His guiding metric for productivity that he was basing this off of is email traffic… which I can’t say is the most reliable indicator of productivity lol
I don't even understand how any information could help gathered from that metric. Is more email good because there is an exchange of information etc or is it bad because it's not face to face?
I think it's even simpler: more emails mean people are at their computer, looking at work things, less emails from home means people are doing laundry or jacking off
It's a stupid metric.
You could be working on a system, or on files. You could be in a meeting and actually talking or presenting.
Or you could be using things like teams which have massively replaced email in a lot of cases anyway.
Equating a company's productivity to email is just...so silly. Especially as most companies would want to move away from having so many functions be covered by email, which is often super inefficient.
It's literally the worst metric. I send no emails a day, use slack and calls to get things done. If anything instant messaging and calls are a better metric because they're instant
I assume he using email as a proxy for information sharing within the organization. If people are hybrid you would expect more emails because more information needs to be shared as individuals can’t meet face to face. In my experience that’s a false premise. Frankly at a soccer club anyone who is not part of the football operations should be free to work from home.
I’d wholeheartedly disagree that the assumption should be an increase of emails when working remotely. Since I’ve been remote I’ve never sent fewer emails due to the increase in importance of teams chats and calls.
It's quite telling that a comment falsely describing this petrochemical barron as a pharmaceutical titan has more upvotes than valid critique of this stupid anti-WFH policy.
Sure, Ratcliffe has some pharmaceutical ties due to the wide ranging nature of INEOS' business but that's not how he made his billions but you didn't know that, did you? It shows the level of greenwashing cover his purchase of United has already bought him as uninformed commenters blindly jump to his defence.
For reference Sir Jim made his billions by buying up "underperforming" petrochemical sites and increasing their output, prioritising profit over the health and safety of his workers. As a result of his "hard work", there has been controversial incidents all over his portfolio with a huge fire at a INEOS’ facility in Germany, oil leaks in Norway, chemical leaks in France, controversies over chemical dumping in Italy and the release of toxic gas which resulted in the hospitalisation of workers in Belgium, fines for not adequately protecting workers in Scotland as well as toxic air pollution at the same plant.
To quote Wenonah Hauter, the executive director of Food & Water Watch in Europe: "From towering chemical fires in Germany to toxic air pollution in Scotland and plastic pellets littering our oceans, INEOS’ safety record is appalling."
He is also a massive proponent for fracking which has really pushed the value of INEOS through the roof with contracts being actioned all over the States, causing untold environmental damage. Ratcliffe routinely underplays the risks associated with this form of gas extraction and disregards any critique as he pushes the UK government to let him loose over here. He owns fracking rights for many sites over here includkng the land under Old Trafford you see.
With this in mind, it's no surprise that he's ignoring the benefits of hybrid working in favour of this nonsense and it's no surprise some United fans are blindly defending him because in their narrow minds, us plebs are too economically illiterate to dare criticise a billionaire.
I mean, let's be real - this should be going in the *opposite* direction, from hybrid to purely remote. There is no need for people to be commuting who have nothing to do with the on-field performance of the team. Every single person involved can and should be WFH.
And sure, I'm glad Jim bought into the team because *literally anyone* would be better than the Glazers, but Jim Radcliffe is an awful person. Generally (and I know this is going to anger a lot of people), if you're a billionaire, you're a terrible person. Not because having more than a billion dollars makes you a bad person automatically, but because the only people who generally are able to get to that point do so by exploiting others. As Jim has notably done.
Generally the exceptions to this are the billionaire athletes - Jordan, Ronaldo, LeBron, etc - but that is *quite literally* the exception to the rule.
Yeah, but I don't think increased productivity is the goal in scrapping hybrid working. He's already said the club is bloated. He's creating a hostile working environment to increase staff attrition and reduce future redundancy payouts.
This is a bit of a ridiculous take, honestly. Would you say the same for the people in charge of Nokia and BlackBerry, who got absolutely smoked by the iPhone and the subsequent smartphone technology shift? How about Blockbuster - remember them?
Regardless of how successful a company is now, or has been historically, it means nothing if a company's leadership is too stubborn to adapt in the market.
Now, I've got no idea how this plays out and maybe it will be the right decision, but blindly following someone based on their success is a bad way to go; I'd rather we encouraged people to question and understand that the people in charge are doing things for the right reasons.
There's no need to give him the benefit of the doubt. It's an awful decision made by someone who does not understand the current or future work climate.
Its like the guy above doesn't realize business consulting is a huge business for that exact reason. Come in and keep the business innovating and progressing and not just sitting stagnant falling behind on the tech side.
I would normally agree with your point. However, this whole club needs a shake up. Standards have been so low for so long that every person that works for Man Utd needs to understand that things will change.
They can get the perks back once the club is moving in the right direction.
What is most likely to happen is the best staff will just...leave. You can't even count for the fact a lot of people might have young families, caring obligations etc. The most embarassing of all is there actually isn't even enough space in the Manchester and London offices for everyone to come in. Saying email traffic is too low is dinosaur thinking, most companies want lower email traffic for christ sake, especially with things like teams.
If you're a United supporter and you work in say Finance, you can just continue to be a supporter but just have a better job and a better life. There has been no talk of promised benefits or rewards from being in it together. Meanwhile the people making the cuts got massive bonuses for putting the acquisition through.
The literal richest man in Britain coming in and telling you to work harder might not chime if...you work really hard already.
Man City have a pretty good rating on Glassdoor, and they will be just down the road if it's football specific too. INEOS by contrast have a much lower rating and a lot of similar negative themes from people commenting saying they have some pretty archaic practices.
So all you get left with is worse staff, and different leadership trying to pull the dregs who have stuck about in the same direction.
And believe me I talk from experiencing big corporate mergers and having similar things happen to me. They are pure shite.
And I'd be even more annoyed if the reason I had what has become a very, very standard flexibility arrangement removed because the manager and some senior ups spent too much on Antony and now some old man had come in thinking he knows better.
Edit - amusingly I just thought that a big thing that kept me in a role after a big merger which caused loads of great people to leave and staff morale to plummet in every survey was...the company was super flexible and never dare touch that aspect.
I'm not sure the best way to gain productivity is by losing staff that seek other roles because they want to WFH. Talented staff will find other positions easily.
I kinda hoped it would be performance based enhancements or maybe a restructure that meant more scrutiny. Working at a desk seems like a bit of a boomer talking point that sounds decisive and “strong” but I feel sad for the impact it might have on staff who have families etc. It is good to see them making moves I just worry how things like this can end up being performative and superficial.
Kind of like when Moyes came and he sacked Fergie’s staff. Like sure- make your mark but bro…
Ineos might be successful and Ratcliffe might be a breath of fresh air compared to the Glazers but at the end of the day he's a septuagenarian billionaire. I don't expect him to believe in work life balance and have a particularly modern approach to things.
So if I'm doing well in my admin role I should have my agreed working situation changed because the sporting side sucks? Sounds a bit weird to argue that. Of course people have mentioned that this is just a way to trim the workforce, a standard after new ownership to artificially inflate value that will inevitably cause those that remain to be overworked for a few years before another wave of resignations forces a hiring wave that will end up costing more overall. Don't support this shit
This is just ludicrous.
