To think my employer demanding I go back to the office is just cruel

[Runnyrose]

I work full time over 4 days. DD attends nursery and DH and I split drop offs and pick ups between us. We live 45 minutes from my work in one direction and an hour from DHs in the other but I've been working from home since returning from mat leave in February. My job used to involve a lot of travel around the county and before mat leave, I could easily not step foot in our main office for weeks at a time and generally would start from home and finish at home and go to meetings or appointments in between. Because of the efficiency of Teams, these meetings are almost exclusively virtual and there is no plan to go back to face to face meetings. There is literally not a single aspect of my job that requires me to be in the office.
Suddenly, it's been announced that we have to go back to the office and work there. This will be impossible to manage with DDs childcare setting so the only way will be for my DH to take over both drop offs and pick ups which will mean, to ensure he's there on time, losing 2 hours of work a day. He's self employed so this is a significant amount of money lost every day. I will also lose 2 hours of seeing DD for travel time every day. Not to mention the sudden increased cost in fuel.
I've spoken to my manager and she was completely inflexible and the only solution we could come up with was for me to drop my hours so that I can drop DD off as soon as nursery open, race to work, leave the second the clock strikes 5 to race to pick her up again which frees DH up at least but makes my day a race everyday and costs me a full day a week's pay which works out at nearly £5k a year in bring home pay, not to mention the impact on my pension etc . I can't work full time over 5 days because the nursery don't have availability for her current day off and also, I don't want her going in 5 days a week. Going part time won't even feel like a break for me because I'll literally just be replacing the 2 hours a day working with traveling.
I feel so unbelievably angry at my employer that I work so incredibly hard for them, they know this and my manager said she knows this, but there is no flexibility to allow me to keep working from home when it's going to cause complete devastation to our family set up and financial situation and not in any way shape or form change what they get out of me whilst I'm at work.
I'm trying to find another job but my work is quite niche and there just aren't that many jobs around that pay the same level I'm at now. And I do love my job and don't want to leave it.
I have no problem going back into the office, I just want the option to still be allowed to start and / or finish at home like the job was when I first started and what DH and I planned our situation around before we even had DD.

Imagine Covid never happened and you had never worked from home, how would you be managing this now?

You can only complain if the Pre Covid was better than the Post Covid, I assume the working conditions are just reverting to the norm.

I don't understand what the problem is. Your DH did drop offs anyway so the only concern is the pick up, which your employer has been flexible about anyway. Are you catastrophising because you just don't want to go in the office so need any excuse for it not to work?

@FrankGrillosFloof

Come on OP, if everything is as you’ve described, you’ve got a good case. Stay on them! Get legal advice. Be calm, persistent and negotiate. Don’t back down, just keep going. I’m HR and the people who get what they want (and I’m talking significant exceptions like arranging remote working from Barcelona when the policy was strictly in-office in Edinburgh) just keep arguing their case up the chain until people get tired of fighting it. Yes, formally escalate through the proper channels but what you really need to do is get the ear of someone very senior. I have noticed that men generally have no problem taking their personal crusades to the top. People who get their way tend to do so because the CEO (or whoever) just doesn’t want to listen to their arguments anymore. This is important to you so fight for it. The one thing that is key is that you must be a good employee that they don’t want to lose.

Listen to this post. I think you have a very good case . If you are persistent and continue to be a good employee I'd say you have a very good chance of getting them to stick to the working conditions you have always had and not use the pandemic as an excuse to change them .

Frankly, expecting everyone to be office based all the time is a prehistoric model that the UK would do well to finally abandon. We have some of the lowest productivity in the world, and some of the highest presenteeism. As with many things, à look at the Scandi countries shows us that it is possible to have a large section of your workforce working from home, without the economy imploding. It's unimaginative to think that it would. Wouldn't we be better off having less stressed workers working more hours potentially rather than spending that time commuting? I'm in London and when I was working in offices that required me to take long, packed tube journeys to get there, I was constantly catching viruses and bugs that often meant sick days off, or at least reduced productivity as I struggled through a work day (probably infecting colleagues). That was hardly a win for my employer.

YABU. They're not being inflexible, they've offered you a lot more than most employers would. They just won't give you exactly what you want, that's life I'm afraid.

You say they have no reason to have everyone in, clearly they have or they wouldn't be doing it.

