Employer asked staff not to work from abroad

[Cosmos123]

A memo came out with new wfh strategy.
Basically they have informed staff that the hybrid model will be used where staff do not need to meet with clients.
Also staff can be requested to return at short notice to the office.
Not sure that is great news for those who have relocated hundreds of miles away.
Also a brief note at the end that working permanently from abroad will not be allowed due to tax implications or summat.

Wonder who even moved abroad during the pandemic?
Anyways seems that Wfh remotely forever for those who wanted it won't be happening.

as someone has pointed out above, there are tax issues regarding staff not lining in the UK.
Additionally, isn't there something in GDPR about processing information in a third country outside of the EU?

WFH to some degree (perm or hybrid) was coming anyway. Over the last 20 years it's just grown and grown. The pandemic has given it a massive shove in the same direction. I doubt the genie is going all the way back into the bottle now.

I can see companies now having to respond to put in terms about working from abroad. From an IT pov (my profession) it makes little difference to the security or ability to fix an issue, assuming you already have a corporate approach to both. But from a legal, tax and identity pov I could imagine most companies not allowing it.

Very common among young people in lreland . They are known as tech nomads. Ones l know have permission from their companies to go for 3 months so avoid tax issues. My ds's company didn't allow it due to possible issues with the system they use. He was fine with that. Read that the Canaries are making up for lost tourism with the amount of young people who are going there for the 3 months. Others are in Barcelona/ Lisbon etc.
All be moving back soon hopefully as office's open up.
I can't complain about it as l am sure l would have been very tempted as a young person to go after months working at the kitchen table. It probably kept some of the young people sane during the various lockdowns.

Long term you cannot work in different country to your employee compliantly. You need a local employment contract following the legislation of that country and to be paying taxes and social contributions in the country of residence. The term you can stay in a country without been considered a tax resident differs between country.

I work for a company that offers solutions to this exact problem. It’s crazy how many people moved country in the pandemic and they are leaving their employers in a really difficult position of been non compliant.

Honestly, I have sympathy for people who just chose a slightly longer commute to get some more outdoor space, but there's definitely a limit!

I don't feel sorry for them either to be honest. They have a brain, they could have thought 'what will I do in future if my company wants me back in the office full time or even part time? Can I afford my new, possibly increased mortgage, plus the travel expenses?'. They have brains, they can use calculators, it's all on them that they were stupid.

I might be getting to wfh permanently, which will be great, I love it. But I am not buying a bigger house with more space for a proper office unless that is certain. There is no point in us paying for a bigger mortgage for a house we won't get to use more.

@Cosmos123

A memo came out with new wfh strategy. Basically they have informed staff that the hybrid model will be used where staff do not need to meet with clients. Also staff can be requested to return at short notice to the office. Not sure that is great news for those who have relocated hundreds of miles away. Also a brief note at the end that working permanently from abroad will not be allowed due to tax implications or summat.

Wonder who even moved abroad during the pandemic?
Anyways seems that Wfh remotely forever for those who wanted it won't be happening.

I’m trying to get my husband to work from abroad

He can’t sadly. But he can change jobs and go work there. Which is an option

My husband works completely remotely. He always has. If he needed to come back at short notice. His boss said he’s more than able to go and work from abroad

I hated how this was handled and want to move as soon as. We have no ties to England.

Are you someone who doesn’t get to WFH so think no-one else should either, or are you one of those people who wants everyone forced into the office to keep you company?

Neither, I work p/t so it makes no difference to me whether I’m at home or not. I simply thing there are a proportion of workers out there who seem to think the world revolves around them and their wants. See: moving across the world without asking permission as an example.

I also think people tend to big up how successful WFH actually is for them. Honestly, I would be willing to say it isn’t is half as productive as a lot of people let on. It takes a particular type of person to maintain motivation in a home setting and honestly, most of us aren’t that type of person.

You can have your opinion, as will I. I do think it’s disgusting though how so many workers with disabilities have been told for years “no you can’t WFH” yet now you have some moron who moved to France complaining that they no longer can due to their own moronic decisions. Isn’t in the same ball pack and these people need to face the reality of their quite frankly stupid decisions.

Our IT department spent the summer shutting down access from workers who logged in from abroad without permission. For us it's GDPR, regulatory implications and tax.