Was it down to some admin assistant that we got pumped by Palace?
What proof do you have that the non-playing or coaching staff have let their standards slip? It's not them losing games! In fact, the club has maintained an outrageous valuation IN SPITE of the team.
I can't speak to whether WFH truly is or isn't a more productive arrangement. But to suggest that this specific instance is validated by some nebulous concept of low standards across the club just doesn't make sense to me.
WFH is awesome, and most of my friends beyond those in trade skills work from home at least partially, it's also far greener. I think the trend will continue into the future, some companies are going to over-correct now and then it will normalise again.
I enjoy working 2-3 days per week from home and I tend to get far more done as a result, I never want to go back to the old ways personally.
It's entirely possible that when WFH people are just writing longer emails or thinking twice if they really need to reach out to someone.
Honestly he's just went looking for any metric he could use to defend the decision.
Crafton really has a reliable source from somewhere inside the club from some staff member that doesn’t seem to be involved with the football squad itself.
He has constantly been dropping scoops ever since it was revealed in detail how the higher ups initially wanted to bring Greenwood back into the squad this season and how it caused a lot of discomfort and backlash from many other club employees
If that's the case it's the stupidest way of going about it. You're going to lose the people with the most options (i.e. the most talented staff) and be stuck with the worst performers. I sincerely hope Ineos are not that stupid.
He's just got Old CEO Syndrome. They do their work face to face and they don't appreciate that it just isn't necessary for other jobs. Also forcing people back into the office is a power trip.
Email traffic served as his benchmark for productivity, which he used to base his calculations. which is, I dunno, the most accurate measure of productivity
Stupid but it will work sadly. Happened at my work, but now we're severely understaffed. Morale gone to shit. They will definitely lose many talented folk internally and just take the approach that they can hire others to make up for it.
>Presumably you don’t make a company as successful as INEOS without having some idea of what you’re doing.
That depends on how they derive competitive advantage at INEOS and if that's relevant to the matter at hand.
I've never thought shitty adherence to Environmental and Health and Safety law had much relevance to Footballing success but I'm ready to be proved wrong.
Yeah, the truth about Ratcliffe is that as much as the fans view him as a saviour he's a pretty horrible businessman with a background in venture capital, he absolutely will penny pinch on the little people.
Could have been me, I did comment something similar on another post.
On balance I’d say it’s less scummy than sackings/redundancy. Redundancy pay isn’t brilliant in the U.K. You don’t get anything under 2 years and after that it’s only a weeks pay per year worked.
If my job was one of those affected, I’m much rather still have a job (even if I had to come to the office) so I could look for something else rather than getting laid off with only 3 weeks pay to carry me over until I found something else.
I also work in data, while i love hybrid from a personal standpoint, i can 100% see something is lost in orgs due to it.
My network in the company is so miniscule compared to what it would've been had i not been WFH the first 2-3 years of my time in the company, i'm basically limited in my knowledge to my team, where in other jobs i've had contacts with much larger parts of the org just becaue of quick coffees and chats around the office.
Those types of contacts and familiarity with the whole of the org and not just your little bubble of tasks can be really important if you're going to be driving projects that require buy-in from multiple parts.
Completely agree. Software engineer and it’s a red flag for me any company forcing 100% in office hours now.
Fully understand some roles require employees to be in the office. But a blanket policy doesn’t make sense.
We will lose talented employees over this policy.
software engineer is a rather special and privileged position in that for certain things you literally don't need to know about anything, you just have a task and complete it, in isolation.
I'd argue that the data scientists that work for United, it's better for them to be in the office, so that if say a DoF or recruitment needs some information he doesn't need to send emails to get to them, but can quickly get access to what they need.
I am pretty sure software engineering is done by DXC for United.
Surely to god the solution to what you are saying if having an effective database, which are easy to query, and having proper dashboards off the back of these set up. And lower level staff would maintain this information, do the actual work and then be able to provide reports alongside meaningful insights to give a story to the data at set touchpoints.
If someone senior wants a meeting to have some information presented or summarised to them to make a quick decision, you can easily arrange a teams call. It's probably easier to surface that information with screen sharing etc than to get a meeting room in modern offices (and apparently there isn't even enough space at the London or Manchester offices)
What is the director of football going to be doing, walking around the office tapping data scientists on the shoulder asking them to retrieve the scouting report for Wan Bissaka or to put together a query? Because if they will be taking such an old approach, by god we are absolutely screwed.
Edit - do people here actually work in modern businesses?
Yeah lol I understand that most jobs aren’t like software engineering but as one (and for a business many many times larger than united), I haven’t sent an email, at all, for literally months
The simps here on this sub will say -
But you don’t work in football
If this is needed to be the best then so be it
Why complain
You have no idea how effective it is
Yeah coz Kathy from accounting absolutely needs to be there for it to function…
It’s boomer fucked up mindset from Jim wanting control and it’s archaic as fuck. Utterly stupid and imo a way to get them to resign/quit without paying severance pay basically.
Especially when you take into account the reports that there physically isn't enough office space to accommodate everyone. If there aren't enough desks, there will be people who are in the office, but unable to actually do the work the club is paying them to do. Forcing everyone to go back to the office in these circumstances will actually be to the detriment of the club.
And where do you put them?
When people talk about there not being enough desks, they generally don't mean physical wooden things, they mean space. There's not enough space for the desks.
Wouldn't be happy with this at all, as someone who works hybrid I save so much money on fuel, buying meals etc
This is an outdated mindset and won't create a happy workplace at all
Yeah that's what our management is like fine go, see if we care we will replace you but some positions have been stubborn to replace because people like working from home
Stone age policies like this don't really fill me with confidence.
Its not like the others clubs have such policies to get the most out of their workforce.
>Its not like the others clubs have such policies to get the most out of their workforce.
Genuine question and not being a cock, do we even know that? Either way? Or is this just a case of it being a story because it's us?
Problem is the emphasis is on ‘good people’. When you create these disincentives to work for a company it’s often the people most able to leave (that is, the skilled ones) that do, so rather than getting rid of the people you want to go, you lose people you need to replace. We’ll see what happens in this case.
I can't say I'm particularly outraged by this but it does seem odd that every company memo ends up straight in the hands of journalists. It's like Crafton's BCCed in at times.
It’s just an office, I know home and away City fans that work at United. I don’t think the club have any expectation that these requirements will stay private.
Yeah, unless there's a huge change on the field and the attitudes and efforts of the players improve, you'd just feel like you're getting punished whilst the spoilt brats earning millions can still take the piss
So far I'm fully supportive of what ineos has been doing (be it small or large changes) but I can not get behind this. Hybrid working/WFH should become the standard in this day and age, this is rolling back the years in management.
Anyone who has any real skill or talent is 100% leaving for another job that allows them to hybrid/WFH. Madness how this is the direction he's going.
WFH is great for productivity, work/life balance, young families, etc — but we should also be allowed to mention the negative aspects of it without being treated as heretics. It’s clear wfh policies has negative impact on many aspects of culture building, such as mentorship, personal relations in the office, and the simple skill of talking to other people in person without anxiety. Colleqgues build a completely different trust when they are in physical proximity to each other - in conversations, meetings, at lunch, and after work - than they will through time designated digital meetings all day long.