I feel for you OP, I have just gone back to working in the office after wfh for over for over a year, luckily my boss is flexible so we're only doing a couple of days a week.
I'm waiting for the day he says we need to be back in full time, it's coming.
Unfortunately you have a baby which has changed your dynamic, I don't have small DC.
This was always going to happen, at some point we have to get back to some normality and wfh is going to end.
Pre pandemic people had to commute and sort out childcare.
You're employer has offered you an alternative which you need to work with, there's a lot of people in the same situation as you.
If you'd had your DC pre pandemic you would have had to sort out childcare, the only difference now is that you've had the ability to wfh and can see it works for you, your work gets completed and you don't have to worry about childcare but this was always going to revert back to normal.
Your situation of childcare, pick up and drop offs, commuting is what parents have had to sort out for years, you're going to have to do the same

It's a very simple matter of your contract of employment v your work life balance. You are required to render your full contractual obligations and your emoyer is required to consider flexible working requests and may refuse them if there are reasonable operational/business reasons to do so.

You may have been working effectively pre covid but others may not have been hence the approach.

It baffles me why women think they should have dispensations in the workplace because they chose to have children. You have been offered flexibility in your hours but you don't wish to work less for a corresponding reduction in pay. Neither are your financial outgoings the responsibility of your employer.

If you have always worked from home when not on site visits then this is a big change in your terms of employment.
I would go back again and say that you are willing to compromise and work in the office 2 of the days. That way you can do half the drop offs & collections as usual.
But I would also consult an employment lawyer. Depending on how long you have been there I doubt they can just unilaterally make these changes without your agreement.

OP you are in the right - although I think use of the word ‘cruel’ undermines your case. This policy is not directed at hurting your family.

Do not involve them in the minutiae of your domestic arrangements. They aren’t there to care about that. Instead, write to them setting out the amount of time you previously spent in the office with detailed reference to eg a six week calendar Feb-March 2019. In your letter, request that you return to the office only for the same attendance time as previously. In the letter say that you consider that the terms of your contract will have materially changed if they insist on office attendance and you will need to take legal advice.

You can and should win this. However, I don’t think you are going about it the right way. Your domestic arrangements are a matter for you. Very few people will be able to argue against going back to pre-covid arrangements - you have a good case.

Why does you returning to the office mean your dh is excused the nursery runs he already does? Why does it mean you start “racing around” doing both?

You currently do full time over 4 days, sharing pick ups/drop offs.

So you drop off, go in late, and work late while your dh picks up. Or go in early and do the opposite.

Yes it’s more travel and a pain, and I would take it to HR, but i don’t think it’s quite the disaster you think, and I wouldn’t call it “cruel”

@Seriallover

You didn't go to the office before but you travelled around. So what would've been your plans for your child if you had to do this again?

That’s an interesting point.

Honestly you’ll get limited support here and everyone seems to think those not rushing back to the office are lazy shirkers. As someone who’s got a specalist role I’ve always worked partly remote so I feel your pain. I was only ever working a day or two in the office, always very flexible (I work in tech) so working from home was an easy switch for us. The whole “back to the office” memo is completely missed on me and my team, despite senior management seemingly thinking we should all be desperate to get back to commuting and crap lunches! The media has done this; as though working culture will be effected by us having free time and finally getting some work life balance. As a manager how can I sell in something we never really did in the first place?! In the last three months we’ve lost about 5% of our highly skilled team for remote roles (this is high for our team) when we could have just taken a “whatever works for you” stance and people still would have come in occasionally. I’d highly recommend dusting off your CV and getting applying for something new because they won’t compromise! I feel your anger and your pain - it’s pointless and businesses should do better. Find an employer who wants what’s best for their team!

My main client (self employed) asked us to go back in, 3 weeks of people and other clients moaning as everyone is one teams calls in the same room they decided to go back to WFH.
So maybe just go in and be very loud!

This definitely sounds like a material change to your working conditions. Childcare aside, you previously didn't have to travel to the office, now you do. That's a change.

This is exactly what I think, too. It's a significant material change.

Was the pre-pandemic arrangement written into your contract, OP? If so, it can't just be changed on the whim of your manager. Even if it wasn't a contractual arrangement, it sounds like it may have been established by "custom and practice" and they should be negotiating any change.

As this change occurred while you were on mat leave, it may be worth talking to "Pregnant Then Screwed" pregnantthenscrewed.com/ and see what they say. And there are some knowledgeable people on the employment matters board on here.

Like a PP, I get sick of MNers posting about how much worse it is for other groups of workers when someone has an issue of this. People arrange their lives around the requirements of their work, and making changes like this really fucks around with people's lives.

