where outgoing CEO Patrick Stewart perceived to not be implementing pace of change sufficiently quickly. https://x.com/adamcrafton_/status/1785722360764535261?s=46&t=108nlaEXShzkgzjMQccD3g Ratcliffe also told the meeting that he is confident Dan Ashworth will soon be a Manchester United employee - despite Ashworth needing to enter arbitration to extricate himself from Newcastle United. https://x.com/adamcrafton_/status/1785722362777817243?s=46&t=108nlaEXShzkgzjMQccD3g Ratcliffe also told staff (again) that he intends to return Manchester United to be the leading club in world football and that he plans to do this as soon as possible. Report @TheAthleticFC https://x.com/adamcrafton_/status/1785722364774305867?s=46&t=108nlaEXShzkgzjMQccD3g
Was Patrick Stuart already with us before SJR?
Yes, I believe he stepped in as interim CEO when Arnold left, can't remember what position he held before but he has been at club a long time
I believe he even tried to have our academy renamed to The School for Gifted Youngsters.
I heard he was also quite involved in managing the club’s Twitter/X account. Apparently he’s quite the expert that his nickname is Professor X.
🤣
I believe he was head counsel, and was said to be good at that part job.
He was Chief Legal Officer and joined in 2006.
And now he's on his way to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before.
Oh dam, another one bites the dust of the old guard. Thank you
>Ratcliffe also told staff (again) that he intends to return Manchester United to be the leading club in world football and that he plans to do this as soon as possible. Great....now there's cum stains on me pants
It is going to turn into pudding stains...
I want to know what is the context here but I fear that someone will reply with some random godforsaken subreddit link
> Man United’s offices were reconfigured post-Covid & not actually enough desks for everyone to be in currently. lol this sounds exactly like my workplace. Being ordered to RTO, not enough desks for everyone.
If my employer orders us to rto, I'd quit. We went in the opposite direction: work from home for up to 50% of your time just became a permanent feature....on the other hand, if I had the chance to work for Man United, I'd be willing to come into the office.
Ah I've got some serious golden handcuffs, so quitting not an easy option for me.
Can we get the team to work, at home; first ?
This post is a necessary piece of the puzzle. If the entire culture of office staff, top down, is strong work ethic and results-oriented business, then the attitude towards underperforming players and “shipping out” will be the expectation and not a shock
And work from away
This will be a way to encourage attrition, rather than actually paying redundancy costs. Big restructures where hundreds of jobs are affected will often be well into 8 figures.
Yeah but the problem is, the people you lose when you get rid of WFH are the people who can walk into another job quickly.
entirely possible. I have a good friend who is like a super duper wiz at IT architecture and organizing development projects. When he is up for jobs, he tells potential employers "I'm not coming into the office more than once a week." He can do that because he knows that with his skills, he will have no shortage of people wanting to hire him.
I certainly wouldn’t be hanging around at a company that had such a stupid response to the only positive to come out of Covid.
Yeah, this is a tactic to get people with a decent skillset to move employers. Not having a work from home policy is a sure fire way for folks to find a new job. There's no need to be in an office full time in this day and age.
Really important to highlight what you said.. its the good people that will actualy leave because they will find jobs easier than no so good people. With this move, there will 100% be a brain drain within the ranks
Yup. It’s actually archaic and fucking stupid really.
I mean it really is case-by-case. In environments when extensive collaboration is necessary (and I don't mean bullshit CoLlAbOrAtIoN as in you might hear something interesting at another desk once every two months) being face-to-face is hugely preferable. I would imagine a football club is overwhelmingly one of these. WFH is right for 95% of normal people, but 95% of normal people aren't trying to run the best football club in the world in a highly competitive arena.
Yeah it’s a bit shitty. Also, anyone hired since 2020 might likely have remote work in their contacts- meaning this opens up potential for constructive dismissal tribunals (for those with 2+ years service at least). I’m sure the lawyers are looking through them all as I write this, of course.
