Work announced a move from 2 days to 4 days

And the posters spouting about how people should be in the office five days a week are probably the same people who moan about how much we pay out in universal credit or disability benefits. 🙄

I think a lot of posters on here must be commercial property plutocrats! That's the only people who benefit from people being in the office five days a week. Women ought to stick together against unreasonable demands of employers, not tear one another down.

Well, I've worked from home at least some of the time for over ten years and I don't recognise that perspective. If people are going to take the piss they will do that in the office as well.

Boo fucking hoo. If employers want good employees then they need to offer wfh at least a couple of days. If they want a high staff turnover and lots of sickness, and no good mature women employees in particular then make people come in five days. When we have the tech to support it, it makes no bloody sense for people who don't need to, to commute ten miles each way five days a week. It certainly makes no sense for the environment, and the places commuters live.

OP, stand your ground, your offer letter is part of your terms and conditions of employment.

Unfortunately everyone I know who wfh does the bare minimum and usually goes gym, pick up kids, shops etc etc I’m sure you have also done something when you should have been working from home. Thats why they are getting people back in the office because they know everyone is taking the pi$$

If you have been there less than two years and you have no protected characteristics, your employers hold the cards.

All depends on how keen they're to get everyone back to the office and how keen they are to keep you if you tell them it doesn't work for you.

Before the end of two years of continuous employment with them they can offer you a new contract, take it or leave it. If you refuse the new contract and they want to play hardball, they can terminate your old contract based on it's notice period Terms. Unless you have disclosed any protected characteristics to them, in which case you have full employment rights from day 1 and they'd have to go through a protracted process to terminate your original contract and you may have grounds for constructive dismissal if they dont follow employment law to the letter.

Hi op,

they know very well some will not be able to and will probably try to make it work to keep employees but this also means that they are ready to hire newbies that will be happy to go into office for 4 days a week.

caring responsibilities and dog will not really go down well as said child is already in full time. You are more talking about lifestyle and they might well decline you that.

a temporary solution might be found, so that you can find something that will suit you better!

Put in a formal flexible working request—it’s your legal right and gives you a strong starting point. Be clear on the impact the change has on your caring responsibilities and finances, and offer a workable compromise (e.g. stick with 2 days or suggest 3 max).
Speak to your manager early, but calmly—frame it around your commitment to the role and productivity, not just personal strain.
And yes—start discreetly looking at your options. It’s smart to have a Plan B. Don’t wait for burnout to make the decision for you.

How important are you for the role? I'd be careful if your easily replaceable since you have less than 2 years service so very few rights.

That’s nearly £200 a month in parking alone, plus another £250 for the dog, then whatever extra petrol costs. Come on now! The OP will have to spend double what she’s spending now, which is quite poor form for a workplace to suddenly spring on someone.

'Play the health card' - you cannot be serious?

Things change all the time for people and for businesses. It's not everyone's 'right' to work from home. Some people work as hard if not harder and achieve more from home, other do not, and ultimately it's the employer that loses out.

The original thread was posted by someone who's been in a job for a year based on 2 days a week in the office. If the employer wants to get people back in the office that's a fair request. Suggesting that someone should start telling lies about how it won't be possible because of their health is way out of order and, frankly, what is wrong with this country

The company can do what they want unless it’s specified differently in your contract (and it’s very unlikely to be).

You have two choices: quit, or ignore it and wait to be fired. Frankly I’d do the latter, it’s credibly difficult to fire people. (Of course you won’t get any pay rises or promotions while you do this, so may not be the best for you).

Unless it is in your contract that you are hybrid, there isn't really anything you can do. You could request flexible working but unless it benefits the business, they will probably reject it (highly likely if alot of people are requesting as well) You could potentially request a pay review and increase based off the fact it is no longer competitive against other companies. Last resort you could leave.

I've had a steady increase in days since covid - last year to 4 days and this month (next week actually) to 5 days. They is no option but to come back 5 days a week. For me it means no flexibility for attending meetings outside my usual hours (of which there have been alot). I'll have to be strict to my 2.30pm (reduced hours) finish time in order to collect my children from school/ nursery. Even this hasn't been enough to get WFH for the 1 day a week I have an important meeting. Ultimately it will effect the business but that isn't really my problem now.