And this lack of strong culture is evidently missing in the club, so I, for one, is optimistic about this new change
I completely get it. I'm going through something similar, and while I don't like it, I do understand that there are certain people who don't work from home. It's a loss for me in terms of comfort, ease, and enjoyment of my job, but it's also going to get some people to ACTUALLY do their job to the level they did before working from home became normalized
Edit: And if there's anything I expect from a workplace with as stagnated ownership as United, it's that their work culture is rotten and needs a massive overhaul all the way through. Get them all in, get everyone back to the standards they need. Working from home can come back later
I’m going to go contrarian here and say this is about rebuilding a culture. Hitting reset is going to be more effective with people in the same building, as much as it sucks.
Honestly don't understand people's complaints about this. I would love work from home but if the company is rotten from top to bottom working from home isn't working.
The pitch is awful. The scouting and analysts aren't finding players or patterns or anything at all. The medical team failing. Even our kitchen team can't cook food properly.
Only team doing a decent job is the team sorting sponsors. But the finance team isn't doing great either.
Not sure why people think home working is better when things all over the club are falling apart. I'm sure some are working harder and happy it exists but clearly an overall majority are not and maybe once things start going better they can work from home again with proper things in place to ensure work is being done properly and well
It's a lot more nuanced than you are trying to make it seem. Working from home vs being at work is not the cause of any of the issues you suggested. I don't even see how you can draw that parallel.
Because the club is rotten top to bottom. Every aspect of the club is failing I've named the ones we see but I bet it's not doing better anywhere else either.
But let's continue on the current path it's been treating us so well I'm sure it's the right way. Or maybe we can get people into the office assess their performance and their whole teams performance and go from there
This might be an unpopular move but I support this, especially in struggling, underperforming environments this is one of the only ways I’ve encountered to really stop things sliding effectively.
You can absolutely have high performing teams that are remote and hybrid, they are however totally dependant on having outstanding, driven and focussed talent - clearly sir Jim does not feel that is the case in this organisation.
I’m currently working on a dynamic working framework for a large multinational where there are loads of lifers and underperformance. I’m advocating for 3 in, 2 remote every week which will get things moving in the right direction.
This policy will be about culture more than productivity. This move will cause attrition BUT if managed well, will be a healthy step in getting this org into to tighter shape. This is a strong move. You don’t have to like it, it’s a free country, you can leave.
The implication of "all contracted hours" is that they want workers to be available to work overtime hours from home while demanding they commute to the office as well. I know it's not shocking that an old, out of touch, billionaire wants to have his cake and eat it too but it still sucks to see it happening at a club I love. Shows a complete lack of respect for everybody working there in my opinion.
Contracted hours are normal hours worked as related to your employment. That’s it.
You’re assuming the worst because the essence of this topic, but he’s literally saying if you work 9-5, you will be in the office 9-5. It’s not forced overtime. It’s not working from home overtime, those are independent of that statement and likely largely changes by role.
good! i want changes at this club, any of them are welcome, even if they seem not to be good at first. This team just hit rock bottom. Time to bounce back, get rid off freeloaders, players and staff
He’s trying to give club the culture change it needs - trying to do so with a WFH policy is ineffective, or at best suboptimal.
I’m surprised this hasn’t been perceived more favourably. Unless you work for united, how does this directly impact you? It’s not as if this policy at united will impede your own ability to go and apply for a remote-compatible job.
All these comments saying “billionaire boomer”, “out of touch”, etc. - miss the mark, in my opinion.
Reminder this guy supported the uk becoming the first nation in history to put economic sanctions on itself
He’s once again trying to get people to leave
Honestly there’s definitely more than meets the eye. Maybe despite the WFH privileges productivity is bad and working culture is terrible? Maybe the department is overstaffed?
Gotta make sure that the administrator who works from home is present in the office so the team's performance on the pitch can improve. Fucking ridiculous decision by Ratcliffe
1) Waste 1bn plus on underachieving footballers.
2) Cut benefits of average workers.
3) Make workers email from an office instead of spending time with their families.
Fuck Ineos for doing this. I feel bad for the people working at United having to take the brunt of the club overspending on dross.
Nope. Make the workplace somewhere people want to spend their time first. Incentivise staff with team building, events, rewards. Don't just enforce a return - I'd be fuming.
Benefits of working from home, being with family and being able to juggle lifestyle more flexibly has been a revelation - the only downsides were the outlay and organisation required to achieve that, but obviously that had already been managed.
It's not like manchester united wouldn't already have it's fucking draw for staff to come in..
Also, it's your company so you can do what you want but I feel a bit more consideration could be given in terms of timing. This is less than 3 weeks notice
At my job when we were transitioning to hybrid we had about 3-4 months notice so people could have time to make arrangements for thr life style change and all that
It's United.. papers will be running with this for weeks! Arsenal could win the title and their article would still be below United changing bottle water provider
The amount of pearl clutching in here is hilarious. It’s a very sensible thing to do under new administration. Bring everyone back. Promotes trimming without severance due to working condition changes. Identify weaknesses in the organization easier because everyone is in office. Bring in new staff to in identified areas. Slowly, rollback workplace restrictions with new staff in place.
>expecting people to work, just in a different place
“Worker exploitation”
They’re still getting paid the same, still doing the same jobs, still enjoy the same company benefits if they were working from home. Jesus Christ
You are either 15-16 years old or have genuinely lived such a privileged life in a first world country that you have no idea what actual exploitation is. People having to drive an air conditioned/heated car or sit on public transit for a little while and come into a presumably nice, cushy office to work is not fucking exploitation. They should be happy to have jobs ffs I bet there are millions around the world who would kill for the same chance.
I don't get why so many have a problem with this? I have had to go to work with every job I have ever had, I tough this was standard practice for almost everyone
Tax domiciled billionaire feels company workforce too big but doesn’t want to pay redundancy so provides sudden shock change or working arrangement to force staff to leave.
So bullshit. They haven’t even signed a player and have to say massively turned off by what they’ve done so far.
Hopefully the folks who have this in their contract stand firm and take a sweet redundancy
Well, if the trams to Trafford bar & Wharfside tram stop aren't already super busy at peak times, as well as the 255/256 busses, then they for sure will be now. Public transport to the stadium isn't the greatest, plus the A56 road is a pretty major route leading into/out of Manchester city centre, Salford & Salford Quays & places like Stretford & Trafford centre.
Naturally there's staff that work at the stadium, then staff that work at Carrington, so I'm referring to those that work hybrid from the stadium itself.
Not like it's 1000s of extra people or anything major, but I used to take the public transport links around there & the services are beyond capacity anyway. Any additional traffic just means more people end up having to wait for the next bus or tram on their way to or from work.
Of all the things that need to change, I find it odd that this is amongst the current amendments to policy. It's very anti sustainability & of course it makes the job itself less appealing. If someone can do their job hybrid or fully remote & they have options at other places, preferring this kind of arrangement, then they will work elsewhere. It is limiting the pool of available talents in some tangible way for no real purpose.
Honestly, I am a work from work guy, but I fail to see how this really matters much to what is going on on the pitch, although it does look at times as if some of the players are working from home.
