To ask if Civil Service are really enforcing the hybrid work policy to the letter?

[Lilifer]

I hope some CIvil Service employees can help me here. I about to leave a job for a position in the civil service. My current job is 90% remote and I love the work and my team but it's s big US corporation and the holiday and time off is quite restricted compared to the civil service which I think offers s better work life balance, flexitime more annual leave etc

The civil service Job ad says their policy is 2 days in office and 3 days work from home. Problem is I live 55 miles from office and nearby parking is £25-£30 a day and there's no civil service discount becasue there's so much demand for it that there's a waiting list. I did not know that when I accepted Job and now this adds £50-60 per week to my commute bill., as well as about £40 per week on fuel.

Are there any CS employees out there who can advise me how much flexibility there is in individual departments on the hybrid policy. Do they take in to account individual Circs such as how far away people live and the likely cost to them of parking etc or is it a rigid rule set for all regardless of circs?

Am quite worried about this and am thinking of now reversing my resignation in my current job. I really really wanted this cs job and if they can allow me to work a bit less in office then I don't mind a bit of extra expense but can't justify £200-£240 per month just for parking and the same amount again for fuel.

Best of luck OP

Good luck OP, I hope it all works out!

I'm CS, and we are supposed to be in the office 1 day a week, but it's not enforced or monitored. Looking at other replies though, it seems to vary wildly by department, with some being much more lax than others.

Thank you 🙏 🥰

It really does seem quite varied!

Thank you Nowfeeltheneedtopost 🥰

OP It may also be worth asking if it has to be that office. I know people working in offices outside the official hubs, but which are much closer to their homes and/or have free parking. It fits the letter of the agreement, in that they’re physically in the office, though I think some departments do require specific hub offices. But in a department with a lot of local offices, you may well find one closer to home.

Whether there’s any point, other than making the ‘office day stats’ look better, in working in a random office with no-one in your team is a whole other question…

Unfortunately my oh has been pushed out of his Cs job they sent him to work from home at the start of the pandemic. They now want him back in the office full time his condition has deteriorated and his consultant said he should be working from home they said he has a customer facing role there's no other roles in the service he could wfh so has been forced to take medical retirement at 54 its been 8 months without pay while they sort out his pension payments and there doesn't seem to be end in sight they have not been flexible at all its a nightmare.

My mum is HMRC, I’m Probation service.

probation requires 80% of your working week to be in the office. This seems to be better followed by some than others and how strict it is depends on your line manager. My line manager is a gem and whilst I do all 3 of my working days in the office the majority of the time through choice, if I needed to wfh for a week for family reasons for example she wouldn’t bat an eyelid. But if I did it regularly I would be pulled up on it rightly so.

My mum is an AO, if she can’t go in on one of her office days she has to swap for another day that week. Her team were very lax on this for a long time but have tightened up in recent months as some people took the piss.

Honestly though, the reasons you’ve given aren’t enough to justify going against their policy and I wouldn’t expect them to. You’ve chosen to take a job 55 miles away.

@jmh740 that's awful, could they not try to redeploy him?

I'm totally on the same page as you @Nowfeeltheneedtopost. I'm only SEO but with the work I've done on our hybrid working policy I'm familiar with the approach of many different departments, and from my social network (lots of CSs across various departments) I can see how those approaches work in practice.

I'm also a huge advocate of flexible working and the benefits it brings, but the business still has to come first and it requires balance and consideration from everyone. If everyone was given special dispensation because they live far from the office, the policy would be pointless.

For our legal roles, even agreement for part time or condensed hours for new starters has to go to senior Area Business Managers, well above LMs hands. I would worry in OP's case that any verbal arrangement with the new LM could quickly go up in smoke at the click of a minister's fingers, or a change in manager.

@Lilifer I'd be wary of relying too much on the flexibility and kindness of your potential future manager. If they get the word from "up high" to strictly enforce the 2 days a week in the office, then their hands will be tied.

Also what happens when you boss leaves or moves into a different role / gets promoted / leaves? A future boss may not be as flexible, especially if your reasons are commuting cost and distance from the office which was known when accepting the job.

As a manager, if my team had a 2 day a week in officee policy, I'd try to exercise flexibility if someone working in my team developed a medical condition that would benefit from more WFH or was temporarily dealing with a difficult unexpected situation at home or bad weather / transport strikes. However I wouldn't be flexible with someone knew the office location prior to accepting the role, its not fair on the rest of the team who most likely will be will also be paying commuting costs 2 days a week.

I think you need to find a cheaper and practical solution to getting to the office 2 days a week rather than relying on your current manager.

And as others have said already, the reequirement to work in the office is more likely to go up over time than reduce.

