AIBU colleague should quit job now that she's moved to another country?

[Waferbiscuit]

In February colleague told our office that she was moving to Spain in the summer and would be resigning in the late Spring in time for the move. She wasn't happy in her role (which was more than a bit evident) and wanted a change - she was moving back home and would look for something there. She told everyone as wanted to be transparent about what was going on her life and didn't want her resignation to be a surprise.

Then Covid happened, colleague was furloughed from March and even though she DID physically move back to Spain she did not resign. She remained on furlough until this month. She's now back working remotely while living in another country.

She's now saying she won't resign and is lobbying to work remotely on a permanent basis. The rest of us will have to return to the office when we are expected to return; obviously she can't because, well, she lives across an ocean. If she gets to work from home permanently and we don't, because we actually live near to where we work, that feels deeply unfair.

Surely she's having a laugh? I know you can't force someone to resign, but surely carrying on like this isn't possible? HR don't know how to deal with these new situations so I get the impression they are treading lightly, which is not helpful.

I wouldn't accept it at my firm. Who needs the hassle as a UK employer? I wouldn't be happy with the demotivating effect on UK staff. Very few people are that special.

I would return the position to the office, and then dismiss for non attendance.

Lots of people are saying good for her, she's setting a precedent or words to that effect. Are they not seeing that she needs to be in the office to do part of her job? I'm guessing during the last gmfew months theyve muddled through but in normal times she either needs to do this part of the job or her share needs to be assigned to someone else. She can't just assume that someone else will pick it up.

There are probably tax issues, and it is for HR to seek advice and sort out the matter. My employer has been very clear right from the outset that this is not an option, and depending on how large your employer is, possibly remiss for not doing this early on.

A colleague of mine emigrated. We needed him to continue to do some work until we could hand over and it suited him to do so until he found permanent employment in his be country. However I'm still fairly sure he set himself up as self employed to do this

The OP is entitled to be jealous and bitter, by the way.

As an employer I would expect this, and hence why it's a no from me

I had a colleague working for the same organisation as me in London who moved to Australia and continued to do her job.

As PPs have said, the biggest issue here are the tax implications, and of course the British / Spain treaty is impacted by Brexit.

Longer term, not being tied to a physical office will mean more of these situations / opportunities arising.

It's down to your company to determine if the role can be carried out remotely, OP. There are pros & cons.

We all need to be mindful that more a job doesn't need presentee-ism, the more it will open up to workers who can be physically located almost anywhere (with all the competition & salary reductions that will entail).

As PPs have said, the biggest issue here are the tax implications,

Not all PPs. This PP has repeatedly tried to note that they may be the most obvious implications, but not necessarily the biggest. People need to start imagining what could go wrong and follow the Yellow Brick Road to there.

The problem with threads like this, is that some cheapskate/disruptor/"clever" employer sees it and gets a really bright idea to create their own international employment regime that ends up in a very deep pile of doo-doo. Much as Uber had the really bright idea to pretend the UK was the US and supported US employment law right up until SCOTUS had to step in and say otherwise.

@CovidClara

There may be both personal and corporate taxation issues.

Yes, but that's none of the OP's business.

@QueSera

I agree with you OP. An ex colleague did this, moving to France. It left those in the office to pick up all her tasks that she couldn't physically do as she is in a differnent country, so increased all our workloads; she got to avoid the tedium, oversight and stress of physically being in the office and being watched by the boss (eg making sure you are on time, don't take more than an hour lunch, don't make personal phone calls etc - half the time when you phoned her she didn't answer); and the company paid for her to periodically come back for meetings, yet none of us got our commute to work paid for in any way. It was all very unfair, and none of us were allowed to WFH because we lived within commuting distance.

You may find the necessity to be present works in your favour when redundancies are in the offing.

@ProfessorSlocombe

As PPs have said, the biggest issue here are the tax implications,

Not all PPs. This PP has repeatedly tried to note that they may be the most obvious implications, but not necessarily the biggest. People need to start imagining what could go wrong and follow the Yellow Brick Road to there.

The problem with threads like this, is that some cheapskate/disruptor/"clever" employer sees it and gets a really bright idea to create their own international employment regime that ends up in a very deep pile of doo-doo. Much as Uber had the really bright idea to pretend the UK was the US and supported US employment law right up until SCOTUS had to step in and say otherwise.

Yes, sorry @ProfessorSlocombe - I hadn't read your posts when I posted.

Do you have any say in whether or not she is allowed to do this? Because if you don´t, then there is absolutely no point getting worked up about it. One thing I have learnt in many decades of working life, is that there are always people who seem to get better deals for their working life than others, and there are always those who seem to get away with doing less than others, but if you don´t actually manage these people or have any other say in their employment status, then you are wasting your own time and energy thinking about it, and if you try to interfere, all that will happen is that you will piss off the people whose job it actually is. Which is not good for your own employment status. Just let the HR people get on with it and make the decision they want to make.

"Where I work a few people have asked to work from abroad and it's been a flat no."

But where I work, a lot of people ARE doing that because the circumstances are exceptional.