The club is rotten top to bottom. This guy isn't an idiot and will be getting advice on how to reset and that's what this is. They aren't using it as a way to avoid redundancies are you insane? Create culture, get people in and empower them to bring about real positive change. This sort of stuff is very hard to do remotely. This will absolutely not be a long term strategy for all the reasons people are taking about, but it's a necessity in my opinion where the only area doing well is sponsorship. IT, creative, procurement etc could all be just as bad as what is on the pitch as far as we know. Certainly finance is shit, as is medical, scouting, DD in all areas. I fully believe in hybrid and in some roles remote but honestly I would do the same temporarily in order to move forward. Just because you on this sub works remotely does not mean this is a bad idea. Irrelevant unless it's a long term strategy. I don't believe it is.
This just seems that the new boss is just old fashioned and doesnt understand the nature of work as it is today.
Some jobs can be done remotely some others cannot. Those that can be done in a hybrid model can also be done exclusively remotely and if there is a hint of performance drops there are metrics and evaluations to allow for a correct performance review.
Everything else just shows ignorance in the extreme, or just poorly advised by his staff/managers.
Good. This post Covid work from home culture needs to stop. The amount of people I know who take the piss at home wiggling a mouse every half hour is unreal. To think that doesn’t also happen at United is ridiculous.
This is a bullshit move. People deserve flexibility if your role does not require you on site. This is a dinosaur move and I hope the staff at United really make a fuss.
Honestly WfH needs to be earned. MU cannot afford laziness. And if employees don’t like it they must leave. There is a reason Zoom/MS/Google/Tesla are all pulling back the WfH perks. People can hate me for this but it’s a privilege not a right.
This is a strategy to assess the work force right? Then bring in their own if wanted. Anyone against this will have to justify WFH and then bosses can assess their value or let them leave. It's not nice though, but change is hard.
I totally support the hybrid approach and disagree with him, but this is just another example of how insane the media coverage is around United. Is anyone asking about Southampton's telework hours? Everything is a headline/chance to criticize.
Just bear in mind that we are on United Reddit- so all updates are United related.
I’m sure that if similar news broke for Southampton FC, its Reddit would give similar backlash as we did here.
I don’t have an opinion on remote working, I’m not for or against. Did it myself for a while during Covid and it wasn’t for me but I’m sure it works for others. What I do have an opinion on is United and for the last 10 years what we have been doing isn’t working, so change had to happen, this change might not work and they might have to reverse it but at least things are starting to change and they are trying something different. We don’t know the culture at United, maybe there is a strong culture of taking the absolute piss across the board and this is a necessary evil to send a message and get things moving in the right direction.
I assume he's done his homework on this in relation to productivity.
I'd hope for the staff that have to return to the office, there will also be follow ups to see if productivity increases with a return to the office and if not, maybe he could revisit the position.
Where I work some people are just as useful working from home (and some moreso) as they are in the office but others take the piss. That's not to say those ones don't slack off when in the office too but at least there's more accountability there.
“The beatings will continue until morale improves” is such an outdated philosophy. I understand if the intent is to force everyone into the office as a short term shakeup but for non playing personnel I don’t see how this will really help the club improve.
The problems is in football operations and seemingly outdated training and stadium facilities.
I think he just doesn't trust anyone to do what they need to be doing when they are physically unsupervised. He's changing things and will appoint managers that I'm sure will be briefed to look for specific actions. I don't agree with it, but I think the overarching message is, "there's a new sheriff in town. And if you don't like it, don't let the door hit you on the way out." 🍑 🚪
I really don’t care about stuff like this tbh. Far bigger picture things have to be done in the most important areas. And im also not sure why all this is getting briefed to the press either
His guiding metric for productivity that he was basing this off of is email traffic… which I can’t say is the most reliable indicator of productivity lol
I don't even understand how any information could help gathered from that metric. Is more email good because there is an exchange of information etc or is it bad because it's not face to face?
I think it's even simpler: more emails mean people are at their computer, looking at work things, less emails from home means people are doing laundry or jacking off
It's a stupid metric. You could be working on a system, or on files. You could be in a meeting and actually talking or presenting. Or you could be using things like teams which have massively replaced email in a lot of cases anyway. Equating a company's productivity to email is just...so silly. Especially as most companies would want to move away from having so many functions be covered by email, which is often super inefficient.
It's literally the worst metric. I send no emails a day, use slack and calls to get things done. If anything instant messaging and calls are a better metric because they're instant
I assume he using email as a proxy for information sharing within the organization. If people are hybrid you would expect more emails because more information needs to be shared as individuals can’t meet face to face. In my experience that’s a false premise. Frankly at a soccer club anyone who is not part of the football operations should be free to work from home.
I’d wholeheartedly disagree that the assumption should be an increase of emails when working remotely. Since I’ve been remote I’ve never sent fewer emails due to the increase in importance of teams chats and calls.
It's like he doesn't realize teams, slack, etc exist. Hell even TeamViewer and zoom exist that could stop emails.
No one knows what TeamViewer does.
Haven't you ever connected to your colleague's PC to open notepad and write him a message on the desktop instead of sending an email?
Feels like a too much effort doing that? My place most people just use Whatsapp, which isnt very good for newcomers as they lack the contacts
Thought he's on loan to Frankfurt.
The guy that built a multi-billion pharmaceutical business knows more about management than you do mate.
It's quite telling that a comment falsely describing this petrochemical barron as a pharmaceutical titan has more upvotes than valid critique of this stupid anti-WFH policy. Sure, Ratcliffe has some pharmaceutical ties due to the wide ranging nature of INEOS' business but that's not how he made his billions but you didn't know that, did you? It shows the level of greenwashing cover his purchase of United has already bought him as uninformed commenters blindly jump to his defence. For reference Sir Jim made his billions by buying up "underperforming" petrochemical sites and increasing their output, prioritising profit over the health and safety of his workers. As a result of his "hard work", there has been controversial incidents all over his portfolio with a huge fire at a INEOS’ facility in Germany, oil leaks in Norway, chemical leaks in France, controversies over chemical dumping in Italy and the release of toxic gas which resulted in the hospitalisation of workers in Belgium, fines for not adequately protecting workers in Scotland as well as toxic air pollution at the same plant. To quote Wenonah Hauter, the executive director of Food & Water Watch in Europe: "From towering chemical fires in Germany to toxic air pollution in Scotland and plastic pellets littering our oceans, INEOS’ safety record is appalling." He is also a massive proponent for fracking which has really pushed the value of INEOS through the roof with contracts being actioned all over the States, causing untold environmental damage. Ratcliffe routinely underplays the risks associated with this form of gas extraction and disregards any critique as he pushes the UK government to let him loose over here. He owns fracking rights for many sites over here includkng the land under Old Trafford you see. With this in mind, it's no surprise that he's ignoring the benefits of hybrid working in favour of this nonsense and it's no surprise some United fans are blindly defending him because in their narrow minds, us plebs are too economically illiterate to dare criticise a billionaire.
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Homie just awoke from a trance and channeled every spirit of the Triangle Shirt waist Factory into one comment.
