To refuse to go back to the office

[tillytalks]

I’m currently on mat leave and due back to work on the 15th March.

I work in an office with 12 other people.
At present everyone is in the office.

There is no reason why people can’t work from
home, and I’m pretty sure the reason is that management are the type that wouldn’t trust staff to work at home.
It’s a family run business and the owners are quite precious.

I’m really careful, I don’t mix, I follow the rules to the letter.

I’m 34, have mild asthma and I also have a high BMI (more than 30 but less than 40)
I’m working out and eating well so I’m hoping this will reduce.

Even still, I just don’t feel comfortable sitting in an office all day with 12 other people.
The office isn’t big. It’s a long room, and although we can distance, I feel like it would still be crowded.

I know that I wouldn’t be given any preferential treatment to work from home, but I haven’t asked so can’t be too sure.

I’ll be working 3 days per week and my son (who will be 13m) will be in a nursery.

I’m also aware that my son being in nursery puts me at risk which is something else I’ve been thinking over.

AIBU to not want to return?

[quote tillytalks]@ivfbeenbusy

Your child will be mixing with more households at nursery

My child will mix with 8 other babies 0-15m and 3 members of staff.

This too is a concern.[/quote]
That is a totally separate issue to going back to work, and is what makes your claims of being worried about work seem disingenuous.

If you don’t want your child going to nursery you need to leave your job. Don’t conflate the two. You literally can’t have your cake and eat it.

Duty of care yes,but duty of care that doesn’t mean never be in work. It means be in work place that has accommodated and is compliant with COVID measures.

the employer can request attendance at workplace if it COVID secure

@Belladonna12
OP says that her job can be done from home.

But not while looking after an infant, which is what she is angling for.

Op says her job can be done from home, I’m inclined to think she would say that given her strong preference to remain home. She’s Alison ambivalent about nursery use

However the issue is her employer believes she need to be in work
So that’s a conversation to be had

Because not everyone works as well or productively at home, and for some companies it result in reduced output. The government cannot afford to fully compensate those companies, so cannot force them to run their business in a way that makes them less money.

Employers have a duty of care to keep employees safe and if an employee contracts covid at work as a result of a breach of these duties they can sue them. They don't necessarily have to show direct causation. It's very short sighted to put employees in an unsafe environment just because productivity may be higher from home.

And employers have to move with the times. If they have lazy employees who like to get away with doing very little from home, they need to manage that. They need to set up effective systems for communicating from home. In most cases, there is technology that can overcome a lot of obstacles from working from home.

I work for an industry that until a few years ago was fully paper files. We now have been 100pc working from home for coming up to a year because they don't want to put employees at unnecessary risk. There has been a bit of spending on IT but this is offset by savings in running an office. They have adapted. Some things are harder working from home eg asking a colleague a quick question and take longer but again this is offset by people not having a commute, or chatting at the coffee machine etc. There has been no overall drop in productivity or employee engagement over the year.

I'd suggest that in most cases, where it's possible to work from home but companies arent allowing it due to being scared about productivity issues, there is something wrong with the company eg not trusting employees. And that this will eventually cause them to lose staff as who wants to work for a company that doesnt care about breaking the law, puts productivity above the health of their employees (against legislation), isnt flexible, and doesnt trust their workforce?

@HeelsHandbagPerfumeCoffee

Op says her job can be done from home, I’m inclined to think she would say that given her strong preference to remain home. She’s Alison ambivalent about nursery use

However the issue is her employer believes she need to be in work
So that’s a conversation to be had

Maybe, but without a doubt a lot of managers want their employees to be at work just because they don't trust them and often there is no reason for that. My previous manager was like this added lack of trust was a reflection of himself rather than anyone else (i.e. he was motivated enough to work at home so he didn't get the fact that other people are). Fortunately he has since retired and we are at home with absolutely no change in productivity. It is a conversation to be had, but I think employers who are unreasonable may have to face the consequences in the future e.g. they may be sued if people become ill or die from Covid because they were forced to go in when they didn't have to do.

@Belladonna12

Because not everyone works as well or productively at home, and for some companies it result in reduced output.

I think they should need to demonstrate that it will result in reduced output. They may have a hard job doing that if they haven't tried it. I think workplaces should also consider that people like OP may be able to sue them if she contracts Covid because they made her go to work just because they felt like it. Employers have a duty of care towards their employees after all.

How would they prove where she contracted it?

There are frontline NHS staff that have died from Covid resulting in a full HSE enquiry and you can’t definitively prove where it was contracted......

As mentioned above, I find it incredible how the amount of companies with 300+ employees have managed to adapt to allow WFH but smaller one office workforce's can't because they're scared of "decreased productivity".

OP says that her job can be done from home.

We’ve had staff try that as well. They usually haven’t read the small print/think the manager won’t push. One took it all the way to a grievance and lost.

[quote MaskingForIt]@Belladonna12
OP says that her job can be done from home.

But not while looking after an infant, which is what she is angling for.[/quote]
I agree that isn't a good reason for working at home.

they may be sued if people become ill or die from Covid because they were forced to go in when they didn't have to do.