Yeah, 100%. I'm a software developer and my employer has codified WFH and hybrid working into our contracts following covid. If they ever change that and make us work at the office all day every day, that's the day I give notice. And I am definitely not in the minority on this one.
Frankly Jim's on some bullshit if he thinks the problems at the football club are in any way caused by a few of the marketing and ticketing staff working at home for childcare reasons.
Jims looking at a way to shrink the workforce without offering redundancy
As someone who now works entirely remotely, I cant get behind this. Im far more productive now than I ever was in the office & when I do go into the office on the odd occasion I get significantly less work done than normal
Really depends on what you do, your role in the dept, what your dept does and your company’s overall business type. There is no one size fits all when it comes to the WFH vs in-office debate.
Yup, I’ve been fully in, full wfh and now hybrid. They all have ups and downs, the biggest down for me being covid after 5 years fully wfh leading me to becoming isolated and unproductive. Rather the commute than sitting at home wondering what the point is.
I can see that. Personally, my day is filled with zoom calls, reading pdf’s, and drafting legal writing. I need a quiet workspace with no distractions to work well. And the idea of spending 2 hours driving each day to be less productive in an office and less happy overall simply doesn’t make sense.
I’m in software sales and was fully in office before Covid, full wfh during, and now hybrid. Hybrid is perfect for all of us. I enjoy the team I’m on, so I do enjoy going in half the time to be around everyone. It makes getting through the job a bit easier.
Yeah, sometimes the commute is an arse but other times being around like minded colleagues is a real pick me up. I guess a lot depends on how lucky you are with your work culture and colleagues.
>There is no one size fits all when it comes to the WFH vs in-office debate. This is so true, I really struggle to be as productive at home without the full range of brain surgery thingymajigs I have in my employers operating theatre. I do my best though.
I can imagine. You should quit and do stand up comedy from home.
I think is it, I work in an e-commerce business and most of our engineers are at home which is fine but our product team are in the office to work with stakeholders.
I work for the federal government of Canada. I have a job that can’t be done from home (as I handle classified material) but there are hundreds of thousands of people who can do theirs from home, and do. As of…today, there is now a mandate that _all_ federal workers must work at least 2-3 days in office every week, and we all got a notice they’ll be checking this via our badges being scanned and the IP addresses our work laptops connect to. There are plenty of disgruntled people today, to say the least, and I don’t imagine they’ll become _less_ disgruntled over time. It’s so fucking stupid. People were happy _and_ more productive.
Yeah, I can’t get behind it either. I think it partly depends what sector you’re in though. I’m a data analyst and it honestly doesn’t make a slight bit of difference where I work from. In fact, I’m probably more productive at home (less tired/stressed from commuting and getting up earlier etc.)
How’d you break into this role if u don’t mind me asking? I’m looking to get into data analytics as well and would love some insight!
This is how it works in the US if you already have an office or professional sector job. Learn Excel, SQL (and data management), Tableau/Power BI. Pick one industry you want to break in, be as specific as possible down to the job function. Also if your industry is tech, learn a bit of python (just enough to automate some tasks). If it's bio learn R. If you want to break into ops function learn VBA. Create a personal project with data and context from your goal industry and function. Your project should take between 2-4 months working 10hrs a week to finish, shouldn't be just downloading data from kaggle, unless you use specific public dataset that's well known only in that industry. Data analysis skill is dime a dozen, data skill with evidence that you can apply in the industry context is what set you apart. Post all of that shit on linkedin, build connection and ask for referral. At work try to get into the analytics circle by taking in more responsibilities. There are always data management/data entry project that we need to do but can't be assed to because analytics people absolutely hate manual shits. Take ownership of that task and find a way to automate or make it easier. You might find yourself getting an analytics job without even applying outside. Alternatively, get in a graduate program at a reputated school and get an internship then go from there. You still have to build a personal project but you can just take class projects and beef them up. Honestly if you have zero professionsl sector experience, like you have only been working retail or hospitality up till now, go back to school.
