We have a generous hybrid work policy: you can WFH, but you may be required to attend on-site sessions and meetings, for example if we're doing architecture brainstorms or design reviews. We've not found this to work well over zoom. Overall, this works out to a day or two a month, but most people choose to come in at least 1 day a week for various reasons (mostly social).

We casually observed there seemed to be a split in employee WFH performance, with most performing as expected or better when WFH, but a minority performing MUCH worse. That is, significantly less than 50% of the productivity they have while in the office.

We've had casual one-to-one meetings with those individuals, and while a few will sort themselves out, most just flat out deny a difference. So we resorted to adding some very basic anonymised monitoring tools to a random subset of staff laptops (hence throwaway account).

What we found was that the majority are indistinguishable which days they are working from home and which days they are in the office, but a minority basically do no work when WFH. By this I mean, behaviour such as their laptop is idle for 20 minutes then active for a few seconds. As it's anonymised we can't be sure, but I'm guessing those are the staff we've identified as having a problem. I wouldn't be surprised if they had a second job.

The problem is: what to do about it? We're in the UK so just firing people without cause isn't an option. HR are saying it would be unfair, humiliating and potentially constructive dismissal if we forced the problem staff into the office but not everyone else. There's also a lot of valid discomfort and GDPR-related fear around the idea of installing heavy surveillance tools on laptops to collect evidence, and a concern that it will make for a hostile work environment. Even if we just used it very selectively on staff suspected to be breaking their contract, they would undoubtedly tell their colleagues which would lead to discontent. But without that evidence, it's very difficult to legally justify sacking someone.

The HR people are trying to force us back to the office because these issues are too challenging to deal with, but we (the tech team management) are trying to find a way to deal with staff who are taking the piss without upsetting everyone else in the process.

What's the play here? Genuinely looking for a good solution as, like many others, I personally enjoy WFH and don't want to have to give it up.