Should dh be worried??

[firstofallimadelight]

Dh works in an industry where some of his role can be completed at home and some needs to be in the office. But his employer prefer staff in and wfh to be occasional not regular. However the amount of wfh varies from team to team and manager discretion.
last year I had an accident which I required a lot of care /support and our son needed looking after (school age) we did get a lot of support off family (ds can’t go to formal childcare due to being disabled) But a large part of making meals/toileting/washing me and caring for ds/ school runs fell to dh. His work were great and he has wfh permanently since Jan last year. As a result he has built positive relationships with international businesses and mostly works with them meaning 90% of his job can be done from home.
I took back over school runs in September and have recently returned to work. I am still up and down in my health needs and need to rest regularly but I’m managing. Dh has started going into work one day a week since September.
Recently dhs manager left and has been replaced , new manager has been fine with wfh but also mentioned preferring staff to be in. (Most of dh team wfh semi regularly) He spoke to dh about requesting via hr a wfh variation to his contract if dh still wants to wfh. (Unlikely he would get a full time variation but may get 1/2 days) This would give us a bit of flexibility if I’m struggling.
Dh doesn’t want to do this as he wants to work from home when it suits him not dictated days. I said he should as it sounds like new manager wants staff in and was preparing him for this. Dh disagrees. But why else would manager initiate conversation?

Also to mention there has been talk of redundancies

The issue with working from home is they are less viable and the work being done is also in usable

For example we have a senior in our team - WFH full time.

He doesn’t help in the team is not a mentor for people doesn’t make relationships with new team members etc

He does his work but no added value to the rest of us.

Other seniors are run ragged.

That's an individual issue, not a WFH issue. My whole team WFH and we are all mentoring, running multi stake holder workshops, and run ragged - everything you would expect from a senior level professional team.

OP - I don't think anyone sounds unreasonable here. It is possible to write work from home 2 days a week into a contract without specifying the days. My workplace does ask for specific days but even in those cases, it is possible to flex the days on the ground day to day. I would suggest with redundancy floating around that your DH compromises. The manager may be looking to actually protect DH's WFH as far as they are able.

That's definitely not a standard WFH issue I work for a big bank and we all WFH most of the time. No one has any issues like that

That’s what I think too, I’m concerned dh is missing the point his manager is trying to help him and would only be doing that if there was a need to (as in if all was well with current situation he wouldn’t have needed to raise it)

Personally I think all this 'people don't work as hard when they wfh' is bollocks. Some people will never work hard full stop. Most people work best in a flexible WFH environment where they arnt micromanaged and are treated like adults.
If I couldn't WFH 1/3 of my hours I wouldn't be doing that job, and they would lose my specialist expertise. My DH has just quit his job because they want him in 3 days a week and we live 3 hours away with high needs children and I have some health issues. (with none to go to, risky but it's also toxic culture). We are both highly experienced professionals.

Sometimes I think people who are shit managers want people in more because it looks like they are doing something because they arnt actually very good at managing people.

Did the manager TELL him to speak to HR about a flexible working request, or was it a casual suggestion as they made a cuppa? One would encourage me to take action, the other I would ignore for the time being. Perhaps the new manager is coming in and flexing his muscles a bit but has no real grounds to pursue it more formally, hence hoping your husband does it for him.

I wouldn't change something that worked so well for my family on the basis of a subtle suggestion. I'd want a formal request to be made from the manager, asking me to change the things I've been doing for the last year for 'X' reasons. I'd then have a proper conversation around that to better understand the concerns, the parameters they would like in any request I were to make and the expected likelihood of a flexible working request being accepted.

How important is your DH to the organisation/team?