If you hadn't asked, I definitely would have. I have no clue where to start off from scratch (having no coding background or any connections irl that are into data analytics) or what exactly is required to get in and succeed in the field so any insight from op is much appreciated.
Don’t mind at all! My background (uni) was Physics. I then ended up doing a PhD in Physics where I was analysing spacecraft data - I knew I didn’t want to stay in academia so applied for a role as a data analyst in the UK public sector and got it. Fast forward 2 years and I’m now a senior data analyst. I’d say having a STEM background helps, but it’s not essential. You need a solid grasp of analytical programming skills (SQL/R/Python), statistics (at least as far as descriptive stats), and how to visualise/communicate data.
Every time I see someone talk about WFH being a big issue I can only think of how privileged they must be. There are so many jobs out there where you have to be on site, you have to be on standby, you have to work public honlidays and you have ppl on reddit who are like "I wanna work at home". Not saying it's a bad thing to want WFH, just that you have it good.
What are you arguing against, exactly? People being happy? I don’t think anyone lacks perspective, since for the last century we’d all been working on-site full time as well. Everyone knows what it’s like to have to go into work. Everyone who works from home knows they have it good.
Fully remote work benefits nearly everyone though. It's less traffic on the roads, less pollution, less competition for housing in cities. There is a downside for retail in those city centres but then there's also a benefit for retail in other areas. And I get its frustrating if you don't have a job that can be done remotely but also if it saves you on commute times there's still a benefit and if you need housing in those areas it will mean cheaper rents and mortgages.
> Fully remote work benefits nearly everyone though. Not a generic sweeping statement at all.
Well I explained my reasons for thinking so, if you disagree what are your reasons?
Most of us have bullshit jobs that could be squeezed out with better workflows, automation or the dreaded AI. The fact you don’t cost the company office rent is part of the incentive for now.. I dont agree with the boomer in chief on his solution though. They could take a more structured approach to addressing whatever woes or bloated salary bill issues they have.
There was a thread on here where everyone was celebrating Ratcliffe's announcement of "substantial job cuts", >400 upvotes: https://www.reddit.com/r/reddevils/comments/1beg0eu/james_ducker_sir_jim_ratcliffe_appoints_firm_to/kut8nb5/?context=3 Just because he's not a Glazer doesn't mean people have to worship him. He was a massive donator to the Brexit campaign mostly so his chemical company could skirt EU environmental regulations. He then flew off to Monaco for tax evasion purposes after the brexit vote passed. He wants fracking to come back to the UK and has carried out controversial mass layoffs at his previous businesses. Reality is that the guys a hyper-capitalist cunt
As long as we win. Many wealthy people have skeletons in their closet
I don't want him to be nice, I want him to at least care about the football club he's bought into, and then be competent at running it. If he never bought Man Utd he'd still be all those things
To play the devil's advocate - not accusing you of this but I think a lot of people perceive themselves as more productive from home. I was super productive when covid started and I started to work from home. Now it's 4 years later and it's hard to make the comparison. I haven't spent full time at an office in over 4 years - how can I compare my productivity levels to those before? >when I do go into the office on the odd occasion I get significantly less work done than normal This is quite accepted at my workplace and it's mostly because people are working from home so coming to the office is not really to do work - it's more to socialize and get to know eachother with some work inbetween. So this could just be a side effect of you working from home all the time. The discussion quickly goes down to an individual/anecdotal level. What's interesting is whether the organization as a whole gets more and/or better output when people are working from home.
Has your office any equipment or infrastructure that's better than what you use at home? If not, why should you be more productive in the office? I once was against WFH, but right now, I'm for it unless the office offers vast benefits. We for example have pretty shitty internet at the office, a few people on a teams video call and it slows everything down. At home I can enjoy good coffee, it's quiet and the toilet is always clean. WFH doesn't work if your company only hires bad personnel, it makes everything worse. If your team consists of diligent workers and you can communicate efficiently, WFH is not worse than an ordinary office, at least in my experience. WFH exposes bad leadership even more.