You have never been able to work from home in a different country to the one you are employed in just because you fancy it.

My company has had a WFH policy since 1999. The guidance then, as now, is that you can can only work from your registered home address (although "Agile Working" has made this more flexible in recent years) and if you wish to move house you need your employers permission to continue any WFH arrangement. Working from overseas is banned because, as other have said, there are tax implications and your company would need an tax agreement with the other country, and every other country your colleagues may have a holiday pad in) and there are also H&S, insurance and travel expense and travel time considerations.

For our company WFH from a new address may also have implications on London Weighting allowances (or whatever it is known as now).

You would be amazed (or probably not) how many people thought they were being penalised for not being able to WFH from their Spanish villa for the entire school holidays or who thought they should retain their inner or outer London Weighting allowances even if they moved 300 miles north of the M25.

Another one with no sympathy.

We are returning to work on a hybrid basis starting next month. Some people who moved hours away from the hours during the pandemic are now asking what special provision will be made for them as they are no longer able to commute.

I also think people tend to big up how successful WFH actually is for them. Honestly, I would be willing to say it isn’t is half as productive as a lot of people let on. It takes a particular type of person to maintain motivation in a home setting and honestly, most of us aren’t that type of person.

You are right, it's not for everyone. I love it, but some of my colleagues don't like it so much. I think people should get to decide where they work really. If you want to wfh from home, do so. If you want to work from the office, do so. But you can't just decide these things, you have to get permission from your employer.

I do wonder if there's a connection between wfh and the awful levels of customer service we're getting?
Every organisation I speak to you there's endless layers of "do you really need to speak to us? Covid... " messages, repeated endlessly. Understandable in the middle of the pandemic but why have businesses not resolved this by now? Ages to get through to First Direct followed by inexplicable errors at their end - a bank with normally impeccable customer service.
It seems routine that what would have been a 5 minute max phone call now turns into half an hour of listening to voicemail messages about they would rather you don't phone.

Anyone who moved several hundreds of miles away due to a temporary WFH rule is an idiot.

There are several people in my partner's company working abroad...two in Greece, and one in Italy, France and Spain. The two in Greece are actually Greek but the others are Brits in the their holiday homes.

I can't blame them though, the lockdowns have been miserable...i'd rather do them in the sun, too.

I'm afraid I have little sympathy to people who without consultation with their employer, have assumed an ongoing WFH scenario and moved to a location which it is no longer tenable to attend the office/ the office that employs them. Tax would be the overseas issue as others have said.

@EileenGC

I know people who moved back home/to where their partner was living.

I know a couple of idiots who went on an ‘around the world’ trip, specifically to countries that didn’t have many restrictions in place and allowed them to escape this brainwashed society of sheep. Their words First ones to come back and start moaning about masks, isolations and whatnot. ‘We’ve done none of that in a year’. Well, congratulations.

I have a friend who had to move back home to help care for her parents who got very ill last year.

Tax and online security-wise, you wouldn’t normally be able to work in another country for months on end. Obviously companies were more lenient due to the circumstances, but now if you want to keep your job you need to get back pronto. Which seems fair enough to me - unless your initial job agreement allowed for working abroad.

You sneer but they came back alive and well after having a great time and with better mental health than many at home so who’s the idiot?

I'm moving nearer to work due to wfh, because I want to be able to go in flexibly and not have to worry about any form of commute. That way I can go in for a morning meeting and then wfh for the afternoon if I choose to.

I do have colleagues who have made the opposite decision, some have moved quite a distance.

We are lucky to have a very flexible employer and a workforce where individuals can not be easily replaced due to the knowledge/experience they have being very specific.

@icedcoffees

Anyone who moved several hundreds of miles away due to a temporary WFH rule is an idiot.

We moved from the South East to the North West because we had no choice. Our landlord saw the mass exodus from London coming and when our contract needed renewed, he tried to up it from £1800 a month to £2400. The house re let the day after it went up on Rightmove!

Also, we have a house abroad that we used to live in. It was let but our tenant decided to stop paying at the beginning of the pandemic. We only just got him out this month and it's because we sold the house. We would have been bankrupt if we had stayed in the SE.

My partner is still attached to the office in the SE but we won't be going back...no matter the consequences.