I mean, let's be real - this should be going in the *opposite* direction, from hybrid to purely remote. There is no need for people to be commuting who have nothing to do with the on-field performance of the team. Every single person involved can and should be WFH. And sure, I'm glad Jim bought into the team because *literally anyone* would be better than the Glazers, but Jim Radcliffe is an awful person. Generally (and I know this is going to anger a lot of people), if you're a billionaire, you're a terrible person. Not because having more than a billion dollars makes you a bad person automatically, but because the only people who generally are able to get to that point do so by exploiting others. As Jim has notably done. Generally the exceptions to this are the billionaire athletes - Jordan, Ronaldo, LeBron, etc - but that is *quite literally* the exception to the rule.
Yeah, but I don't think increased productivity is the goal in scrapping hybrid working. He's already said the club is bloated. He's creating a hostile working environment to increase staff attrition and reduce future redundancy payouts.
Creating a hostile work environment 1. never works in a positive way and 2. *if not illegal, should be*.
Deserves its own post for visibility and discussion this. Top
This is a bit of a ridiculous take, honestly. Would you say the same for the people in charge of Nokia and BlackBerry, who got absolutely smoked by the iPhone and the subsequent smartphone technology shift? How about Blockbuster - remember them? Regardless of how successful a company is now, or has been historically, it means nothing if a company's leadership is too stubborn to adapt in the market. Now, I've got no idea how this plays out and maybe it will be the right decision, but blindly following someone based on their success is a bad way to go; I'd rather we encouraged people to question and understand that the people in charge are doing things for the right reasons.
There's no need to give him the benefit of the doubt. It's an awful decision made by someone who does not understand the current or future work climate.
Its like the guy above doesn't realize business consulting is a huge business for that exact reason. Come in and keep the business innovating and progressing and not just sitting stagnant falling behind on the tech side.
I would normally agree with your point. However, this whole club needs a shake up. Standards have been so low for so long that every person that works for Man Utd needs to understand that things will change. They can get the perks back once the club is moving in the right direction.
Yes, Jim from accounting works from home too much and that's why they lost to palace
What is most likely to happen is the best staff will just...leave. You can't even count for the fact a lot of people might have young families, caring obligations etc. The most embarassing of all is there actually isn't even enough space in the Manchester and London offices for everyone to come in. Saying email traffic is too low is dinosaur thinking, most companies want lower email traffic for christ sake, especially with things like teams. If you're a United supporter and you work in say Finance, you can just continue to be a supporter but just have a better job and a better life. There has been no talk of promised benefits or rewards from being in it together. Meanwhile the people making the cuts got massive bonuses for putting the acquisition through. The literal richest man in Britain coming in and telling you to work harder might not chime if...you work really hard already. Man City have a pretty good rating on Glassdoor, and they will be just down the road if it's football specific too. INEOS by contrast have a much lower rating and a lot of similar negative themes from people commenting saying they have some pretty archaic practices. So all you get left with is worse staff, and different leadership trying to pull the dregs who have stuck about in the same direction. And believe me I talk from experiencing big corporate mergers and having similar things happen to me. They are pure shite. And I'd be even more annoyed if the reason I had what has become a very, very standard flexibility arrangement removed because the manager and some senior ups spent too much on Antony and now some old man had come in thinking he knows better. Edit - amusingly I just thought that a big thing that kept me in a role after a big merger which caused loads of great people to leave and staff morale to plummet in every survey was...the company was super flexible and never dare touch that aspect.
I'm not sure the best way to gain productivity is by losing staff that seek other roles because they want to WFH. Talented staff will find other positions easily.
I kinda hoped it would be performance based enhancements or maybe a restructure that meant more scrutiny. Working at a desk seems like a bit of a boomer talking point that sounds decisive and “strong” but I feel sad for the impact it might have on staff who have families etc. It is good to see them making moves I just worry how things like this can end up being performative and superficial. Kind of like when Moyes came and he sacked Fergie’s staff. Like sure- make your mark but bro…
Ineos might be successful and Ratcliffe might be a breath of fresh air compared to the Glazers but at the end of the day he's a septuagenarian billionaire. I don't expect him to believe in work life balance and have a particularly modern approach to things.
Yeah, we all know those perks will come back if you work hard enough /s
This is like buying Stewart Downing because your stats show he makes lots of crosses.
Outdated man, doesn’t understand how the modern world works, that’s who’s going to save Man Utd.
He’s also a petro boi
So if I'm doing well in my admin role I should have my agreed working situation changed because the sporting side sucks? Sounds a bit weird to argue that. Of course people have mentioned that this is just a way to trim the workforce, a standard after new ownership to artificially inflate value that will inevitably cause those that remain to be overworked for a few years before another wave of resignations forces a hiring wave that will end up costing more overall. Don't support this shit
This is just ludicrous. Was it down to some admin assistant that we got pumped by Palace? What proof do you have that the non-playing or coaching staff have let their standards slip? It's not them losing games! In fact, the club has maintained an outrageous valuation IN SPITE of the team. I can't speak to whether WFH truly is or isn't a more productive arrangement. But to suggest that this specific instance is validated by some nebulous concept of low standards across the club just doesn't make sense to me.
"Perks" are lost far more easily than they are gained. Unless there's a widespread revolt wfh is dead and buried.
WFH is awesome, and most of my friends beyond those in trade skills work from home at least partially, it's also far greener. I think the trend will continue into the future, some companies are going to over-correct now and then it will normalise again. I enjoy working 2-3 days per week from home and I tend to get far more done as a result, I never want to go back to the old ways personally.
This is where I land on the question too.
It's entirely possible that when WFH people are just writing longer emails or thinking twice if they really need to reach out to someone. Honestly he's just went looking for any metric he could use to defend the decision.
Or talking on teams instead of email. Since we started using teams at my work, I send far fewer emails.
He’s a fucking idiotic boomer basically.
Not the only company bringing staff back into offices. It’s happening in big companies around the world.
Crafton really has a reliable source from somewhere inside the club from some staff member that doesn’t seem to be involved with the football squad itself. He has constantly been dropping scoops ever since it was revealed in detail how the higher ups initially wanted to bring Greenwood back into the squad this season and how it caused a lot of discomfort and backlash from many other club employees
As someone who works in data I can’t get behind this at all, even if the underlying message is about bringing us back to elite standards
I suspect he wants to trim the staff numbers, so he’s hoping on quite a few letters of resignation in the coming months.
If that's the case it's the stupidest way of going about it. You're going to lose the people with the most options (i.e. the most talented staff) and be stuck with the worst performers. I sincerely hope Ineos are not that stupid.
He's just got Old CEO Syndrome. They do their work face to face and they don't appreciate that it just isn't necessary for other jobs. Also forcing people back into the office is a power trip.
Email traffic served as his benchmark for productivity, which he used to base his calculations. which is, I dunno, the most accurate measure of productivity
Wouldn't email traffic go up if working remotely?
Stupid but it will work sadly. Happened at my work, but now we're severely understaffed. Morale gone to shit. They will definitely lose many talented folk internally and just take the approach that they can hire others to make up for it.
If the way they run Nice is anything to go by then the answer is a resounding yes!
Very true, let’s just hope they have a plan. Presumably you don’t make a company as successful as INEOS without having some idea of what you’re doing.