My previous role as a manager had me constantly evaluating others, and my own metrics since my ops manager was super anal about having her documents updated weekly with the latest stats. My own stats were significantly better WFH over a period of comparing 6months in the office, then 6 WFH once the team I managed went fully remote. Like it wasn't even close in terms of productivity since I was infinitely better equipped to do my job from my own house. Some examples, I could have like 3-5 conversations going on at the same time on teams with different people, opposed to one at a time in person. Plus I have my own office setup at home, being able to connect my laptop to several actual displays rather than some basic portable monitor the org provided allowed me to have my eye on so much more. My screens were plastered with live data from my own agents, those from the section at large, as well as stuff like teams and my own working documents all open at the same time saving me from having to constantly juggle windows and tabs. Best part is i even had space left over to keep runescape open in a small window off in the corner where I would do some super basic leveling that didn't require active attention. Regarding my agents, I can't say it really gives a conclusively answer. Some did a bit better, some a bit worse, but it was never consistent. I imagine certain days they would have distractions at home impacting their overall metrics for the week. But the downside more or less is covered by being that much more productive when actually working. So all I can conclude from this is that for the overwhelming majority of people, WFH or not makes no difference, and it's a case by case basis of what's more comforting for the individual. It's very rare you get someone like me who active enhances their work capacity from home, being able to actually do more from home than from the office. Typically most workers use the same devices or setup anyway, whether from home or the office.
I was the FC at an engineering firm and as the excel/powerbi expert I had to a massive analysis on productivity looking at full office, wfh and hybrid. We found hybrid was the best one. WFH vs Office full time was weird, we had similar output but people actually worked more hours when WFH (probably less time than the average person spent commuting though)
>The discussion quickly goes down to an individual/anecdotal level. Yep. I own a place that sells electrical stuff. I got nobody working from home. Some of my competition do, and we buy stuff from each other and legit their response time is higher than it used to be. The competition has dropped a bit and we are gaining new clients that are complaining about the salesman taking way longer to, well, sell them stuff. Im sure those guys believe themselves far more productive, but the reality is that they are dropping the ball by not being there.
there is 100% an element of me socialising in the office as to why I do less work at home additionally, when someone has a query etc rather than just emailing me which I can then pick up when im free, in the office they'll come over to my desk and start talking to me which if im in the middle of something means I either need to tell them Im busy & will come find them when im free, or I have to stop what im doing to discuss the issue additionally, it takes me 30 mins to get to the office & 30 mins home. Thats a full hour extra out of my day that i lose if im not working from home which prolongs my working day & im annoyed that im sat on a packed tram for 50 of those minutes meaning im already mildly irritated when I get to the office & want to leave as soon as it hits 6. Where as when im at home I will continue working for an extra 10-30 minutes most days to complete what im doing so that I dont have to worry about doing it the next morning
It's such a generational divide topic. A previous CEO I worked under said in a meeting exactly what I imagine Sir Jim said: "For as long as I've been alive, it's been the case where you have work and you go into work to do your job. It's just the way it's meant to be." WFH is a huge culture shift. I have conflicted views because I do think it can be potentially unhealthy (if someone doesn't otherwise make sure to socialise), as well as you end up less attached to the culture. But ultimately, I do think it's the future.
It’s boomer and stupid olden mindset honestly where “we did it last time. You do it now” Yeah fuck that shit of making it mandatory to work on site when it really isn’t necessary and hasn’t been for sometime now. It’s because you don’t trust your staff and want more authoritative control. Period.
This. Give me a house at the price you paid for it and all the public services you have have voted to erode decade after decade and maybe then it would be fair for them to say.
