AIBU London weighting

[Ewe202]

My firm has said that anyone who wants to work from home will have to have a change of contract and will lose their London weighting. Everyone seems to think LW is just travel costs but I need LW to be able to afford my mortgage. Price of houses is mad enough and we only just managed to get on the ladder. If I lose my LW I’m worried we’ll struggle to renew next year and will never be able to move up the ladder. My health has massively improved with wfh and even my boss says my work has been great over the pandemic. But I simply can’t afford to lose the LW. AIBU to be annoyed at people who just see it as covering travel costs?? It’s more to do with property and living costs as a whole bunch surely???

I've always understood it to be to cover the higher costs of living but then other cities have high costs of living (admittedly probably not as high as London) and we don't get an uplift.

But surely if you are working from home, they don’t need to pay a premium to have you close to the office? You could live anywhere/somewhere definitely cheaper?

It’s the flipside to remote working - it opens up the whole country for employment.

Which just goes to show that some employers will see WFH as a way to save money without thinking of the consequences

But if they're letting you work from home then there's no need for you to live in London so why would they pay extra for you to do so?

YABU. Who sees it as travel costs? It’s Yh

London weighting has always been the total extra cost of working in London. Whether it’s higher rent or travel is up to the employee. Never heard of anyone say it’s only travel cost.
YABU.
Also if you’re saving money by staying home (when you previously had travel costs) - where has the extra money gone?
Just how much are you losing?

YANBU in as much as if people only see it as travel costs.

HOWEVER, if you will be FT WFH then I can understand why your firm would look to remove it... you don't need to be close to London so it becomes your choice if you stay.

What I would expect in return though is that your home becomes your place of work, so your employer covers the costs if you do need to travel to the office.

And FWIW, I think you're fortunate to still get a London weighting. A lot went out at a similar time to final salary pensions.

I voted YABU as I think anyone sees it just covering travel. I always assumed it was for the higher cost of living, ie mainly rent

If you remain in the LW area, then you should get LW. The second you move out of the LW area, then that should be removed.

I'd always considered LW to reflect the cost of London living not just commute costs.

Businesses aren’t charities though, they have offered you a deal and you can choose whether or not to accept it.
It wouldn’t be fair if you choose to work from home in an expensive location and expect your work to subsidise it, you could move somewhere cheaper.

My workplace have said that as long as the institution remains in London and you live in England it's fine.

I agree with you but as others have probably said, you're not tied to London now so should move house.

I agree that the OP no longer needs to live near London but the fact remains she does and surely you can’t expect someone to sell up and move, potentially uprooting a whole family, and incurring lots of moving costs because her employer is quite suddenly proposing a significant reduction in salary?

OP, do you have the option to continue working in the office and maintain your upweighted salary?

YABU and I say this as someone who lives in London and likes wfh. Just go into the office a couple of days a week if your firm is offering hybrid working. If they offer full time wfh as an option there’s no need for anyone to be in London - a similar thing happened at my work. My team was proposed to move out of London to a different office and we were told that while we may be able to continue living in London and working remotely, we’d lose London weighting if we chose to remain there rather than move to the new area. As far as the business was concerned the role wasn’t London based so it didn’t qualify for the weighting. If your role is made fully remote then it isn’t a London role.

Yes but if you're WFH full time why should the company pay you LW and not just employ a remote worker from somewhere with a much lower cost of living. Surely it's all about that?

London weighting is to cover the up higher costs of living in London, or travel to london

As you are now working from home there won’t be any travel costs, and therefore you won’t require any weighting

Harsh as it is it’s not your employers problem if it affects your mortgage. Why should they pay you for something that’s not happening?

Your employer isn't requiring you to be in London. It's your choice to stay there.
Therefore they don't need to pay you a London weighting.

If you are no require to go to the office AT ALL (or any more than once a month at most), then you don't have to live in or around London.

I have colleagues who have basically relocated in various parts of the country (some people were lucky to have a holiday home etc...). Would it be fair for them to get the London weighting?

Your employer cannot reasonably pay people according to their post code! Same rules need to apply to everyone really.

It's frustrating when you are caught in the changes and it's all new, but they are likely looking in general and long term, it makes sense.

You'll have to go back out to work then.

Any form I’ve worked for have approached it as a cost of living differential. That being said, only central London got the full differential and it was reduced as you moved outwards. For any home workers we used their home postcode to determine the additional %.

It depends on the differential, for some the saving in commenting would far outweigh. I assume that’s not the case for you?

Would moving out of London be an option?

"My firm has said that anyone who wants to work from home will have to have a change of contract and will lose their London weighting"

Tell them you don't want to WFH then @Ewe202 ?

We're keeping LW (or 'high cost area' allowance. So other cities also get this) but been told we can't move more than 90 minutes away in case of urgent requirements in the office.

A friend works for HR quite high up and said she's had loads of people ask to remain WFH and has said similar to them. That's fine if you're job is doable however your contract will change which to me sounds fair 🤷‍♀️

London Weighting is just a premium that some employers pay to attract and retain staff in London.
It's not for housing or travel or any specific purpose (maybe you inherited a house? Maybe you cycle? Who knows or cares?).

It's just a higher salary to attract and retain staff. Lots of companies don't call it a London Weighting at all - it's just your salary and it is as high as it needs to be to have staff do the job

If they feel they can attract and retain staff without paying them more, then they will. If they think working from home is a sufficient attraction to get good staff and keep existing good staff, then they don't need to pay higher salaries.
If you want to work from home, they can usually pay you less because it is seen as a benefit in itself. Maybe that is because you move somewhere cheap or because you live more frugally or because you marry rich. They don't care why.

They are making a bet that some people will prioritise working from home over a higher salary.

They don't work out your living or commuting costs - how could they possibly do that? They just pay you to do a job.

Basically you have to pick working from home OR a higher salary.

That's how business works - they exist to make money not to try and assess the needs of each employee in their life.