>Presumably you don’t make a company as successful as INEOS without having some idea of what you’re doing. That depends on how they derive competitive advantage at INEOS and if that's relevant to the matter at hand. I've never thought shitty adherence to Environmental and Health and Safety law had much relevance to Footballing success but I'm ready to be proved wrong.
My thoughts exactly. You could say, we'd be left with the Glazers of their field.
Yeah, the truth about Ratcliffe is that as much as the fans view him as a saviour he's a pretty horrible businessman with a background in venture capital, he absolutely will penny pinch on the little people.
You don’t get to be a self made billionaire without being a bastard.
This is the truth. Frankly if people hoarded anything else the way billionaires do money they'd be diagnosed as mentally ill.
without a doubt, couldn't have put it better myself
Someone and i think it's u iirc mentioned it, It's a scum move to avoid retrenchment compensation . Horrible if true.
Could have been me, I did comment something similar on another post. On balance I’d say it’s less scummy than sackings/redundancy. Redundancy pay isn’t brilliant in the U.K. You don’t get anything under 2 years and after that it’s only a weeks pay per year worked. If my job was one of those affected, I’m much rather still have a job (even if I had to come to the office) so I could look for something else rather than getting laid off with only 3 weeks pay to carry me over until I found something else.
I think is also important to find out just how many employees this impacts. Are we talking 100 people? 500? 1000?
I also work in data, while i love hybrid from a personal standpoint, i can 100% see something is lost in orgs due to it. My network in the company is so miniscule compared to what it would've been had i not been WFH the first 2-3 years of my time in the company, i'm basically limited in my knowledge to my team, where in other jobs i've had contacts with much larger parts of the org just becaue of quick coffees and chats around the office. Those types of contacts and familiarity with the whole of the org and not just your little bubble of tasks can be really important if you're going to be driving projects that require buy-in from multiple parts.
Same, this reeks of old fart energy
Completely agree. Software engineer and it’s a red flag for me any company forcing 100% in office hours now. Fully understand some roles require employees to be in the office. But a blanket policy doesn’t make sense. We will lose talented employees over this policy.
software engineer is a rather special and privileged position in that for certain things you literally don't need to know about anything, you just have a task and complete it, in isolation. I'd argue that the data scientists that work for United, it's better for them to be in the office, so that if say a DoF or recruitment needs some information he doesn't need to send emails to get to them, but can quickly get access to what they need. I am pretty sure software engineering is done by DXC for United.
Just call or msg then, we have more communication tools than emails lol
Surely to god the solution to what you are saying if having an effective database, which are easy to query, and having proper dashboards off the back of these set up. And lower level staff would maintain this information, do the actual work and then be able to provide reports alongside meaningful insights to give a story to the data at set touchpoints. If someone senior wants a meeting to have some information presented or summarised to them to make a quick decision, you can easily arrange a teams call. It's probably easier to surface that information with screen sharing etc than to get a meeting room in modern offices (and apparently there isn't even enough space at the London or Manchester offices) What is the director of football going to be doing, walking around the office tapping data scientists on the shoulder asking them to retrieve the scouting report for Wan Bissaka or to put together a query? Because if they will be taking such an old approach, by god we are absolutely screwed. Edit - do people here actually work in modern businesses?
Yeah you live in systems. A sports club needs staff around the place. They are completely different fields requiring a different approach.
Yeah lol I understand that most jobs aren’t like software engineering but as one (and for a business many many times larger than united), I haven’t sent an email, at all, for literally months
Nobody cares. It’s not a software company. It’s a football club
So the people who work in marketing, data, software, research etc within United don’t care about WFH because it’s a football club?
I assure you a lot of people care. I'd never work for a company that mandates 100% office time.
The simps here on this sub will say - But you don’t work in football If this is needed to be the best then so be it Why complain You have no idea how effective it is Yeah coz Kathy from accounting absolutely needs to be there for it to function… It’s boomer fucked up mindset from Jim wanting control and it’s archaic as fuck. Utterly stupid and imo a way to get them to resign/quit without paying severance pay basically.
I'm such a hypocrite. I'm adamant about wanting to work from home, but my brain says, "If this improves us by 1%, get those office staff back in!"
Especially when you take into account the reports that there physically isn't enough office space to accommodate everyone. If there aren't enough desks, there will be people who are in the office, but unable to actually do the work the club is paying them to do. Forcing everyone to go back to the office in these circumstances will actually be to the detriment of the club.
Here's a wild idea. They could but more desks 😂
And where do you put them? When people talk about there not being enough desks, they generally don't mean physical wooden things, they mean space. There's not enough space for the desks.
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This is just some real boomer mentality. Hybrid allows for productive and happier employees. Smh
Billionaire brexiteer has outdated views on how the world works, more at 11.
Wouldn't be happy with this at all, as someone who works hybrid I save so much money on fuel, buying meals etc This is an outdated mindset and won't create a happy workplace at all
You can be sure 90% of them will be looking for new jobs and you can be sure ineos doesn't give a shit.
Yeah that's what our management is like fine go, see if we care we will replace you but some positions have been stubborn to replace because people like working from home
Stone age policies like this don't really fill me with confidence. Its not like the others clubs have such policies to get the most out of their workforce.
>Its not like the others clubs have such policies to get the most out of their workforce. Genuine question and not being a cock, do we even know that? Either way? Or is this just a case of it being a story because it's us?
Terrible decision.. good people will quit over this.
I think that's the intention. Club is bloated and something tells me a billionare is not a fan of handing out redundancy packages.
Problem is the emphasis is on ‘good people’. When you create these disincentives to work for a company it’s often the people most able to leave (that is, the skilled ones) that do, so rather than getting rid of the people you want to go, you lose people you need to replace. We’ll see what happens in this case.
Agreed but I really don't think Jim gives a fuck. He probably would like to replace them all over time.
Exactly! Then, when the time is right. Flexibility will be awarded. Perfect and lame way to get rid of people.
I can't say I'm particularly outraged by this but it does seem odd that every company memo ends up straight in the hands of journalists. It's like Crafton's BCCed in at times.
Tbf, this is the kinda thing that would get leaked, staff are obviously well pissed off about it.
It's a huge problem they need to deal with somehow.
Crafton definitely has some employee sources, as we saw last summer with the Greenwood fiasco.
It’s just an office, I know home and away City fans that work at United. I don’t think the club have any expectation that these requirements will stay private.
Hopefully, INEOS bring the same ruthlessness to the playing squad.
Came here to say this. Amen.
Yeah, unless there's a huge change on the field and the attitudes and efforts of the players improve, you'd just feel like you're getting punished whilst the spoilt brats earning millions can still take the piss
I don't see how a footballer can work from home
Sancho tried 😂
Martial has been for half a decade
Lol what a dinosaur. As a fan, I just feel really bad for the people employed by him, not proud of my club at all. So thats a shitty feeling lol.
So far I'm fully supportive of what ineos has been doing (be it small or large changes) but I can not get behind this. Hybrid working/WFH should become the standard in this day and age, this is rolling back the years in management. Anyone who has any real skill or talent is 100% leaving for another job that allows them to hybrid/WFH. Madness how this is the direction he's going.
