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

Completely depends on the contract.

Work from home, or 1 or 2 days in the office but company wants to change to more, they should be looking at pay rises to compensate for the change in arrangement. But no wfh, or asking for office days in line with the contract, the employees have to suck it up.

I do think there should be good reasons for changing the arrangements though. Work that can only be done in the office, or face to face meetings required. Possibly mentoring junior staff. Pulling people into the office more, only to sit on Teams all day is a waste of time and will massively reduce morale.

If you have a contract which says home is your workplace, then yes, you can claim for travel expenses. But if wfh is an unofficial perk, then no way they could or should pay.

Thing is, thing is… people have always had to pay to get to work. Just as you pay to get anywhere else.

And then you see, people who live further from their work often live in cheaper areas, and so more than save the money back that way. If people want lower commuting costs (and time), they live in more expensive areas (usually).

So I think it’s a bit much for people to move further from their work, or apply for better paid jobs far from their home and then complain about the travel costs!

Of course. Did you think I was claiming that I was some sort of exception? That’s the whole point!

No, people who don't have a legitimate place of work in their homes, don't have to be paid to go to work because they're not travelling from a valid work location to a different work location. Though maybe travel hours should be paid for everyone. But that's a separate issue.

I’m from another country and most employers do pay for commuting, even before COVID/wfh.

You either get a season rail card or fixed fuel costs reimbursed.

In the UK everyone is conditioned to think that it’s all normal to oay for this yourself, but there is another way people!

Now that we have proven the home office is a valid work location (comes with a health and safety checklist...) then it should be treated the same as any other request by an employer to work temporarily in an alternative location - they pay all travel expenses and your hourly rate for the time spent travelling.

It's unacceptable to force people to pay money they don't have, and to lose hours of their lives to an unnecessary commute, when we made historical progress in the workplace environment following a catastrophic event.

It would be like trying to dismantle the NHS and force people to bankrupt themselves every time they needed an ambulance.. just because "we used to make you do this".. okay, but we need to keep moving forward and keep making positive change.

That's normal for many, long commutes and early starts!

It would be taxed anyhiw. And employers would have to put costs up and would pass on to consume. Leading to inflation. Should teachers be paid to go to work?And doctors?And road,sweepwrs?.
Unaffordable. Massive inflation

As it does for all!

Covid got me my a life I’d not had fro years. I’d been getting up well before 6 each day and commuting 3 hours a day. That changed and I got a decent amount of sleep and worked a solid 8-9 hours a day as needed. No interruptions or talking around me. If we need to discuss something then there’s a Teams message asking if now is a good time? Plus calls are private.

And when we’re back in the office, everyone remembers why open plan is such a bad idea.

Why does working from home take the piss? Interested in specific reasons you have.

I get free travel through my work. When I’ve been looking at other jobs I’ve had to factor in the cost of a bus/rail pass as that £100 a month makes a difference!

yes! It is unbelievable to most of us but sadly I can quote many examples of frankly ridiculous requests we’ve had over the last couple of years. People thinking it’s ok to work bouncing their baby or toddler in their knees 7 hours a day, refusing to attend meetings or deliver training because they have children at home to look after….

Currently we have someone working for us for 12 weeks work experience to get back into the job market, we’ve planned his work, moved things around and arranged for him to shadow the team to get lots of experience. Then, in week two he emailed the boss and told her ( not asking !), that he’d be working from home for 2 days from now on. There’s no other word for it except a crazy sense of entitlement and a complete lack of understanding about the world of work.

Oh yeah and the nurses want to be paid to get in to work too! Why should they not get their fares payed too? Seriously this working from home takes the piss.

I think that a lot of people are in for a nasty shock if they think that they can force their employers hand in this if they have a typical contract that stipulates that their main place of work is the office.

The economy is shifting rapidly and becoming an employer market, so good luck to those that are in easily replaceable jobs that think they can hold out on this.

I can’t understand why office jobs need people to commute into the office at all surely they would save a fortune if they didn’t have to pay rates, rentals and utilities for bricks and mortar offices?

So you have zero actual experience of working from home?

The issue is that some people moved away from their base office. I told many not to do that because the return to office work was always likely but they went ahead anyhow. Now they realise the cost of moving back or paying for a season ticket is significant, they’re acting surprised.
Then there is the free childcare situation. They can juggle pickups at 3pm when working at home but not when back in the office. I am quite agog at people taking calls in the car while collecting children or running errands. I’m hearing of schools closing after school clubs as no-one uses them.
A correction was always likely.

It depends on their terms of employment. If they were hired as remote workers, it’s fair to say their salary would have reflected that. If they now have to commute, the employer should pay. My contract states where my place of work is for the purposes of claiming expenses, and that’s my office because I was hired pre-Covid. My last job had my place of work as being my home address. If they asked me to come to the office (which was 300 miles away) I claimed expenses. If the office was 20 miles away, I still could have claimed expenses.

Quite. The union is working really well on this one to renegotiate contracts, salaries and terms.

Exactly, all these Turkeys voting for Christmas.

My partner works at one of those companies and hasn't been to the office since COVID. If he had to we would need a season ticket loan, as would thousands of others, that's why they are stalling.

It depends what was agreed. If when you signed up, it was agreed you were in 2 days, and they want you in more, it seems fair for them to pay.
But most jobs were traditionally in all the time, and commuting costs were on you.
I suppose it's difficult if there's a change in a job you're already in, because travelling is more difficult and costly than it was.
It's like if it was agreed you could always leave at 2.25 to collect the kids, suddenly changing that would not only be difficult, but an extra cost, and if the terms were agreed upon, it seems unfair. And I can't wfh, so not a personal gripe.

Heaven forbid we should make things easier for working people people, I mean barclays only has an annual profit of $34 billion, who knows what they could make if their office staff came in for that extra day.