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!

My employer is paying us all a small fixed amount towards WFH expenses in recognition of the fact that we're all using WiFi, electricity and other things at home (no heating atm but we will probably use it more in winter if we're still all WFH at that point).

They do save money by not having us all in the office.

Using a hotspot would cost me/my company a fortune. I go through at least 50gb a day of data working from home.

Make sure your friend checks how much that option would cost her, especially if the company won't refund!

Anything that requires streaming/constant access to online databases/systems will drain data really fast. If she's only picking up email tasks and can work on them offline a hotspot would be manageable and relatively inexpensive (unless she has massive attachments to download).

@RedRumTheHorse @Couchbettato
Re. Holiday, your employer has to give you the same amount of notice as the number of days holiday they require you to take..so 2 days notice for 2 days enforced annual leave and so on.

She could see if they would allow her to purchase a dongle and claim back on expenses?

@Livingmybestlifenow I thought that was if they wanted to cancel a pre-existing holiday.

They have to give you the same amount of notice as the length of your holiday for them to cancel.

@Couchbettato @Livingmybestlifenow I've just read they have to give you twice the notice they want you to take off.

When the internet is down at work I buy extra data and use hotspot. Job done.

I suspect this is the new normal. Employers must be rubbing their hands in glee.

Opportunity to reduce office space
Cut utility costs
Reduced sickness
Cut refreshment costs
Employees always available in the name of flexible working
How many employees are not being reimbursed for cost of electricity and in winter heating?
How many are using their own printers, paper, pens?
How many employers have carried out risk assessments on the areas being used as office spaces (ie unsuitable dining chairs and tables) and if necessary provided suitable furniture to prevent long term muscular skeletal issues?
Now work can be done as easily from anywhere in the country, how much work is going to shifted round to make certain staff work longer hours and staFf in more expensive parts of the country axed?

@RedRumTheHorse I will suggest she looks into this.

@Lifeisgenerallyfun

I suspect this is the new normal. Employers must be rubbing their hands in glee.

Opportunity to reduce office space
Cut utility costs
Reduced sickness
Cut refreshment costs
Employees always available in the name of flexible working
How many employees are not being reimbursed for cost of electricity and in winter heating?
How many are using their own printers, paper, pens?
How many employers have carried out risk assessments on the areas being used as office spaces (ie unsuitable dining chairs and tables) and if necessary provided suitable furniture to prevent long term muscular skeletal issues?
Now work can be done as easily from anywhere in the country, how much work is going to shifted round to make certain staff work longer hours and staFf in more expensive parts of the country axed?

This has been my whole attitude to wfh.

All the money the employer saves and no compensation for the workforce.

And people seem happy about it. I know they don't have to commute but I would have hated this if I was still in the workplace and there's no rules in place yet to protect workers.

"there's no rules in place yet to protect workers."

Actually there are. People worked from home before coronavirus!

www.acas.org.uk/working-from-home

@AnotherEmma
Would it be different for the people WFH before CV. Presumable they'd have it in their contract somewhere that the job had an element of WFH.

Guess majority of people finding themselves WFH suddenly now might have a different contract.
I reckon a lot of employees are feeling they need to suck it up as they don't want to return to the office and feel if they question it, it will be used against them when they're eventually asked to go back. I am feeling this way!

We have employees whose WiFi connection is forever crashing. Sometimes it’s genuine, sometimes it’s an eye roller. It’s rarely a big deal and there is little we can do about it. We’d certainly not expect people to use annual leave.
Is there no part of her work that can be done off line?

Hotspot on work phone?
Work on work phone?
Go somewhere with Internet and be careful about positioning of screen or make a cardboard screen hood?
Go to a friends or relatives?

Where there’s a will, there is usually a way.

"Would it be different for the people WFH before CV. Presumable they'd have it in their contract somewhere that the job had an element of WFH."

Not necessarily. Some contracts might mention it, some might not. Some employers might already have WFH policies, some might not. Most contracts allow for some flexibility in working practices, based on business need, even if they don't specifically mention WFH. Those already working from home (pre-lockdown) are more likely to have it in their contract and/or have a WFH policy, but it is also possible that when they first started the job, they were office-based, and then later started some WFH - in which case you wouldn't necessarily change the written contract, but it would be a change of contract and this could be verbal or evidenced in email communications.

An employee's rights when WFH are defined by employment law so in most cases they will have the same rights whether they did it pre lockdown or only started during lockdown. An employment contract can provide additional rights but there are also statutory rights (provided by law) which exist even if they're not mentioned in an individual contract.

Hotspot like others have suggested and if necessary expense the extra data. I’ve had to use my phone quite a few times when the WiFi has been ropey. I’d expect someone to come up with a solution and not do nothing for 3 days.

The same thing happened to me. Sod's law meant that on the same day I had wall to wall Teams meetings at a high level with me as the chair. I tried using 4G data but it couldn't cope.

In the end I went next door.

@Sailingblue

Hotspot like others have suggested and if necessary expense the extra data. I’ve had to use my phone quite a few times when the WiFi has been ropey. I’d expect someone to come up with a solution and not do nothing for 3 days.

They won't pay expenses. She has offered to go into the office and suggested they get her a dongle.. she offered to update her data - they won't expense it. She doesn't want to sit in a Cafe or public space due to CV and it isn't practical for 8 hours and what she does is sensitive. She say they are having a zoom meeting later this week to discuss it with the team.. will wait and see that happens!

How much is she saving on not traveling to the office? She just needs to add a chunk of data to get phone contact and use the hotspot.

Going forward, having a decent home internet connection will be a requirement for jobs that can be done from home. It's in everyone's interest to have a backup plan for if the main broadband connection goes down.

@malmi that's why my phone contract and home broadband is with Vodafone. I have had WiFi connectivity issues with home broadband they saw the fault sent BT out and have me unlimted 4g data for a month so I could hotspot for work. They fixed it on 2 days so bonus for me.

It stopped working again 3 weeks after the fix and they did the same, gave me another month of unlimited 4g had BT out to the house in 24hrs and sent me a free new router ....no problems since but having same provider gave me leverage to get 4g data unlimited so I could still work.

Risk is if Vodafone goes down I'm screwed but hey ho they are more reliant then boring media

Risk is if Vodafone goes down I'm screwed but hey ho they are more reliant then boring media

Just switch to BT, they give you a 4G router until they fix the fault.

The problem comes when the 4G can't give you the bandwidth that you need... as in my case.

@phonelock with vodaone I dont pay additional line rental so I save that cost

The advice is to work at home if you can and if you have no internet you cannot so see no reason she should not go into the office and think her employer is being very unreasonable. Our place is allowing people with internet problems to go in, I went in for a day when my laptop broke (and quite enjoyed it I miss working in an office!)

with vodaone I dont pay additional line rental so I save that cost

It's included with the cost of BT broadband now.

I was with them until a few weeks ago when I switched to Vodafone.

What would they do if the internet went down at the office? Our internet went down at work yesterday from 10am until overnight. No wages were cut!

@trinity0097
Exactly! We have IT issues and it's accepted in the office - why not at home 🤷‍♀️