I myself started working from another country because lockdown meant travel wasn't allowed. What else could I have done?

Quite a few went home for summer holidays and saw no reason to come back as they weren't encouraged to go into the office anyway.
In theory, the employer said no more of this after September, but some people are still doing it.
Apparently, there are tax issues if you spend more than 25% of your time in another country...

Your colleague rocks - I admire her spirit!

@sonjadog

Do you have any say in whether or not she is allowed to do this? Because if you don´t, then there is absolutely no point getting worked up about it. One thing I have learnt in many decades of working life, is that there are always people who seem to get better deals for their working life than others, and there are always those who seem to get away with doing less than others, but if you don´t actually manage these people or have any other say in their employment status, then you are wasting your own time and energy thinking about it, and if you try to interfere, all that will happen is that you will piss off the people whose job it actually is. Which is not good for your own employment status. Just let the HR people get on with it and make the decision they want to make.

This is a very good post. The only thing I would add is that if you're jealous of someone, the right thing to do is to try to extend that right to everyone rather than take it away from someone else. Your colleague not being allowed to work from Spain would not make your life any better! (And working from home permanently is crap anyway)

Unless your company has a base in Spain she can't work there (unless she became a self employed contractor and billed for her services). As others have said it's a tax issue. There were loads of articles lately about Google telling their employees that they had to return to Dublin before the new year for tax purposes.

Why so bitter? It really sounds like it will have a minimal affect on your work and it’s really between her and your employer, nothing to do with you. If she has proven she can work effectively from home, then why not?

And the tax thing is super easy. The employer pays the tax like normal, and then the Spanish government will claim it back from the uk government.

I don't think the tax issues are insurmountable. From 2008 to 2012 I had a colleague who was based in Australia. She still works for the same company (in London) and she is still based in Perth.

This happened to a colleague of mine a few years ago. The role was home based, so able to be done from France (where they moved to) but required UK presence every month for a week or so. They had to pay for commuting and UK residential/living costs themselves, come back for training, team meetings etc and were tightly scrutinised for adhering to the expected standards re presence etc. The hassle and costs meant she dropped it within six months. Tough to do this in a sustained way.

Well she is lobbying for it and who can blame her but I highly doubt this would be accepted unless she is an exceptional employee and since you have said she had made it plain she didn’t like the job and is leaving I can’t see an employer wanting to change policy to retain her.
If she is successful though you too could be offered wfh so that’s a good thing ?
Anyway don’t worry about what you can’t change

I bloody love the cheek of her

As I’ve been saying for year, if you can wfh, and you want to wfh, then you should bloody we’ll be aloud to get on with it !

Once she’s set the presidence then you can look to emigrate somewhere fab too. What’s not to like ?

She is liable to local Spanish taxes as is your employers organisation as they are now employing someone in Spain. She will need to pay tax in Spain. Also HMRC would need to be advised if they are non resident and paying Uk taxes.

It’s not as simple as people say on here, both the person and the organisation now need to get there act together and sort out the tax liabilities. Many companies will not employ people abroad for this very reason

It's totally up to your employers. If they feel the entire job can be done remotely they're entitled to accept it. However, if they feel the needs of the business are such that they need people in the office, then by law they're entitled to tell your colleague that; if she doesn't want to agree, she will have to resign or be sacked. The idea that people in public sector jobs have greater security is a myth - employment law applies to them in exactly the same way it does to everyone else.

If the role can be done remotely, then it's not an issue - presenteeism is massively over-rated. That said, if you do the exact same job then it's inequitable to refuse your WFH request but not hers. You should look at your company policy to understand what they allow / don't. They won't just consider that she is abroad, legally they can't. They will have to consider if she is able to do her job fully and if not how to manage her work. Do they let her go? Do they redistribute & move her part time? There are many options. From what you say, your colleague isn't fully able to do her role remotely which implies nor should you. I do WFH because I could do my job from a beach as long as I had my laptop and phone, not all jobs can be done 100% remotely (although a lot of creativity has happened in this space this year, through necessity - which is a good thing).

Much also depends on how she is being managed contractually, which you wouldn't normally be privy to. I manage expatriates for a living and can confirm you can't just up sticks and work from another country without creating risk + extra cost for your employer (& yourself). Those I've managed in similar situations have been moved to Spanish employment, and taken a huge pay cut as a result (because role does not pay like for like in the Spanish market).. even though they can do the same job remotely.

Personally, I wouldn't want to see a colleague lose their job and I'd be cross if my employer didn't make every effort to accommodate. We're in a pandemic for Christ's sake.

I don't think the tax issues are the responsibility of the employer but fall upon the employee.

We had a guy work remotely in Italy for a year, we paid his salary, tax and NI as usual but he was hit with a 15,000 euro tax bill from the Italian version of HMRC, he tried to get the company to pay for it but they weren't having any of it and he had to pay it himself. I think with most European countries if you have been resident for over 180 days then you have to pay income tax there.

It did see the company change policy through and now if someone wants to work abroad for longer than 3 months they have to become a contractor.