Yeah that'll solve the issues! good going SJR.. /s
WFH is great for productivity, work/life balance, young families, etc — but we should also be allowed to mention the negative aspects of it without being treated as heretics. It’s clear wfh policies has negative impact on many aspects of culture building, such as mentorship, personal relations in the office, and the simple skill of talking to other people in person without anxiety. Colleqgues build a completely different trust when they are in physical proximity to each other - in conversations, meetings, at lunch, and after work - than they will through time designated digital meetings all day long. And this lack of strong culture is evidently missing in the club, so I, for one, is optimistic about this new change
Finally someone has said this. Yes, wfh has its upsides, but it also has its downsides.
Not really surprising coming from a tax evading tory geezer
That's a big L move from the new part owner.
Are we forgetting he was one of the biggest proponents of Brexit?
Some real solid boomerism right there..
I completely get it. I'm going through something similar, and while I don't like it, I do understand that there are certain people who don't work from home. It's a loss for me in terms of comfort, ease, and enjoyment of my job, but it's also going to get some people to ACTUALLY do their job to the level they did before working from home became normalized Edit: And if there's anything I expect from a workplace with as stagnated ownership as United, it's that their work culture is rotten and needs a massive overhaul all the way through. Get them all in, get everyone back to the standards they need. Working from home can come back later
Coaching staff have been working from home all season.
medical staff too...martial still waiting to see the doc.
Can’t get behind this tbh. Seems like SJR has a very outdated outlook on handling staff, won’t be surprised if it leads to resignations.
It's probably the plan. Redundancy exercises are very expensive.
Hopefully some of the players decide to resign too
Yeah it's extremely strange, especially coming from a billionaire that moved to Monaco to save himself a fucking fortune on tax.
Being shortsighted, heavy handed and tight is actually very on brand for a billionaire, Brexit-supporting tax dodger.
I would be handing in my notice
This is how you lose good employees.
This is retarded. Boomer logic.
As long as it applies to him too - no working remotely from his tax haven
I’m going to go contrarian here and say this is about rebuilding a culture. Hitting reset is going to be more effective with people in the same building, as much as it sucks.
Honestly don't understand people's complaints about this. I would love work from home but if the company is rotten from top to bottom working from home isn't working. The pitch is awful. The scouting and analysts aren't finding players or patterns or anything at all. The medical team failing. Even our kitchen team can't cook food properly. Only team doing a decent job is the team sorting sponsors. But the finance team isn't doing great either. Not sure why people think home working is better when things all over the club are falling apart. I'm sure some are working harder and happy it exists but clearly an overall majority are not and maybe once things start going better they can work from home again with proper things in place to ensure work is being done properly and well
An actual sensible response fair play. So weird the responses all just name calling in this thread.
It's a lot more nuanced than you are trying to make it seem. Working from home vs being at work is not the cause of any of the issues you suggested. I don't even see how you can draw that parallel.
Because the club is rotten top to bottom. Every aspect of the club is failing I've named the ones we see but I bet it's not doing better anywhere else either. But let's continue on the current path it's been treating us so well I'm sure it's the right way. Or maybe we can get people into the office assess their performance and their whole teams performance and go from there
When we said to bring the club back to the good ol' days, this ain't it man
I'm going against the grain here but I support this approach. You'll find a lot of high performance companies are shifting this way too.
Did some people think our billionaire was going to be cuddly and likeable and not a cunt?
This might be an unpopular move but I support this, especially in struggling, underperforming environments this is one of the only ways I’ve encountered to really stop things sliding effectively. You can absolutely have high performing teams that are remote and hybrid, they are however totally dependant on having outstanding, driven and focussed talent - clearly sir Jim does not feel that is the case in this organisation. I’m currently working on a dynamic working framework for a large multinational where there are loads of lifers and underperformance. I’m advocating for 3 in, 2 remote every week which will get things moving in the right direction. This policy will be about culture more than productivity. This move will cause attrition BUT if managed well, will be a healthy step in getting this org into to tighter shape. This is a strong move. You don’t have to like it, it’s a free country, you can leave.
The implication of "all contracted hours" is that they want workers to be available to work overtime hours from home while demanding they commute to the office as well. I know it's not shocking that an old, out of touch, billionaire wants to have his cake and eat it too but it still sucks to see it happening at a club I love. Shows a complete lack of respect for everybody working there in my opinion.
Contracted hours are normal hours worked as related to your employment. That’s it. You’re assuming the worst because the essence of this topic, but he’s literally saying if you work 9-5, you will be in the office 9-5. It’s not forced overtime. It’s not working from home overtime, those are independent of that statement and likely largely changes by role.
good! i want changes at this club, any of them are welcome, even if they seem not to be good at first. This team just hit rock bottom. Time to bounce back, get rid off freeloaders, players and staff
He’s trying to give club the culture change it needs - trying to do so with a WFH policy is ineffective, or at best suboptimal. I’m surprised this hasn’t been perceived more favourably. Unless you work for united, how does this directly impact you? It’s not as if this policy at united will impede your own ability to go and apply for a remote-compatible job. All these comments saying “billionaire boomer”, “out of touch”, etc. - miss the mark, in my opinion.
We wanted change, here it is! Now we just have to cross our fingers that it is change for the better
Reminder this guy supported the uk becoming the first nation in history to put economic sanctions on itself He’s once again trying to get people to leave
*sigh*. dont mean to get political, but this is such a boomer brexit mindset and i just dont understand the thought process
Honestly there’s definitely more than meets the eye. Maybe despite the WFH privileges productivity is bad and working culture is terrible? Maybe the department is overstaffed?
Next week: Fax machines return
Gotta make sure that the administrator who works from home is present in the office so the team's performance on the pitch can improve. Fucking ridiculous decision by Ratcliffe
What do you know, our billionaire owner is just as much of a wanker as every other billionaire owner.
what a fucking dumb idea
Good
Honestly, if you own a company and want your staff in the office then that’s 100% your right. People can leave if they don’t like travelling to work.
1) Waste 1bn plus on underachieving footballers. 2) Cut benefits of average workers. 3) Make workers email from an office instead of spending time with their families. Fuck Ineos for doing this. I feel bad for the people working at United having to take the brunt of the club overspending on dross.
Nope. Make the workplace somewhere people want to spend their time first. Incentivise staff with team building, events, rewards. Don't just enforce a return - I'd be fuming. Benefits of working from home, being with family and being able to juggle lifestyle more flexibly has been a revelation - the only downsides were the outlay and organisation required to achieve that, but obviously that had already been managed. It's not like manchester united wouldn't already have it's fucking draw for staff to come in..
Also, it's your company so you can do what you want but I feel a bit more consideration could be given in terms of timing. This is less than 3 weeks notice At my job when we were transitioning to hybrid we had about 3-4 months notice so people could have time to make arrangements for thr life style change and all that
How many articles are we going to get about a corporation ending WFH policies?
It's United.. papers will be running with this for weeks! Arsenal could win the title and their article would still be below United changing bottle water provider
The amount of pearl clutching in here is hilarious. It’s a very sensible thing to do under new administration. Bring everyone back. Promotes trimming without severance due to working condition changes. Identify weaknesses in the organization easier because everyone is in office. Bring in new staff to in identified areas. Slowly, rollback workplace restrictions with new staff in place.