Again, are they going absolutely nowhere other than work? In contact with no household members who leave the hermetically sealed box of their home? No deliveries? No food shopping??

Unless you have genomic testing you’ve next to no chance of tracing where it was contracted. Only maybes.

How would they prove where she contracted it?

If there is an outbreak in the workplace then on balance of probabilities the workers got it from the workplace.

I would ring your gp and ask about a letter recommending you work from home due to your asthma and if you wanted you could add in bmi? It might help your case. I was due back next week and did similar so will be working from home as in a risk group and pregnant again so I was wary. My gp wanted to sign me off if they didn’t allow it so I’m happy I’m being accommodated to actually work but from home as I didn’t want to be signed off altogether. It’s worth a try but nobody can judge you as being unreasonable for not wanting the risk if you can work from home. The nursery is a bit risky really so in my case we are keeping baby home! Some people can’t but I’m in a lucky position I can juggle both for now.

Yanbu. It really irritates me that loads of buisness like this won't alow home working just because they're bloody paranoid. It has to contribute to the spread in some way
Just fucking annoying.

Not necessarily. If the OP was case 0, it came from somewhere else........

Again, I deal with this day in day out. We’ve had positive tests in the same team within a fortnight and the genomics have shown they’re different infections.

@Yummymummy2020

I would ring your gp and ask about a letter recommending you work from home due to your asthma and if you wanted you could add in bmi? It might help your case. I was due back next week and did similar so will be working from home as in a risk group and pregnant again so I was wary. My gp wanted to sign me off if they didn’t allow it so I’m happy I’m being accommodated to actually work but from home as I didn’t want to be signed off altogether. It’s worth a try but nobody can judge you as being unreasonable for not wanting the risk if you can work from home. The nursery is a bit risky really so in my case we are keeping baby home! Some people can’t but I’m in a lucky position I can juggle both for now.

They wouldn’t have to make any adjustments they didn’t feel were reasonable.

@TitsOot4Xmas

they may be sued if people become ill or die from Covid because they were forced to go in when they didn't have to do.

Again, are they going absolutely nowhere other than work? In contact with no household members who leave the hermetically sealed box of their home? No deliveries? No food shopping??

Unless you have genomic testing you’ve next to no chance of tracing where it was contracted. Only maybes.

If everyone in the workplace contracts Covid, then it would be much like more likely than not that the workers got it in the workplace.

@TitsOot4Xmas

Not necessarily. If the OP was case 0, it came from somewhere else........

Again, I deal with this day in day out. We’ve had positive tests in the same team within a fortnight and the genomics have shown they’re different infections.

OP wouldn't necessarily be case zero though would she? If somebody in the workplace tested positive and then a few days later everybody else in the workplace tested positive then it is more likely than not that the other workers got it from the first case. Genomic testing could also provide evidence that it is from the same place. My point is that workplaces should not assume they can do what they like because no one will ever be able to prove where they got the infection from.

@Eileithyiaa

As mentioned above, I find it incredible how the amount of companies with 300+ employees have managed to adapt to allow WFH but smaller one office workforce's can't because they're scared of "decreased productivity".

There’s usually more workers per department to cover any dip. If you are a department of one or two, you’ll notice the difference fast. Margins are often tighter etc. It’s not all unscrupulous employers pulling a fast one on long-suffering staff. It can be genuinely harder to cover for things like staff not in the office if you still need to man the phones, do the post, and so on. Infrastructure is often not set up in the same way for large companies.

OP says that her job can be done from home

As a general principle - not just about OP - employees who want to WFH often do say this, usually garnished with "they're old fashioned/unfair/mistrustful" and all the rest. Whether or not the company feels the same way can be something else again, and after all it's their bottom line, them who are providing the pay and their decision

We can't possibly know whether WFH works in this particular case, though it's interesting that 12 other staff are apparently going in without problems
It doesn't really matter though; as said, the bottom line is that the choice of whether to go in is OP's and the choice is whether to keep her on is the employer's, especially as they appear to have made the necessary safety arrangements

@TitsOot4Xmas Your comments on this thread actually confirm my overall experience over the years that Human Resources ironically employ the least human people.

I am a solicitor working for a large law firm dealing with highly confidential material and guess what.. we all manage to work at home with no problems whatsoever. Your company would not be one I would ever want to work for.

I do think you should ask and make a case for working from home. But you are very much coming across as somebody that doesn’t want to go back to work. Your office accommodates distancing, you are part time and there are only twelve people, you are making quite a lot of it..

I am 50, overweight and mildly asthmatic, I would never go about calling myself “vulnerable” and demanding special treatment and my risk is higher than yours based on age.

@Belladonna12

How would they prove where she contracted it?

If there is an outbreak in the workplace then on balance of probabilities the workers got it from the workplace.

Court cases aren’t decided “on the balance of probabilities”, they’re decided on “beyond reasonable doubt”.

Unless the OP doesn’t fill up her car, go to shops, or send her child to nursery, then it is morning beyond reasonable doubt.