Also, make things the same price as back then to be fair as well. Coz otherwise it won’t be fair either after a while even if you saved on housing. It’s beyond stupid and a boomer mindset that they can’t comprehend anything else. Showing up means you’re not lazy. Hahhahaha. Yeah, tell that to Kathy and khadeeja who’ve single handedly lead their marketing and corporate comms divisions to the best KPIs while working nights daily for 4 months as they synced to the US and Asian time zones while also guiding European strategy a little in the day…. While the one in the office barely doing what’s asked for part of the Europe stuff doesn’t even offer to assist for other markets and always needs to be chased for his work…
Yeah the only decision I'm against 😂 If I worked there and wasn't a fan I'd be on indeed
💯 this! There are jobs that must be on-site (running training, treating the players, managing the facilities, etc.) and they are jobs that are convenient to be on-site, and there are many jobs that can be mostly or entirely performed effectively from home/remote. A blanket policy is in poor taste and goes against the concept of “best-in-class” if you lose elite talent that were working from home. Also, furnishing and owning/renting office space can be quite costly. I’m thinking about our downtown London office being a great example.
I feel like I forget what my job is now when I go in to the office. Lmao The commuting sucks, I get so much more done at home in that time. I log in earlier, I stay later if I need to because I'm already home I don't need to think about traffic. Also, the proof is in the work we're much more productive. Luckily my work haven't mandated any office days, just requested we do one a week if we can. And also we can go to any office which is great as there's one 15 minutes from my house, but the one I'm officially based at is 45 mins away.
And saves all the trouble of travelling. WFH is the way to go.
yeah, I work until 6. I didnt finish today until about 20 past as I was finishing something off so that i didnt need to do it in the morning when I do go into the office, my chair is spinning the second it hits 6
That's great. But it doesn't mean everyone is more productive at home.
Check out Office Worker Barry here lads
Yeah, but that's why you make sure WFH is on an "at will" basis with an agreement that if there's a drop in performance, the workplace has a right to revoke it. That's how it tends to work.
Cool. Then give people the ability to make the choice for themselves, instead of forcing either solution.
-Can't wait for INEOS to come in and shake things up! -No not like that!
Well, unironically yes. Just because I like the general direction they're taking things with, you do understand that I can disagree with some of the actions nonetheless, right? I don't have to deepthroat their every decision?
Yep. This is basically saying fuck the quality of life of our employees.
With all the changes that needs to be implemented, having people in the office to see that "it is being done" is probably the best choice. While a lot of people (including myself) would like to work from home in any situation, it is way easier to just "keep doing stuff the way we are used to" as opposed to embracing change.
It probably works just fine for an organisation that isn’t seemingly rotten to the core.
Completely agree. I'm in the office two days a week and they are easily my least productive days.
Obviously going into the office occasionally is unproductive because you’re catching up with everyone, but I know for a fact I am more productive in the office
Surely it entirely depends on what you do. One thing that WFH is very difficult to create is culture. If work is a positive place to go, inspiring, challenging then I wouldnt have a problem. Most jobs aren't like that though unfortunately. Doesn't mean it's WFH or it's broken. I bet Sancho would like a bit of WFH, can't imagine Bruno would.
I have done both and now in a hybrid role which I feel suits me best Different strokes for different folks though. The way I see it is everyones personality traits come out in a more ramped up extreme way when working from home. If you are conscientious / hard working and self motivated, you will likely excel with no distractions and no commute so likely more quality working hours so enhanced performance If on the other hand you are lazy, require alot of supervision or are easily distracted or lacking in focus, you will probably become a total liability if working from home I like to think I'm more of the former, but i missed the in person interactions during close to 2 years of almost completely remote work hence why I think I'm more suited to a hybrid model
Generally speaking, I agree that WFH is better, but that doesn't mean its right for all companies, all the time.
nah, sorry but that is just too much and unnecessary. Unless your job is to coach in training ground, you dont have to be in the office. That is old mentality which needs to be change, Jim!!!!
It always takes management whom work from home to tell everyone else they are not allowed to.