Exactly!! It’s constantly changing, we were required to come 1 day a week to the office, then soon after 2 days a week and now 3 days a week. It is more likely that the days required in the office will increase, not decrease. Also, I believe that the policy is that newcomers (under 12 months within the organisation) don’t get to request flex working.

I do agree with this, but as @Nowfeeltheneedtopost and I have highlighted, any verbal agreement with the immediate line manager would be very flimsy and very vulnerable to pressure from above.

And although the Civil Service is flexible, it's still an employer and there are other employees to consider. As PPs have pointed out, I can imagine it would be frowned upon if OP were to take a position, knowing the steer is 2 days per week and that this is unsuitable for her and expecting special measures. And that's putting it lightly.

However I wouldn't be flexible with someone knew the office location prior to accepting the role, its not fair on the rest of the team who most likely will be will also be paying commuting costs 2 days a week.

This is the crux of it. In the private sector it is fully expected that different employees will have different pay and benefits packages depending on how keen the company is to retain them or how good they are at negotiating. In the public sector this isn't the case and making exceptions for one person isn’t generally considered acceptable.

The home workers in my team fall into 2 categories. They either have health issues (disability, CEV), or they previously worked at an office a long way away, and that office has closed down (so it was a choice between redundancy or offering them home working). New employees who apply for a job at the current location are all treated the same on the basis that they knew the location and T&Cs when they applied .

@ItisSailingTime absolutely, it is informal so you have to take a risk, it hasn't backfired for me thus far but my expectations are managed. In terms of how they are perceived, that is between the manager and the employee, so long as the conversation has been had prior to them starting, you can't really fault the new employee for their working arrangements if it was discussed prior to their first day, but the OP is intending on speaking to the manager again so it is moot, she's not trying to get in and then stomp her feet.

The OP has already had this conversation with the manager though...

she said they can be a bit flexible say for eg in winter because I would have so far to travel etc so that is positive but I suppose I am hoping that long term once I am out of probation and settled in the job I would have more flexibility myself to have less days in some weeks if needed

Her manager has essentially said that in unusual circumstances (bad winter weather) there is some flexibility, but the OP is hoping that means she can do fewer days on a regular basis if she wants.

The OP can have the conversation again, but I think she already has her answer.

Also, if I'm right and it is HMRC, it will definitely be enforced. The pay and contract reform package was a big area of debate/dispute within the organisation, and they are going to a fair bit of effort to ensure the outcomes are applied consistently. That's good when it comes to being able to work flexitime etc., but the office days are part of the trade-off.

@LookingOldTheseDays yes but it sounds like she's going to go back and have a franker conversation this time to explicitly confirm or rule out if one day a week is plausible. It would be silly to throw away a good opportunity without clarifying fully first.

They will refer to the contract so it worth bearing this mind.

Consider the cost of 2 days in the office all the time and see 8f this works for you.

We have had individuals apply for positions and live 300 miles away. The individuals have remote working contracts.

It is all based on what is in the contract.

I'm a CS but have no home working allowed for any reason. So if my leg is broken and I could do my job from home (which I can) then I have to take sick leave.

When the recent school strikes were on we were told that if the annual leave could not accommodate us being off then tough. Not sure what we were supposed to do. Our colleagues who are allowed to wfh were fine as they could have their kids at home with them. They are also fine if their kids are sick or they're having something delivered etc. Begins to piss people off to be honest as we're getting paid the same as them.

We also aren't allowed to transfer out of my utterly inflexible job (no benefit of flexitime). So we either go for promotion, which I'm trying for or applying outside of the CS.

Sorry that was totally off topic. I meant to say that the people in my office who can WFH who work for other teams, don't have any pattern of coming in. Sometimes you don't see them for weeks. You very rarely see them more than once a week. They must work for 15 different teams between them as well so it must be widespread to have this flexibility.

Hopefully I get some of that soon!

@Umbrio Christ, do you have a heavily customer facing role? That sounds rubbish!

My civil servant friend said the other day that she now has to be in the office 2 days a week. She moved to the south coast during covid and finds it a bit much to go to London and back in a day, so she often stays in London overnight (in hotels or various friends houses) and comes back the next day.
You need to consider how much you want this job/are prepared to spend a bit of extra money commuting or staying over in town.

You cannot assume there will be flexibility. Hope it works out!

Yeah it's customer facing in theory but my particular role is mostly over the phone so I could easily do one or two days from home. They need people to stay in that role but obviously people leave all the time as they can get flexi and home working in other areas of the CS. We do have flexi but our hours aren't flexible at all and it's frowned upon to make any flexi.
I just hope I get my HEO soon. I know someone in HMRC who has just got her HEO and she has such great flexibility.

@Umbrio ah good luck, I hope you get it soon!

@Umbrio

they may be visiting other offices though.
my line manager doesnt go to his home office in the south west much - but he does go to the offices in London, the midlands, and north east