Unless you are stuck with school-aged children, you would have been mad to stay put for more than a year if you had the opportunity to go elsewhere.

Selling your property being a step too far, but I don't know anyone who didn't make the most of the pandemic and went to holiday houses, with family, abroad. I don't think we have more than 2 people working from London this month.

What's the point of being a martyr and staying local?

SOME companies have sold their offices, for many, it IS permanent.

I’ve done a formal flexible working request to change my working pattern permanently to only coming into the office one day a week so we can move further away. If they accept it your employment t&c’s are updated. I’d never do it without that agreed first you could end up unemployed!
Employer fine with it as they’ve closed office space and not a desk for me anyway! 🙈

@junebirthdaygirl

Very common among young people in lreland . They are known as tech nomads. Ones l know have permission from their companies to go for 3 months so avoid tax issues. My ds's company didn't allow it due to possible issues with the system they use. He was fine with that. Read that the Canaries are making up for lost tourism with the amount of young people who are going there for the 3 months. Others are in Barcelona/ Lisbon etc. All be moving back soon hopefully as office's open up. I can't complain about it as l am sure l would have been very tempted as a young person to go after months working at the kitchen table. It probably kept some of the young people sane during the various lockdowns.

Permission from an employer isn’t generally enough to avoid tax issues. In fact I can’t think of any tax or employment law that can be superseded by employers permission.

I work for an international company and most of us are now officially hybrid workers. In practice, in my department, most of us were already. Few of us were in every day of the week. In EMEA, we've been working like that for the best part of two decades anyway, so there's been a lot of eye-rolling about the return to office training which points out you might now have colleagues in different locations, even different timezones (though if this means people in the USA remember not everyone works there, so a meeting at 5pm EST won't get much attendance from those of us on this side of the Atlantic, it will be a good thing.) The people I'm working closest with at the moment are in Ireland and the Netherlands, so being back in the office makes no difference to how we work.

Some roles do have to remain in the office. Certain contracts can only be worked on by staff in a particular country. There are some restrictions about taking kit (laptops, phones) to certain countries, though most we have offices in are okay. Some workers were already on homeworking contracts - others are moving to homeworking contracts. We already had some people living a few hundred miles away and coming in just once or twice a week, which was their choice.

In the past, some people have moved countries, but if it's for more than the odd week here or there, you will get asked to change your contract. Different countries across Europe have very different rights when it comes to things like redundancy and pensions and health care, so however much you like the location, it's worth checking if it's really going to work in your favour.

For the rest of us, it's very much dependent on their team. Some have been told they must be in the office first Tuesday of the month. (HR are apparently getting a bit twitchy about the chance of there being too many in on one day, as we're not at full capacity in the office currently, with useable desks being separated.) Some are every Wednesday. Some have been told, don't come in for work alone, only if you have sociable reasons too.

My manager doesn't really care, as long as he can contact us, wherever we are. Our team is already spread three different UK offices, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Ireland, so online meetings are normal. I think he's going to try and sort out one day a month where most of us can be in to go to lunch together, but I don't think he'll be insisting on any particular day otherwise. I suspect that once the schools are back, some of us will settle in to one or two days back in on days that others will be around. Certainly most of us agree that if you're going to be sat in the office on your own, you might as well be sat at home on your own (unless you have technical issues like Internet problems, or really need a break from the family.)

@MadameOvary81 I appreciate you had difficult circumstances, but what you would do if his boss said "I need you back in the office full-time from September?"

As a former manager myself, if someone said to me "I can't come back to work because I've moved to the other end of the country" they'd be fired for breaking their contract (not being able to access their workplace).

I also think people tend to big up how successful WFH actually is for them. Honestly, I would be willing to say it isn’t is half as productive as a lot of people let on.

I assure you that businesses would have had everyone back in the office weeks ago if it was the case. Businesses are not charities.

The pretence of "being productive in the office" just by showing your face but distraction from colleagues, inane meetings, bloody tea rounds, chats, office politics, signing of cards, organising presents, people interrupting every 3 minutes because you are "there"...

Even people who want to go back to the office expect to stay home Fridays and so on.

In my work, wfh has been shown to be more productive. It hasn't always been as much fun but workwise it has been absolutely full on and we have delivered more than the previous year.