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

Ridiculous that you can't claim tax reduction on commuting costs in the UK- I commute 44km a day to work and get rebated 27 cents per kilometre which helps massively. But you can only claim for cheapest form of available transport, which makes sense to encourage using public transport (none when I'm travelling though so can claim car allowance)

If someone's contract was for working from home x days per week then the employer wants them in the office on those days, then I think its fair to ask

I had this conversation on repeat when we went back after Covid. No I don’t care that you moved out of the expensive city in lockdown and now have a longer commute. No I don’t care that you adopted a dog and didn’t think about how you’d manage while working. No I don’t care that it’s annoying to sit on a bus. Commuting time and cost is part of most people’s working life. I’m lucky that my workplace lets us WFH 1/2 days a week but I don’t expect them to care about where I live. That’s my choice.

But if your employer wanted to get you back into the office they'd have to change your contract, at which point you'd negotiate on additional cost. The issue isn't around people with WFH contracts. It's those with office based ones who have had the benefit of being able to wfh. Their salaries already (in theory) cover cost of commute.

How very unreasonable of them not to pay. they'll expecting employees to do work for them next!

I wouldn’t go back to the office full time without financial compensation. My employer has closed my local office, so commuting costs would be astronomical, and I’ve accepted below inflation pay rises over the last few years because I don’t have the expense of going to the office anymore

Trouble is, there are excellent arguments in favour of WFH too. As you rightly say, commuting is a pain. But it's a whole lot less of a pain than it would be if you added in a whole crowd of extra commuters who would otherwise be at home.
WFH reduces traffic and pollution and overcrowding on transport, and we all benefit from that.
It also enables people with health conditions and care responsibilities to be economically active and gives a greater reach for people to find jobs. It improves work/life balance, and can lead to less productivity lost to sick days.
Personally I think all employers should weigh up these social and economic issues against whether the business really requires an office presence from all roles and offer WFH where possible.
If individual employees exploit it, that's going to be reflected in their performance and should be managed as a personal performance issue rather than a sweeping policy change.

It became a cost to consider when many companies started to save money by downsizing office space and, using the punchline 'no salary increase this year but, you're saving on commuting costs". Companies need to consider how they handled COVID and the whole WFH. If they have been saving costs as mentioned above then they need to incentivise going back to work.

Many have built home offices at their own expense, moved homes and, on top of that the cost for living travel expenses has gone through the roof. If salaries have gone up in line with inflation then fair enough, but, if companies have used this period to their own cost advantage then they should be subsidising or increasing salaries.

In theory indeed….. transport costs have increased at a rate far in excess of wages.

bingo. These are matters for the market to determine

YANBU. I don't think the employees should back down on this. The push for a return to office is frankly bullshit.

I took my job c20 years ago. What do you think has increased at a faster rate since then…. Transport costs or wages?

I agree, there are benefits to wfh.
I think the key is that it should be far easier to manage. And I disagree that it is necessarily easy to see who is exploiting it and who is not. Managing performance remotely is quite a different kettle of fish to managing in the office face to face. And not enough managers will be equipped or able to do it effectively. Performance measures are not always as pinned down as they should be.
Once that changes, so will WFH.

And companies selling alcohol, tobacco and fuel… do they need loans, bank accounts, access to hedging and debt capital markets? Do they ever undertake M&A? Or is all that fake too?

It would depend on their contract surely? All my contracts have been with a location/s or office listed on there and it was for me to pay to get to and from that location.

Getting to work has always been a private cost.

It’s not as straight forward as that though is it.

I, and most of my team, were recruited during 2022 so still very much in the WFH era. We have a fairly niche skill set and it meant that they were able to employ people they wouldn’t have been able to previously due to location.

The expectation (though not contracted) has always been one day per week and we all factored this in when we accepted employment. Travel is 1-2 hours each way to one of our offices for all of us, which is fine once per week but two or more days would mean a SIGNIFICANT cost and additional commuting hours.

more time in the office would change the whole model. Especially against a backdrop of no pay rises and ever decreasing bonuses.

I think travel costs and time spent getting to and from work should be considered if you can work from home. Your employer is expecting you to waste your time travelling, waste your money on petrol/parking/rail ticket as well as contributing to pollution which is another issue in itself. I know most people will say, well you agreed to this when you took the job or it's part of your contract. This is true and legally you have to accept it or get another job but wouldn't it be great if employers took these things into consideration and did what was best for their employees (as long as it didn't effect the work they produced). I'm a teacher so it doesn't apply to me but my husband works from home and it's been a lifesaver in terms of flexibility with our children and saving money. He also says he gets far more work done at home as there as less distractions.

I've always paid to get to work,
I know people who work in the community and who take the piss with their travel costs depending on the base they select. I worked in the office and knew exactly who was taking the piss and it really annoyed me.

If the contract says you can WFH for 2 days and that was the expectation and then it changed, then there's an issue

But no. You pay to get to work and you travel in your own time.

Again, I know people who decided their home was their base and left their home when the work day started to travel an hour to their first appointment

And then travelled an hour to arrive back at home so they got home when work ended

9am : Leave home to get to first appointment (paid for travel on expenses)
10am: first appointment
More appointments
12 pm: Lunch
1pm: restart
3pm: Last appointment
4pm: Leave appointment to travel home (paid for travel on expenses)
5pm: Arrive at home

Meanwhile I was doing this
8am: Leave home for work (Unpaid and in own time)
9am: start work
12pm: Lunch
1pm: Restart work
5pm: Finish work. Travel Home in own time and paid by me
6pm Arrive at home

We have both done the same number of hours at work (9am to 5pm)
I've done 2 hours of unpaid commuting
The other person has been paid to leave home when work starts and gets paid to travel to their first appointment and travel back home from their last appointment

I have done at least 2 more hours actual work whilst the other person has done at least 2 hours a day travelling to an appointment

Bitter. Moi?

I wouldnt expect employers to pay an employees commuting cost normally. But if a worker was hired with a contract of 3 days wfh and thats been switched to 2, theres a financial loss to the worker, which the company should rightly have to compensate.

If it’s a change of contract then my workplace would sub your commute for a specified period

I absolutely hate that employers want people in the office. It's totally pointless and enforced socialisation.

"It's always been normal", yes, past tense. Times change.

The situation isn't the same for everyone or every company. In general, companies have taken measures to allow WFH, such as closing buildings and stagnating employee salaries. To get people back into work they need to reverse that strategy and invest if that's the way they intend to go.

For companies that have increased employee salaries in-line with inflation and have the original offices available then there is little argument to request a salary increase.

For the majority wfh's that is not the case. People have accepted lower salaries/salary increases in return for more flexibility. It is therefore, reasonable to expect some form of financial incentive to return back to the office.

If the company however, decided to go through the full WFH process and change working conditions (to their benefit) they can't then just expect employees to just jump back into an office full time.

My company has closed offices across the world. They understand that there is a balance. The office count is now down to 2 in the UK whereas it was 10 pre-covid.. Our CEO has stated that it helps the business financially. Most employees are now on WFH contracts. If they were to get people back into the office what should they do? This is a tech company and the story is the same for many other global companies.

What if your employees are distributed over a wide area due to operational needs in specific areas of the country? Say Scotland to Cornwall?

Companies have saved a lot in costs by offering WFH, in that they need less office space and other things. WFH employees do have some extra costs - they pay for their own heat, light, air cooling and possibly improved WiFi.

Don’t feel too sad for the companies who’ve benefitted.

On Barclays, I think it depends on the contract whether the company should contribute or not.