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

The only time I think there is an argument for the employer to pay is when the employee has a fully remote contract and the employer requests that they go in.

and I say that as someone currently doing hybrid and not wanting more days in the office! Don’t get me wrong, I’d love my employer to pay but realistically can’t see any reason why they should

I live in a country where I my company pays my commuting costs from the station nearest to my house regardless of whether I actually use the train or not. It’s taxed the same as salary.

Problem in England is the high cost and poor quality of public transport. My commute costs about 8GBP a day. The equivalent kind of commute in England would probably be about 30GBP

'Choose jobs that pay more'? Like it's that simple. Have you tried job-hunting in the current market?

I suspect many of those who are asking for help with work-related travel costs are on shit money to begin with, as so many people in the UK unfortunately are.

obviously if your t&cs have changed, but if you decided to move from London to Cornwall during lockdown….then asking for subsidies is unreasonable

When has travel to work ever been paid for? Certainly not in my lifetime as a teacher and also doing supply driving 30 miles each way. Are office based jobs different 🤔?

Well you get paid more for being a supply teacher don’t you

Unless your contract isa fully wfh job then you are being a cheeky git

I think it depends on the role. Current job is Al.ost 100% in the office anyway (I can do some training from home. Previous job was hybrid before Covid - supporting servers all round the world. If I had to fix a server in Australia, why does it matter if I'm WFH or from the office, as long as my network connection is up to it. I had colleagues all over the world, too - again, if I've got a meeting with them, it wouldn't be face-to-face, except very rarely (and work did pay for that, as it would involve flights abd hotels etc,) so we always did lots of video calls, and again, does it matter if I'm doing that from home or thr office?

That company and my current one have not mandated100% return to office. Current one has stipulated times you shoukd get in, and there shoukd be an effort to focus on collaboration and being in on the same day to do face-to-face work. (My role is 100% office anywY, but not everyone is.) It has raised queries about travel budgets, because some teams are split across sites. Not a big deal if it's Reading and Basingstoke, but Basingstoke and Manchester is a bit more of a challenge. I imagine they'll sort it out.

Lol you're joking! The agencies get paid well. £80 a day for cover supervisor at moment, after tax etc it's £58, travelling 20 miles each way. Temporary, usually earn £140 and after tax etc £115, 20 miles or more, going to any school after being called at 6.30am, put in a full day of teaching in 6 different classrooms.

Where on earth did you get the idea supply teachers earn a fortune? Please do some research.

Apologies, I haven’t done research. Just assumed like most contracting roles cover gets paid more

@bigred26 did they work in the office pre-Covid?

If so, did the employees offer to give back the money they would’ve spent on commuting when they began working from home? No they didn’t.

They’ve basically had more money in their pocket for the past 6 years, and now that period has come to an end. Barclays has neither given them a payrise or a paycut. They have just paid their wages and expect them to work wherever they tell them to work. It’s the employees responsibility to be at the required place of work if they want to be paid their monthly salary. It isn’t the banks responsibility to cover their commute.

Ridiculous!

I hope he was given his marching orders!

If jobs are really as hard to come by as people say then there will always be somebody prepared to pay to get themselves to work. I can't say personally as my job can't be done remotely and is in demand.

Paid more than what? Ridiculous response

The whole thing is silly, wfh more makes so much sense and is often better for mental wellbeing and the environment. I can't wfh in my job, but I think getting people off the roads when it isn't needed makes far more sense. I wonder what Barclay's motivations are for this.

Lets say employers agree to this, they will just shave it off annual salary increases thus penalizing those with low or no commuting costs.

In UK, it is absolutely the responsibility of the employee to pay to get to work. In some countries, a season ticket (or mileage) is paid for by the employer as a tax free benefit. My employer pays for my yearly train ticket but where I live has crazy income tax so it’s a small benefit. It is in everyone’s contract.

Lock down was 6 years ago…. If you have been home based since then with occasional travel to the office and have moved home, then I don’t think it’s unreasonable to be pissed off if all of sudden the routine you had for 5/6 years is now totally interrupted without warning.

Even if you haven’t moved home and live a commutable distance, you’re probably not budgeting for the travel anymore, so the cost for a lot of people will be a major inconvenience given how expensive public transport is, not to mention the cost to park in cities (it’s £20 a day at the cheapest car park to my place of work, I pay it but I am only realy in the office a couple times a month.)

Its really difficult.
I was hired by an organisation in 2023 on the basis of 2 days office. They claimed they couldnt put this in contracts becaus pre covid staff had office in their contracts & they had to be consistent, but job was advertised 2/5 in office etc.
They had also moved around a third of jobs to a low cost location on the basis that remote working/teams meant they no longer needed to be in the original location. The lower cost location jobs paid considerably less.

Now they want 4-5 days office. Its not what i signed up for, and will cost me about £500 a month after tax. im a high performer whos been promoted twice so im confident its not they want to keep tabs on me its pure presenteeism across the whole organisation.

No one is offering me a 10k payrise to cover the cost after tax....

Its the opposite in teaching. Supply is often at the lower pay bands. They get away with it because loads of teachers with younger kids want to be able to just work here and there for a bit of extra money and in supply you can walk out at 3.30pm with no planning/marking etc and not get draggd into ofsted crap.

OH had this. During Covid he had lots of folk moving away hours away. When it was time to return with a hybrid model they all demanded he stump up for their travel costs. How he laughed and how they laughed when presented with their contracts and told to shift it. He much prefers people in the office as it’s better for team working and he not having to spend hours sorting out petty shit.

He now works on the other side of the country. Our choice so we pay his commute costs. Having been through redundancy twice in a shit job market I just think suck it up and be grateful.

Because it is better I most cases to have some in person collaboration with colleagues. Sitting in an office together normally means things get sorted out quicker

Wfh works for some days but in a lot of jobs some working together with colleagues in the office is needed. It’s also so much harder to train new people up if fully at home.we complain about the attitude of Gen Z but their workplace training has suffered badly as a result of wfh.

Haven't rtft so this has probably been pointed out already but - if a company had to pay commuting fees then they would only hire people who live centrally. The central homes closer to work would become even more sought after and expensive. It would distort the housing market even further.

Or alternatively, they would base salaries on how close you live to work! offsetting any commuting costs. Either way I don't think it would be the employees winning.