I don't understand what is wrong with this, when are employers going to do more to support working mothers?
I have had online meetings and training sessions with colleagues who have had to feed their children during the meetings/training and I applaud them for doing so.
Society needs to move on and be more inclusive we do it for the LGBTQ community (and rightly so) but we make life difficult for mothers who want to work.
In my opinion it is so wrong, fight your corner OP or find an employer who recognises you as a human being not a robot.

What your employers have done is 'crappy' use everything you can to fight your corner.

OP’s employer can only expect her to meet the terms of her contract, what she does in her free time is none of their business. The employer are not ‘picking up the slack’, the couple have (presumably) agreed to manage their family this way. If that means OP can’t manage unilateral changes to her contract then so be it, it doesn’t mean she’s not performing or that the employer is suffering. If she was a single parent, a carer for someone else, had another job or other responsibilities that meant she couldn’t accommodate a drastic change to working conditions no-one would say that other requirement was ‘picking up the slack’, because they’re not.

Of course, and agreeing to the cost of 2 days is quite different to agreeing to more.

But the wider point I’m trying to make is that keeping people in employment benefits us all. Any thread that involves wfh ends up in snidey comments about lifestyle. But I live in a small town where if I didn’t leave it to work, I’d be on minimum wage, paying minimal tax and unable to save for retirement. So I’d be significantly more expensive in old age. I shop and eat locally when I’m not in the city. My employer saves a lot of money have a smaller office space and we can recruit people from further afield because the commute is only a couple of days a week so those benefits go into their households and communities too. This is one example of millions.

Yes, it’s an individuals responsibility to make sure they can afford to get to work but if they decide it’s not worth it, the consequences go beyond them.

Variation clauses have their limitations. A variation clause cannot be used to make a new contract that is altogether completely different to that which was already in force - and even if there is a variation clause, the "variation" still has to be agreed by both parties. A variation clause states how variations are to be agreed - i.e. the process for agreeing - not the substance of the variation.

Unfortunately, this information says nothing about variation clauses in employment contracts, so it's incomplete information.

OP, PLEASE READ THIS! I posted this yesterday, but I think you must have missed it:

AngelicKaty · Yesterday 17:35
OP, I think it's worth checking something before making a flexible working request (that the business could reasonably refuse based on business need).
Whilst an employment contract can vary the terms outlined in a previous offer letter, this can only be done if both the employer and employee agree to the changes or if the contract contains a variation clause, which allows your employer to unilaterally make certain changes. Does your contract contain a variation clause, OP? (It's usually very obvious as it's generally sub-titled something like "Variations"). If it doesn't, you could argue that your employer doesn't have the right to unilaterally change your working location/pattern as laid out in your offer letter.

So, it's key that you check to see if your contract contains a variation clause which allows your employer to make unilateral changes, because even if your offer letter does form part of your contract, a variation clause that allows them to make unilateral changes means they can change the terms laid out in the offer letter too.

Not only have you made a fair assumption, but an email worded like that forms the basis of your employment contract. From acas:

A contract is a legally binding agreement. This could be a 'contract of employment' or a 'contract of service'.
An employment contract can be agreed:

• verbally – this is when it's agreed through conversations
• in writing – for example, a job offer letter or through emails

When the employment contract begins;

An employment contract begins when someone starts work.
This is the case even if the employer has:

• failed to provide the written statement
• not put any other parts of the employment contract in writing

The contract might be formed earlier if all the following apply:

• the employer set out the terms of the job in a clear and definite way, verbally or in writing
• the job offer was unconditional or the person met all the conditions – for example, the employer was satisfied with their references
• someone accepted the job offer verbally or in writing

I echo all this and the comment up thread about checking house insurance for legal cover.

They would not have taken you back without a good track record and your offer letter was on the basis of hybrid. Do not go asking for grace and favour conditions without exhausting the terms of your existing offer and explanations as to why it needs to change and how they would propose to buy you out of those T&C as you accepted an overall package.

As for silly comments upthread about the great WFH experiment failing - this is nonsense. If people must generalise then the overall productivity from hybrid (which the OP is already doing), comes out top. 2/3 and 3/2 splits mostly showing the best results.

The more draconian “everyone in the office” attempts generally come from poor senior management who want to be seen to do “something” but wouldn’t know an evidence base if they fell over it. The most revealing thing about the move to WFH is just how bad many managers are at managing their own staff and productivity.

Could you afford it and would the job work if you made a flexible request to work part time? So maybe drop days or do long days but fewer or a mix of this? Just thinking there are other ways of flexing you could think about asking for that might work for you and the company.