New manager want me in the office. I wfh-help!

There are several of us that are HR professionals or employment lawyers on the Work board and Legal Matters.

AIBU is not the place for questions like this.

This is a legal advice question for ACAS or your union. Mumsnet is a terrible place to ask it because they won’t answer in legal terms just with their feelings and for some reason a lot of people here utterly hate wfh. Seek proper advice.

In the meantime anything you currently have in writing from when you took the job will help. Do you have any emails discussing your distance from the office and how it will work? It also is good you have over two years service - they can’t just sack you without due process.

People that want to slack, will do it anywhere, irregardless if in the office or at home.

At my old company we were all office based. I had a colleague who vanished from their computer for hours at a time and there was one colleague who repeatedly managed his other business, being a landlord, loudly over the phone while at work. He also had a phase where he would extend his lunch break playing badminton (without the consent of managers).

Were these colleagues ever disciplined? No.

This company doesn't allow wfh.

For the last 2.5 years I have worked for a different company where I'm completely home based. I always achieve my targets, so my managers are very happy with me.

Point is: Lazy people will be lazy anywhere.

I don't use wfh to look after my children, we pay for a nursery.

I'm also glued to my computer when I'm not on my lunch breaks or morning or afternoon break.

Sometimes I get up and go to the kitchen to make myself a coffee or go to the toilet. But that would happen in an office as well.

My post kind of derails the thread, but I'm responding to people who said everyone wfh is less productive.

It's not true, it clearly depends on the type of employee/person you are.

One thing that bugs me the most about the anti WFH/hybrid brigade is how ableist it often is

We want more disabled, neurodiverse, long term health issues etc to remain in the workplace (government banged on about this) but then don’t want to offer any flexibility to the working practices. Also the people who bang the diversity and inclusion drum seem to be the actual worst of putting their virtue signalling into practice. Especially if they’re the types who relish in person socialisation, they can’t understand those who don’t

100% It's amazing how quickly remote working could be put in place for everyone when covid was rife, but when my disabled, in chronic pain, wheelchair using dd asking to do her uni work from her room as she was in a lot of pain prior to it was oh no, that's too difficult to implement.

I hope you have success with acas @Stressedgiraffe It does sound like you have a good case and your new manager is, like all people in their new senior roles, trying to make their mark.

Ex husband had a manager like this. Seemed to be that he wanted to show off his "Big Manager in charge of a team" credentials by having people in the office, doing as he told them. Very insecure person, and the job was totally beyond him, rumour had it that he lied about his experience to get it. Caused chaos, implemented systems that meant productivity tanked and failed probation.

Wonder if this is the case with her, "How can people see I am in charge if there is no one here for me to be in charge of?!!" Also changing projects, smacks of "See, I am in charge!" even though it makes no sense. Some people want to change things as soon as they take over a role just because they can, ridiculous. Is she on probation?

Interesting, but doesn't really apply in the OP's situation, as it wasn't a COVID response - she was hired as a remote worker, the job advert and spec was for a remote worker, her manager has confirmed that she knows she is hired as a remote worker, her company pay for her travel to the office.

Yep ^^

Don't forget the daily fail anti-wfh bots are mainly men who often think women shouldn’t be taking jobs off men anyway.

Plus there are the ones with commercial property empires who don’t want to lose their millions.

yeah i wouldn't even take a job now that didn't have remote most of the week even if it was only a 20 minute commute away!

My husband bailed out of 3 interview processes because in the initial call they said no to any WFH - jobs were all in London within 45mins from the house - but he does nursery drop off 3 days a week and wouldn't make it in for 9 so it would all be on me to sort all drop offs then!

and he likes to finish at 5.30 a few days a week and already be home to spend some downtime with toddler before bed!

Life is too short to be missing out on family life - especially when most jobs offer flexibility these days!

OP i'd continue as you are - from home and argue your case - but id be quietly looking for a new job and bailing out! the whole thing is soured now anyway - i wouldn't want to continue there

I haven’t read all the comments, plus I’m not UK so different legal system.

In my country we were forced into wfh with Covid. We had extensive lockdowns, and around that work places were encouraged to have staff wfh for public health reasons.

While I know lockdowns were minimal in comparison in the UK I expect many individual companies went remote for the same public health reasons.

Here - having been wfh during the extended Covid response doesn’t give you a leg to stand on as workplaces revert to requiring people attend their office. That’s well understood to have been a public health response - and there has been extensive leniency in having people revert to their role’s BAU as individual circumstances around Covid are so varied. But now that almost all public health measures have been removed - workplaces don’t really need to consider Covid.