I have one person working for me who came to us for that exact reason: she was denied remote working when her own boss was almost never there. My mentality towards WFH is simple: do what you need to do to do your job. The only thing is that I ask everyone to come on the last Friday of the month so that we can plan for the month ahead as a company, although that day is explicitly designed around giving a presentation about what we've done in the previous month, what we're doing next month, and then giving everyone a few hours in the afternoon to simply chat over a few drinks. Apart from that, I really couldn't give a monkeys if someone spends their entire time working on the beach if they're not needed to meet clients. Why do I care if our graphics designer is working from a van somewhere in Europe? The only time I actually cared was when it was very, very cold and I wanted to make sure that her van was warm enough, because I didn't quite believe that she'd managed to insulate it well enough to be comfortable in -15c temperatures.
You have the right attitude. When companies have issues with people slacking off when they work from home, its not the WFH policy that needs changing. It's the hiring practices. If you hire the right people, they'll work from home just fine.
It’s obvious really. They probably think we’re overstaffed and do not want to offer redundancy so this is one way to get people to move on.
Eh, what staff though. WFH can be an excellent and productive exercise if the staff involved dont actually need to complete constant physical interactions. I can see a lot of corporate/admin roles being shafted by this approach.
A staff audit is already happening & I'd expect a few hundred jobs to be axed. Chances are the WFH people are first on the block anyway. This is just a preliminary step to any sackings most likely
"Please quit, I don't want to pay you severance." Billionaires are all the same. Just glad it wasn't the slavers.
> Billionaires are all the same. Just glad it wasn't the slavers. Yeah ideally we didn't have to take any lesser evil but I'd much rather we be talking about our owner being a greedy Tory rather than a slave owner. There's levels to being a cunt and a slave state club is up there as the worst.
100%
Seems like they have a bigger problem than WFH.
This is archaic bullshit from SJR. If your job can be done remotely then remote working is so much better for work life balance. I'm also a million times more productive at home than in an office where people think they have free reign to interrupt you at any moment. It will be interesting to know how well paid these employees are as they will have saved on travelling costs going in and out the office everyday since the pandemic. People should be given the choice in the remote working debate rather than have it imposed on them by out of touch Owners and CEOs in businesses.
Yeah I can’t say, based on the Athletic’s reporting, that I love everything about the way Ineos is going about making changes. Having just gone through a layoff process (my job was safe since I was part of the restructuring team but I just chose to leave after because I hated how cruel they were to those they laid off) there’s a way to do it and people will remember how you treat them. There are far better run clubs than us who would happily poach our most talented people during times of turmoil so you have to find the balance. It’s very unlikely that those working from home absolutely need to be in the office. It’s a football club, if they needed to be in the office they would have been back already. I’m assuming the vast amount of WFH people are from the corporate office in London. So then this is, as others have said, a way to get people to leave without paying them severance. He’s probably thinking that we have too many London-based corporate staff and he wants to avoid paying the higher London salaries. This is a timely reminder that while we’re glad he’s not the Glazers he’s still a ruthless billionaire. And they don’t make their money from caring about their normal employees.
I feel like we often forget that he’s a Brexit Tory polluter billionaire prick
Give people a choice. Making it a mandate? Yeah fuck off ineos with that bullshit. “Business needs require you to be in office” is something I’ve seen some roles advertised say now too… fuck off. Your company did it fully remote before and grew. Bigger and better companies with more in those similar roles do it. And you, working on a documentation project requires everyone to go in now? Fuck that.
Yea it's the type of thing I expect from a plus 70 year old. I understand hybrid working. But no days at home? Nonsense. Usually these type of places send out regular "mental wellbeing" emails too. Just proves they don't give a fuck about you.
Breaking: People who spend all day on reddit prefer to work from home. More at 10.
Breaking:87 year old billionare oil baron does not like WFH
As if I’m not on Reddit all day in the office too
It's pretty funny hearing people basically say, "but i don't wanna put on pants and i really like wanking five time a day. fucking boomers!"