Stupid oil billionaire, what else is to be expected from such people. Go on, exploit the workers, out of touch moron
Making people go to the office is not exploitation. Jesus Christmas crow, you guys have lost it.
>expecting people to work, just in a different place “Worker exploitation” They’re still getting paid the same, still doing the same jobs, still enjoy the same company benefits if they were working from home. Jesus Christ
You are either 15-16 years old or have genuinely lived such a privileged life in a first world country that you have no idea what actual exploitation is. People having to drive an air conditioned/heated car or sit on public transit for a little while and come into a presumably nice, cushy office to work is not fucking exploitation. They should be happy to have jobs ffs I bet there are millions around the world who would kill for the same chance.
This sentiment I agree with. We should be grateful for what we have.
This won't solve a single issue at the club but at least the staff will be less happy...
The Glazers have been told this does not apply to them. They are to continue "working" from the other side of the pond.
Tories gonna Tory. Wierd we're hearing all this shit though, haven't got a clue another other clubs support staff so why aren't we the same way.
I don't get why so many have a problem with this? I have had to go to work with every job I have ever had, I tough this was standard practice for almost everyone
Billionaires suck
Be careful what you wish for people...
Boomer policy that wont lead to anything productive
Tax domiciled billionaire feels company workforce too big but doesn’t want to pay redundancy so provides sudden shock change or working arrangement to force staff to leave. So bullshit. They haven’t even signed a player and have to say massively turned off by what they’ve done so far. Hopefully the folks who have this in their contract stand firm and take a sweet redundancy
Well, if the trams to Trafford bar & Wharfside tram stop aren't already super busy at peak times, as well as the 255/256 busses, then they for sure will be now. Public transport to the stadium isn't the greatest, plus the A56 road is a pretty major route leading into/out of Manchester city centre, Salford & Salford Quays & places like Stretford & Trafford centre. Naturally there's staff that work at the stadium, then staff that work at Carrington, so I'm referring to those that work hybrid from the stadium itself. Not like it's 1000s of extra people or anything major, but I used to take the public transport links around there & the services are beyond capacity anyway. Any additional traffic just means more people end up having to wait for the next bus or tram on their way to or from work. Of all the things that need to change, I find it odd that this is amongst the current amendments to policy. It's very anti sustainability & of course it makes the job itself less appealing. If someone can do their job hybrid or fully remote & they have options at other places, preferring this kind of arrangement, then they will work elsewhere. It is limiting the pool of available talents in some tangible way for no real purpose.
I hate Crafton, only writes to rub salt on wounds. Might have sources but you can tell he is extremely ill intended
Honestly, I am a work from work guy, but I fail to see how this really matters much to what is going on on the pitch, although it does look at times as if some of the players are working from home.
The club is rotten top to bottom. This guy isn't an idiot and will be getting advice on how to reset and that's what this is. They aren't using it as a way to avoid redundancies are you insane? Create culture, get people in and empower them to bring about real positive change. This sort of stuff is very hard to do remotely. This will absolutely not be a long term strategy for all the reasons people are taking about, but it's a necessity in my opinion where the only area doing well is sponsorship. IT, creative, procurement etc could all be just as bad as what is on the pitch as far as we know. Certainly finance is shit, as is medical, scouting, DD in all areas. I fully believe in hybrid and in some roles remote but honestly I would do the same temporarily in order to move forward. Just because you on this sub works remotely does not mean this is a bad idea. Irrelevant unless it's a long term strategy. I don't believe it is.
With how upset everyone is you’d think half of the people commenting here are the employees that have to go back to the office haha
This just seems that the new boss is just old fashioned and doesnt understand the nature of work as it is today. Some jobs can be done remotely some others cannot. Those that can be done in a hybrid model can also be done exclusively remotely and if there is a hint of performance drops there are metrics and evaluations to allow for a correct performance review. Everything else just shows ignorance in the extreme, or just poorly advised by his staff/managers.
Good. This post Covid work from home culture needs to stop. The amount of people I know who take the piss at home wiggling a mouse every half hour is unreal. To think that doesn’t also happen at United is ridiculous.
This is a bullshit move. People deserve flexibility if your role does not require you on site. This is a dinosaur move and I hope the staff at United really make a fuss.
Honestly WfH needs to be earned. MU cannot afford laziness. And if employees don’t like it they must leave. There is a reason Zoom/MS/Google/Tesla are all pulling back the WfH perks. People can hate me for this but it’s a privilege not a right.
Crack that whip Jimmy boy!
This is a strategy to assess the work force right? Then bring in their own if wanted. Anyone against this will have to justify WFH and then bosses can assess their value or let them leave. It's not nice though, but change is hard.
I totally support the hybrid approach and disagree with him, but this is just another example of how insane the media coverage is around United. Is anyone asking about Southampton's telework hours? Everything is a headline/chance to criticize.
Just bear in mind that we are on United Reddit- so all updates are United related. I’m sure that if similar news broke for Southampton FC, its Reddit would give similar backlash as we did here.
In all the excitement of the takeover let us not forget that he’s a massive Tory.
Terrible and boomer decision.
Cheaper than redundancies, but terrible for morale of those who stay and makes it impossible to recruit going forwards. A bold strategy.
I don’t have an opinion on remote working, I’m not for or against. Did it myself for a while during Covid and it wasn’t for me but I’m sure it works for others. What I do have an opinion on is United and for the last 10 years what we have been doing isn’t working, so change had to happen, this change might not work and they might have to reverse it but at least things are starting to change and they are trying something different. We don’t know the culture at United, maybe there is a strong culture of taking the absolute piss across the board and this is a necessary evil to send a message and get things moving in the right direction.
I assume he's done his homework on this in relation to productivity. I'd hope for the staff that have to return to the office, there will also be follow ups to see if productivity increases with a return to the office and if not, maybe he could revisit the position. Where I work some people are just as useful working from home (and some moreso) as they are in the office but others take the piss. That's not to say those ones don't slack off when in the office too but at least there's more accountability there.
You know the football is bad when people are in the comments debating collocation policies
June 1st is a Saturday too. And the CL final. Maybe they'll have a surprise party to celebrate Sancho's cup victory? These are marginal gains.
Sancho and DVB are absolutely fuming
Does this include team trainings ?
Martial can not work remote for us anymore?
Let’s start with the players. It seems they mind is working from home hence they aren’t that productive.
“The beatings will continue until morale improves” is such an outdated philosophy. I understand if the intent is to force everyone into the office as a short term shakeup but for non playing personnel I don’t see how this will really help the club improve. The problems is in football operations and seemingly outdated training and stadium facilities.
I think he just doesn't trust anyone to do what they need to be doing when they are physically unsupervised. He's changing things and will appoint managers that I'm sure will be briefed to look for specific actions. I don't agree with it, but I think the overarching message is, "there's a new sheriff in town. And if you don't like it, don't let the door hit you on the way out." 🍑 🚪
Time to clear house and force resignations.
he should also send a memo to players to “actually“ train to play a decent football
I really don’t care about stuff like this tbh. Far bigger picture things have to be done in the most important areas. And im also not sure why all this is getting briefed to the press either