WFH & home internet breaks down

[37KAT]

A friend is WFH due to Covid. Today her home WIFI developed a fault and is scheduled to be repaired sometime on Wednesday.
She contacted her boss at work who told her she would need to book the next few days as annual or unpaid leave. It was also suggested she could work at her next door neighbours house

She offered to go to the office, they said no. She asked for a dongle, they said it would take 3 days to organise.
HR were copied in on the reply.

I told her IMO this sounds unreasonable. Because CV is so new & they've not WFH before it sounds like a manager winging it.

I am currently WFH too for the first time so it's got me interested.

Would she be unreasonable to expect them to be supportive & realise IT issues occur at home too and she should not be forced to take unpaid leave or use holiday?
She has suggested solutions!

@Notcrackersyet
No. This seems to be normal. I am WFH using my home WiFi and my employers does not pay for it. Seems to be the norm.

Suggested the hotspot. She will look into it.
Says her employers do not pay expenses... I am starting to appreciate my employers more!

I'd get paid special leave if this happened. We don't get a good enough mobile signal to use a hotspot reliably.

If my home WIFI went down, I would connect my laptop to my work mobile phone hotspot. Quite easy to do.

If my home WIFI went down, I would connect my laptop to my work mobile phone hotspot. Quite easy to do.

Work have asked me to work for home. Not the other way around. If I cannot work from home, I would expect to be allowed access to an office. I do have the advantage that my organisation has more than one site I can go to.

Does she have a work mobile phone? She can tether her laptop to her phone, job done

Most internet providers will state that their services are for residential purposes only. Their terms haven't changed for covid, however that's to protect them against the urgency of repairs when faults occur during lockdown. It's within their rights to terminate a service if it's being used for business purposes but I don't know any providers that actually do.

They, for this reason, won't cover loss of earnings to the pp that suggested she ask her provider about this. They also can't guarantee a fault free service, which is also usually stated in the The and C's.

This is 100% an employer issue to sort out. They either let her work in the office or they sort out a dongle.

Employers are also within their right to dictate when holiday allocation is used though, so there's not really any thing illegal about insisting she uses annual leave, though it is a bit unfair.

Her employers sound v unreasonable!!

In this situation I paid for extra phone data as I knew it would be about five days to fix. It cost me a fair bit, maybe 100 pounds, but it means I'm covered by phone data if it happens again in the future, also for streaming etc. I'm developing my own home business continuity plan!

depends....what if she didn't have internet at all (some people don't, or just rely on their phone's data....) surely work would have had to either pay for her to have it installed or sort out a dongle then, as she isn't obliged to pay for it in order to work, so how is it her responsibility when it goes down?
In the same way as if she didn't have a computer at home her employer would have to provide one for her if they expected her to WFH, they wouldn't expect her to buy one out of her own money.
Legally I think because er office has chosen not to reopen they are therefore making her work from home so have to provide her with the tools to do so.

Employers are also within their right to dictate when holiday allocation is used though, so there's not really any thing illegal about insisting she uses annual leave, though it is a bit unfair.

I thought they had to give you reasonable notice when requiring you to use annual leave e.g. not on the day.

Anyway OP I would suggest your friend sucks this up and finds a role with a more reasonable employer. Apart from a couple of companies the rest would either expect me to make the time up as soon as I could or would consider it part of the ebb and flow of being flexible on both sides.

"She says there isn't a union."

Eh?
There's always a union you can join. Plenty of unions open to any members, Unite for example but there are others. I joined Unison because it has more public sector and charity employees who are members.

It's a really tricky one.. I know in my organisation things like that spread like wildfire.. one person has internet issues and are excused then all of a sudden half the work force are waiting for engineers and can't work.. it's awful when it's a genuine problem for someone.. but may be an ongoing issue the company are working against.
I manage a team who are WFH and it's obvious who is genuine and who is pulling a fast one so I would action accordingly.. if your friend is offering solutions then she is doing all she can and shouldn't be disadvantaged for it!

but her employer should be thanking her for using her domestic internet access for work for all this time, not punishing her for it no longer being available.

why haven't they sorted proper BUSINESS internet access before now? they've had long enough.

what would they have done if an employee doesn't have internet access at home (plenty of my, admittedly older, relatives, do not). and wifi hotspot isn't an option for everyone, my sister in law has to take mobile calls at the far end of the garden near the driveway bit to take calls, no signal at home (thanks 02!). her internet banking is a nightmare because she can never get the messages in time before they time out.

i don't understand what her employer's long term plan is - just only employ people with a home internet being paid for out of taxed income?!

(also, what if she'd just moved, or she was relying on that to provide home education or her partner works on it too... it's a home connection, not neccesarily good enough for her work to use for months at a time, for free...!)

If she can hot-spot from her phone, work should pay that cost. If the office is closed, that's not her fault and they should pay her.

So this is the new normal now then?

We use our own stuff to work and pay for the internet connections, do extra hours and are always available but that's being 'flexible' and 'adapting to difficult circumstances'. But when something happens to this stuff that we're paying for in order to do our job, then it's "your connection, your problem".

So much for being in this together.

Another suggestion... can she go to a friends or family members house to work? More private than a cafe!

I think if she has offered to work in the office then it's her work's problem. She's not employed to work from home normally and she could choose not to have internet at all, quite legitimately.

I think the libraries are still shut aren't they?

Plus on the occasions I wfh I couldn't do it in a public place. I'm a CPN and have to make calls to patients, I need to be in a private space.

They either let you into the office or pay you till your WiFi is up and running. More fool them If it takes them 3 days to arrange a Dongle as that's three days they have to pay you.

She has not been issued with a work mobile phone.
Many people I know, me included who find themselves WFH for the first time due to Covid are using their own equipment, WIFI and mobile phones!

I wonder what happens for employees without wi-if (as a teacher a fair share of families I meet don’t have it?)

To be fair though @37KAT, generally most people aren't incurring additional costs so they'd be paying for WiFi or their own phones already so unless it's costing them more, it's really a moot point. There are ways to claim those expenses through HMRC if people want to go down that route.