AIBU to think if your boss wants you in the office, they should help pay to get you there?

I'd be wary of studies.

Very few companies had any idea on their productivity anyway.

I worked for 3 companies after COVID who admitted they had no idea what effect staff WFH had on their efficiency.

The real giveaway was the number of outfits who had insisted that they couldn't support WFH that were begging staff to WFH during COVID and who - mysteriously - did not go bust.

I'm not saying there is a conspiracy to gaslight us as a nation. But you have to ask yourself what they will do when the next pandemic happens ?

Also this recent study says the opposite!
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07500-2

If your place of work is your home, then commutes to an office are claimable.

My first true WFH role saw me go to Eastleigh, Gloucester, Stoke, Bournmouth, Glasgow and Brussels as well as London .... every mile paid for at 40p ....

Unless your contract is fully remote then no they don't need to pay you to get to work.
This is part of having a job

Which studies?

That's for when you are travelling on business - eg to appointments to meet with clients or to attend work training courses. If your employer is paying you HMRC milage rates for your regular office commute they might find themselves with an expensive tax bill.

You have "agreements" and you have contracts.

A lot of "WFH" contracts aren't They explicitly make the place of work the office and that is that. Any deviation is (generally) up to the employers discretion, subject to usual employment law.

All my WFH jobs have stated my place of work is home address. (Which meant my travel into any office was paid for).

I had to setup a load of WFH infrastructure back in 2010 when my company was absorbed into it's parent. That was a lot of time with non tech people that I will never get back. But I remember the discussions ....

I think it depends on what the arrangements were when they started working there. If they started work with the agreement that there would be 2 office days they may not have budgeted for an additional days commute, so it is effectively a pay cut and additional travel hours to what they initially agreed to.

As with all things, it’s the people who take advantage that ruin it for the rest of us

eg people who think wfh means they don’t need to pay for childcare.

and employment law makes it very difficult to get rid of the people swinging the lead

not every company is taking in massive profits and there are a lot of belts that need tightening. The UK is not the honeypot it once was

They already do. It is called your salary.

The problem with this approach, is the pitch has already been queered by the greedy numbnuts who immediate say WFH as an excuse to whine about £2 a day increased domestic bills, whilst overlooking the £50/week pay rise they were getting by not having to commute (and that is ignoring the 10-20 hours a week they also gained).

(Plus all those who mistakenly thought they were "working from home" despite their contracts saying otherwise).

Some people get way more done at home but lots don’t. Or they get things done at home but potentially not in the best way or things get missed as they don’t just ask the questions that are easy if sitting across from someone but harder if needing to initiate a call

In my experience average of 3 days a week in the office is necessary to ensure effective working. Below that does not work effectively in the long run. Work may get done but the extra stuff needed for progression and growth (individual and company level) ultimately gets missed.

I think some people thought WFH would last forever and made decisions based on that. People moved to the coast or the countryside, used their previous commuting costs for a larger mortgage, had offices at home built, got used to the extra money and then were shocked when there was a return to the office policy.

My commute isn't that far but it still takes a while if I hit traffic. I do much more at home and even prior to COVID my team were only in one day a week.

I do wonder though about this move back to the office being more about taking something off people they like, control and presenteeism rather than collaborating and delivery.

In a few cases that probably is the case.

I'd say 80% of cases are about getting rid of people they'd rather not have (disabled, women, carers, people with health conditions, people with interests outside work).

I'm sure that is the case. Employers are really lazy - that's why there are so few entry level jobs, they shove a job requirement of at least 2 years experience on something we (Gen X) would have done as a Saturday job - or import from overseas.

In many cases, RTO mandates are about getting people to leave so they don't have to pay redundancy. They hope people will go and they won't replace them, and there's even more juicy profit for their multi-millionaire shareholders.

So people who are desperate for jobs won't be any better off.

You are aware that giving people standard structured training is not the same as giving the individual on the job training that is specific to their role and the company's way of doing things? And that people improve by working with ohters, seeing how others do the job and getting feedback?

You don't just sent a junior engineer on a C# course and then expect them to write perfect code, for example. Nor do you just expect them to use AI to write their code and understand if it's acceptable.

Although some work standards are so sloppy these days, maybe it is because training a new employee is now simply sending them on a training course and then expecting them to work the rest out.

You cannot learn how to fully work through structured/ external training alone. That is a proportion of it but the vast majority is on the job.

no, as management they decide what is best for the company and all employees and they have decided that is to be in the office for several days a week . If you haven’t got to senior management (yet) then don’t assume you know everything because you probably don’t see the whole picture.

and before you say being in the office is not what is best for all employees, the company struggling will result in job losses and I imagine that is not in the employees best interest.

And yet millions of people have studied for degrees via the Open University. Perhaps your company needs to switch training providers….

Yes, instead of senior management improving their management skills, they are passing the buck to junior staff who are less able to absorb the costs of commuting.

I live in prime SE commuter belt territory. It costs c£50 per day to go in by rail which is the only viable option. That’s a huge cost out of net income.

Well that's great for you. The senior management at my company have found that remote structured training is not sufficiently effective, hence it wants people in the office some of the time.

Or they genuinely believe it will result in an increase in standards and company growth

It really depends on what the employment contract says doesn't it? If employment is based on WFH, the employees are right.

BTW, all 'back to the office' initiatives are consultations by stealth. They are looking to shed workers and this is a way to do it without having to say 'redundancy process'.