I wonder what your manager's boss thinks of this? If they're reasonable and approachable, it might be worth speaking to them directly. I once had a manager who was fond of bringing in bonkers working practices. Every time it happened, we went straight to the next in line who basically told them not to be such an arse.

(They ended up being put on capability and were on their way out, but got caught out not disclosing a conflict of interest, was demoted and moved to the far side of the county, and flounced off in a huff, which was a very happy day!)

@SpeakingFranglais

Imagine Covid never happened and you had never worked from home, how would you be managing this now?

You can only complain if the Pre Covid was better than the Post Covid, I assume the working conditions are just reverting to the norm.

Another one 🙄

It’s pretty clear from all of OP’s posts that pre Covid was better than post covid, and that her working conditions have changed not reverted.

Why are so many people failing to understand this?

From what you've said, YANBU to be extremely annoyed about this OP. Your job was always the way it was during the pandemic and what's changed is that your boss has, for some unknown reason, decided to change it as a result of the end of the pandemic. Perhaps it's because he's struggling to justify to workers who are required in the office FT the arrangement that you had from the start, but that's not your fault. What a shame it will be hard for you to leave.

As long as your employer offers reasonable adjustments and it sounds like it has I think you have to either do it or look elsewhere.

Some places are keen on presenteeism rather than focusing on deliverables. I would represent my case with what you have delivered at home during this time to argue that it should continue rather than how the job fits in with your life.

When I managed a team I didnt mind where they worked or their hours as long as I could trust them to do the hours and deliver a big caseload. So many other teams were jealous of this. But the focus for me was deliverables.

@redtshirt50

If I was you I would look for another job, ask for time off for interviews (they have to give it to you) so they know you're being serious, then see if they change their mind.

Where on earth do you get the idea that employers have to give you time off for interviews for other jobs from?

That's spectacularly bad advice (as is often the case on MN, unfortunately).

Really sorry as I haven't reset the whole thread. But are the teams meetings going to continue to replace the in person meeting that you would normally do?

If so put in a flexible working request to wfh. I would say for three of your four days. The fourth day say you win go into the office for in person activities and that you can be flexible to which day. They have to a valid business reason to say no. And the test cases at the moment show that if you are going into the office purely to have teams meetings that is not a valid reason.

Can you look for another job? When you have it, it might either make things easier for you or allow you to renegotiate WFH with the current job.

Can you try to agree on a 2 days WFH, 2 days office with your current job?

So sorry, this sounds like rules for the sake of rules. I know it’s like this everywhere which is why some posters are saying “well what did you expect”, but this inflexibility for no reason is what makes having children and a career so difficult in modern Britain. Hope you find a solution

EarringsandLipstick

You have absolutely no idea if there isn’t a business need and no one has simply going by the OPs post, other than she wants to continue her current working conditions due to childcare issues.

At any moment an employer can change the conditions of their working conditions (with notice) and OP can either accept them or not, it sounds as if in this case the employer has advised that working from the office is in the best interest of the business.

Really frustrating :(

Is it not possible for you to rearrange your routine to do either drop-off or pick-up, and your DH do the other?

e.g. you drop her at 8 and get to work for 9, then work later than you've been doing while DH collects her? It sucks, but it should work?

If you were meeting f2f prior to the pandemic then surely a considerable amount of time was used driving to and from appts. Doing meetings over Teams will mean this travel time has gone.

Firstly I am surprised your customers will want to do Teams all the time long term. This isn’t a great way to continue to build customer relationships.

Have you been given more accounts to make up for presumably the decrease in travel time used?

Perhaps the company has realised it doesn’t need so many account managers and is doing this to see work load etc and then make redundancies? Perhaps they are hoping you will leave as they know this won’t work for you? How is the company doing generally?

I would look at appealing but I would first start going into the office and seeing how things are going. Surely even co workers without children will be thinking the same? Why don’t you just start doing more f2f and schedule them to fit around your day so you are going into the office but when it suits you.

**accept them or not - however may need to look for another job if it’s not in the business best interest.

Prior to the pandemic and having a child your role involved being on the road and mainly working from your home office with occasional trips to your office. This had been your pattern for a while and became by practice your terms and condition.
A pandemic happened you had a child, but both of these are irrelevant. They are trying to changes the terms and conditions of your role that existed prior to sny of this. Check your household insurance to see if you have family legal cover that will get you employment law advice. They can not change your terms and conditions without consulting you.