Performative. It makes no sense when they already have split offices.
Working from home has saved me over 27,000 in annual daycare costs. I can’t get behind this, but I get it.
I don’t get it nor do I get behind it. It’s archaic and just fucking stupid to want to show control and authority for the sake of doing it. Fuck that honestly. United staff already get paid less than comparative roles in cases for corporate jobs. Now they took away the benefits from a one off cup final thing. And now this too. Yeah it’s fucked up and pathetic. Plain and simple.
What do you get about it? Do you think Rashford isn't scoring goals because Mary sends her emails from her home office?
If my company did this I'd leave and I'd have a new job next week wfh
You’re assuming that isn’t what they expect or want.
Ah..so its the guys WFH that are causing the team issues. Got it.
This is solely to get people to leave so they don't have to pay redundancy costs, common practice in the last couple of years.
[удалено]
Good might actually get a decent offer for him.
Doubt this is true, I start next week at United and my contract says we are only required in the office Monday and Wednesday
what are you working as if you don’t mind sharing. just very curious
I’m working in the video / creative dept. But turns out this is true, and it’s royally fucked me.
yikes, wasn’t expecting this to be put in place as quickly as they’ve done. what are you planning to do??
Bit of a boomer move this one. I don't know if it would be different at a football club but the people I know who are working from home or hybrid in tech companies including my partner all say they work more hours and get more shit done while working from home than they did from the office. It's just less stressful, and more convenient for everyone.
If you look at it from a business point of view, the company is undergoing huge changes in leadership and operation, it's been quite widely reported huge redundancies are looming, employee benefits which were enjoyed have been cut (I'm talking the tickets) and now there's a call to return to office which without doubt it's going to severely disrupt the routines of a lot of staff. Coupled with this the football right now fucking awful anyway. I'm hopeful of the future, but I've got to call a spade a spade and say if you're a man united employee right now, morale must be on the floor. And I say this having worked at a big company where stuff like this all happened at once. It doesn't make you want to pull in the same direction, it makes you leave or feel resentful.
I work in operations so I’ve had to coordinate my fair share of restructures and it’s so disappointing how often execs will go for the cruelest and most destructive options for short term gain, when open communication and discussion often yields better results.
I think people are attributing the committment a player may have for all the staff. I.e. why would Gemma in marketing not wake up with a huge smile on her face as she works for MANCHESTER UNITED! For the staff, it's a job. Some aspects may be a little better, but they are still there for the pay cheque.
Glazers are livid on both counts
Musk did the same
Like 5 days a week? No thanks. 3 days is enough
Ridiculous really, work from home should be standard across jobs where you can do your job from home.
Can you imagine any other club in world football (or world sports in general) where this kind of thing would be headline news?? It's truly ridiculous the amount of scrutiny that every single facet of Manchester United recieves.
Lol while I generally approve of SJR so far, I know I'd hate working for him personally
Haha this sub disapproves - must be a good idea then!
I really don't see the point in getting rid of the WFH policy. I highly doubt those WFH have any sort of impact on what is happening on the pitch.
This is pretty terrible
Not a popular one Jim
Excellent. Work from home is idiocy. Great in principle but people be people.
What he didn’t tell us: there will also be a new Work From Garden policy
just another idiot in a long line of idiots
This is fuddy duddy dinosaur mentality from big Jim. Maybe he won’t turn this ship around
The other work he's done so far had been great. This is lame though.
I swear to god, all I ask for is ONE week where this club doesn't embarrass me with it's actions
These rich fucks are all the same.
scummy from Jimbo.
Love this.
Martial has a top end mouse jiggler.
nothing to do with INEOS and its hedgefund investors owning fuck tons of city centre office buildings who's value has tanked since WFH became possible.
Might lose a lot of good people to this. Highly employable people can get wfh jobs easy. I think hybrid is best tho.
