AIBU to apply for hybrid roles even though I'm nowhere near the workplace?

You assume travel is a barrier to flexibility. That's your assumption and nothing to do with the applicant's ability to handle it. Almost all office based jobs will have a routine and employees will base their own routine around that – being in at 9-5pm, weekly meetings on Tuesday, lunch hour between 1-2pm, etc. Employees will build routines of their own around these determiners – childcare, train travel, dentist appointments, dog walkers etc. Let's not pretend that any of the above suddenly changing wouldn't pose a problem to any employee, regardless of where they live.

That's part of the job description

If it's the part of the job description to be available to come in on any given day or hour with 24hrs notice, then make that a known policy. It's the applicant's job to handle that and handle it well, not your job to assume they can't simply because you think they can't.

Yes it would. But factually it is illegal.

In that case, you are clearly able to be reasonably flexible and honestly I think most employers won’t care where you live.

And that experience would be based on other non-connected individuals. So again – it's bias.

I don't see how it's discriminatory to prioritise flexibility in my staffing. I need people who can come in on any day they are paid to work - and those days aren't entirely in their control and could change week to week. That's part of the job description and part of my expectation. So I would need a very compelling reason to hire someone who has an additional barrier to the role such as living hours away.

But... I don't hire very high level roles and it's not a headhunting situation. I would guess anything like this would be part of any sort of negotiation for very niche skilled people, upper level management etc. But would never be part of mine.

They'd have to prove it though – which would be exceptionally difficult.

it may be the experience of that company......

It is actually illegal not to hire on the basis of caring responsibilities or cancer.

and I repeat my comment above....many good candidates and only one post....

I didn't say they couldn't. I have only said it's poor hiring practice to make judgements based on biased based on assumptions.

you can call discrimination as much as you like but when an employer has several strong candidates and only one post, they will take all other factors into account and only have to tell the others "sorry you weren't the strongest candidate/best fit this time"

No where did I say they have no rights (in fact, I say they do gave the right). Absolutely no where do I say there is a law against it or that it's illegal.

What I have said is that it's bias and it's poor hiring practice – which it is.

It's also not illegal to not hire an applicant because she's 27, newly married and wants children. But is it good practice, all skills and experience being present, to not hire her based on the assumption that she's going to have children shortly and vis-à-vis be a poor employee? Is it good practice to also not hire a woman because she has one and two year old children at home and relies on nursery? Is it good practice to not hire a man who has undergone cancer treatment in the last 6 months? Are any of these illegal? No. Are all of them based on pre-judged bias and not the individual? Yes.

This. As someone who used to interview and hire regularly, it comes to the "equal candidates but one has xxx" issue. A stellar candidate will always have an advantage but mostly in my experience they are few and far and get headhunted rather than going through the standard sieve process.....

If I were in HR I'd be wary of people with long commutes as so many have/are trying to negotiate more wfh once they're in the door.

But as PP have said, you can do a lot to convince them that you're serious. Being very clear on the detail of how it will work will help.

The issue I have is that you say that employers have no right to hire (or not hire) someone based on the distance to work, there are no laws agaist that. You also say it's discrimination to not hire someone who lives several hours away and you liken it with not hiring women of childbearing age or disabled people. You seem to think that employers are doing something illegal by taking distance to work into consideration when hiring staff. They aren't.

I'm not talking about formal workplace discrimination, I'm talking about good old fashioned discrimination about any assumptions someone has that affect how well you think they can perform a job. I didn't say an applicant has rights against this discrimination – they don't – but it's still poor practice to discriminate against people in this way.

It's only discrimination if it's around a protected characteristic. Location you live isnt a protected characteristic

YANBU to apply.

I'm guessing that perhaps some managers have had negative experiences with employees who apply for a hybrid role a long distance away and then keep finding more and more excuses not to come in. But that's obviously not your fault.

DH has applied for a couple of fairly senior roles where he's asked whether hybrid working is available during the initial fact finding call, and been told that very few people in his field will now apply for a role requiring100% in an office so the firm is having to offer flexible working. It's very dependent on a lot of factors.

You are right to apply but will need to explain how you’ll make it work. Definitely not a blocker but they need to be convinced you will make it work:

What if there is an important event on one of your WFH days, are you able to switch days?

What if you have a week long in-person training, can you be there the whole week as a one-off?

What is your contingency plan if trains are not running one day? For ex can you easily swap to
go to the office the next day?

I hired someone living in Wales for a hybrid London job, 2 office days a week. But I knew him and knew he was reliable and would be flexible.

It's difficult to say without knowing more about the sector and what recruitment looks like. I can believe an employer who's previously had a hybrid hire wanting more wfh might be more wary and prefer someone living closer if all else is equal. So you could lose out there.

Equally, that doesn't mean such a person will also apply for the role. There've been threads on here before from people who kept having the same problem and whose companies clearly hadn't realised they were not in a position to get office time on the package they were offering.

It's also possible they won't even pick up on it.

But when your commuter or tube line is wrecked for the day, there's no alternative - you'll be stuck or seriously late. Or your bus is ploughing through awful traffic and the whole route is thrown off. You can't generalise so easily. When Southern Trains had so many issues a few years back, people suffered months on end of serious problems, causing job losses. And you're not in walking distance to work if snow or ice stops everything. It's not just about missing a train.

There are so many variables, as this thread shows. Flexibility on modes of transport/days in office/hours to work/notice period. The people applying to work in a hybrid role with a long commute need to think about these seriously of course, and only apply for roles they can afford to do, both in travel costs and life disruption.

An hours' commute in London is nothing like an hours' commute in other places. If you miss your train/tube, there's probably another pretty soon after. In other places, missing your train (or it being cancelled) could mean a wait of an hour or two before the next one. It's really not just "time" that matters, it's alternative options for when things go wrong.

Also think about "when" they want you in work. Can you decide what days to go in, or do they impose the days, and if so, are they the same days every week or different days.

At my son's workplace (one of UK's largest insurers), they're hybrid in that it's a minimum of average 3 days in the office every week, with the option for average 2 days working from home. But the contract allows them to specify when they want you in which can vary. Most of the time, they're entirely flexible, and it's up to the employee. But sometimes, there are "non negotiable" office days for meetings, presentations, training, etc. So it's impossible to always be in the office, say Tues/Wed/Thurs or Mon/Tues/Wed - it's often something like Monday, Wednesday, Friday. At busy "quarterly reporting" weeks, they have to be in the office all week for two weeks so they can collaborate together with the whole team in person to meet the tight deadlines. That is what made it impossible for our son to continue living at home and commuting - so he had to leave home and rent a flat in his work city.