Proper legal advice is recommended, but I would be surprised if a company’s Covid response was taken as a precedence and not allowed to end.

I agree with every single word @IdleAnimations

'Most people'. Why are you generalising like this? It would be perfectly fine for you to just say this is how it is for me and the people I'm around, and leave it there. You can't possibly speak for the majority when that covers such a wide breadth of sectors, roles and people.

Neurodiverse too since childhood.

One thing that bugs me the most about the anti WFH/hybrid brigade is how ableist it often is.

We want more disabled, neurodiverse, long term health issues etc to remain in the workplace (government banged on about this) but then don’t want to offer any flexibility to the working practices. Also the people who bang the diversity and inclusion drum seem to be the actual worst of putting their virtue signalling into practice. Especially if they’re the types who relish in person socialisation, they can’t understand those who don’t.

We say there’s a motherhood penalty and women are leaving decent careers in droves but we don’t want to upset the old school ways of being out of the house 7-7. Women should want to be just like men instead of carving a new way of working which honestly, a lot of dads would want too. I won’t want to be a man in the workplace, I want to be a woman.

We say ‘AI will take over’ but don’t seem to have gotten to grips with using tech appropriately to train other staff members or keep in touch according to some posters.

We say about COL and not wasting money but then live in commuter belts spending a fortune on public transport to get to a dingy office whereby most companies have cut any amenities to entice you in. Hot desking is cold and sterile and also ableist again because it doesn’t take into account reasonable adjustments.

We say productivity is low due to WFH but I am yet to see real evidence of this. What I have seen in my own work is poor Managers using WFH as a stick when it’s been their rubbish abilities to manage teams and growth appropriately. I also think there’s an anger in this country currently which is causing quiet quitting because everyone’s had a gutsful of the shower running our lives and taxing us to the hilt for a crap standard of living. But this is purely my opinion at this point and anecdotal so I could be incorrect.

Same. I used to work in an office and really struggled with people chatting, having the radio on etc. I did love my colleagues but found the environment massively distracting and would end up catching up on work at home anyway, so was relieved when they made us all WFH in 2016 and haven't looked back since!

As a neurodiverse single mum, remote working is the difference between me being able to provide a good standard of living for myself and my kids and....not. I know from personal experience that productivity is negatively impacted by being in an office, not the other way round.

It's always astonishing to see how hateful some of the posters on MN are towards other women though.

Exactly this 👏 all the data from the past few years shows more women are remaining in the workplace and actually doing better career wise since more hybrid and flexibility was introduced.

Nope. I WFH full time and I am far more productive at home. I actually used to find going into the office at my old job such a black hole- between finding a desk, finding rooms for calls, chatting around me and to me, coffee trips and lunch, office days were basically a write off in terms of actual work.

I'm also far less productive at home, most people are if they are honest! We generally just don't like to admit it out loud.

My husband and his contemporaries who are managers in various companies say we are less productive now with WFH

Oh right case closed then - you can disperse now ladies.

You're that shit at managing people and measuring output?

Younger people, as with all other groups, are a mixture. In person work is brilliant for some of them, at the opposite end of the spectrum some others are disadvantaged and excluded by it. Obviously those in organisations where some/full office attendance is expected are by definition not seeing the ones who it doesn't work for.

Younger people like being in the office and others do come in because working as a close knit team matters

@TizerorFizz I've really found that the younger members of staff enjoy coming into the office.

Explain your circumstances and agree to one day a month. And then time your annual leave to include that one day and bring it down a bit so that its only 7 or 8 days a year.

I'm not anti feminist and I work in a scientific environment so thanks I understand what empirical data is, I was merely relating what I had been told ,it may not be what you want to hear

I think there are many different sorts of business . All of whom will be measuring their productivity. My DH has a structural and civil engineering consultancy. They found young staff were very much disadvantaged by WFH when forced to do so. They needed direct oversight of work. They need to be certain they aren’t making expensive mistakes and they need to learn from experienced engineers. Working remotely was not great for the company or many employees. They do now have a hybrid model. Younger people like being in the office and others do come in because working as a close knit team matters. Structural design is all about safety. It’s vital to understand the business to make decisions about work patterns.

Maybe come back when you have some actual personal experience to relate rather than parroting what your husband and his mates say.