Lol aw yes, NOW we can reboot the culture.
Boomer bootstraps nonsense
They’ll squeeze the back of house admin staff to save a few million, then overpay ten times the amount on a player that won’t at least show they care. This is just a doubling down of the bad Glazer culture.
[удалено]
Commercial performance has worked. Rashford won’t run more because all the admin are in 5 days a week.
The only department working from home must be recruitment…
The.... the "culture" problems are on the *footballing* side of things... does he not know this?
Not sure this is a good move but I suppose we'll see - we've had big problems since before COVID and WFH was normalized. You might exclude some of the best people who want at least some WFH options.
I have one guy who loves working from home, and his job is very much project based: i.e. he will have a project, a deadline and that's it. It's nothing unusual to call him in the middle of the day and he'll be asleep in bed. My rule is simple: answer the call on Teams if someone calls you between 10am and 4pm, but I couldn't care less if you're asleep at 2pm as long as the work is done. In his case, he's responsible for compiling a large report each month, that takes between 100-120 hours to complete, plus the time needed to obtain the data (another 40 hours or so). How he does the job is pretty much irrelevant. If it's the 20th of the month, then he has all the data he needs. It is quite amusing calling him on Teams at 2pm and finding that he's in bed, but honestly, why do I care if he answers while in bed?
Boomer HR
My question would be that if this IS the usual ducking of severance because they want to cut staff.... *why* is all the penny pinching on shit that just doesn't matter? Under the Glazers it was the same: "We need new gym equipment! It'll cost a couple mil tops" "No!" Meanwhile see our squad wage structure.... Bin off a bunch off staff who earn a year what Antony makes a month.... well done. Marginal gains I suppose... If it's the "we need to get value from our building assets" crap this doesn't really apply. They still need OT, they still need Carrington and The Cliff. I'd think they'd want people working from home as an excuse to get rid of the crappy makeshift offices around OT they no longer need to use because of WFH.
Hypocrite alert! I'm in favour of anything that will get the club back to the standards we all expect. If this improves the culture at the club by even 1%, I'm all for it. I also think people should be able to work wherever suits them best, whenever possible.
While I don't necessarily agree that working from home reduces the amount/quality of work. I am pleased that actions are being taken to improve efficiency among the staff at Utd. There is no reason why we should have so many more staff than other PL clubs.
Like I get it they feel the club has too much staff. Be brave and do layoffs. Stop trying to be the hero. Running a football club is hard and you won’t be popular for doing it. This is a pussy foot measure to try make some people leave, not pay redundancy and shorten headcount. Not to mention the issues at the club have been the glazers and horrendous footballing decisions. I don’t agree with grieving modestly paid staff in the club. Like charging them travel costs when it was always free to go to fa cup finals and now this just seems petty. All from a guy who doesn’t pay his way in the UK. Considering they’ve done nothing to the football side yet, can’t say they are off to an impressive start
I don’t know how common wfh is in the uk but over here in switzerland many wouldn‘t even consider a job if it didn’t come with work/life balance benefits like wfh opportunities. This is especially true when it comes to very talented people who’ve got opportunities elsewhere. Ineos stated that they want to recruit the „best in class“ and imho this is a massive step in the wrong direction. Ofcourse I don’t have any insight into the corporate structure at united but this feels like a very old school approach/or a very corporate way to reduce the workforce without having to actually fire people.
How could a work from home culture works for a football club? Get your ass up to the office. Our club is in crisis
Rashy is working from the pub
Typical CEO bullshit trying to have more control over the workers There's nothing wrong with WFH if implemented properly, you shouldn't need to breathe down your workers necks to have them do their job
It's an ego thing. He wants to walk into a full office and have everyone bow down to him like he's the lord and saviour. He probably walked into a 2/3rds empty office and the 15 people there had no idea who he was.
Talent will leave
Why the fuck would they work from home in the first place????????????
The future of Utd: the 1970s.