To think your employers cannot dictate where you live?

[MinaHarker1897]

A colleague has been back at work after maternity leave for about 11 months now. She has also gone part time to three days and moved back to her hometown which is about 2 hours away. She is in work one day and works at home the other two.

I overheard a conversation between two other colleagues about this with one saying staff are "not allowed" to live a certain distance away from home. I asked her "what do you mean, not allowed? They can't dictate where someone can live" - she said they can. I've never heard of any employer being able to make these rules over staff's personal life, has anyone else?

If the employer requires ppl to be on-call, a 1 hour travelling distance can be a requirement of employment

Sometimes they can, train drivers and signallers have to live within 1 hour of their base for safety reasons to prevent undue fatigue. It’s often in the essential criteria for those sorts of roles.

Maybe the context is that the 2 wfh days are discretionary so if they decide she needs to be in 3 days, she doesn’t have a case to say that it’s too far because that was the choice she made.

It's not that sort of role at all. That wouldn't apply.

Generally no, but they can require people to be in the office more, so she has moved 2hrs away and could be asked to work in the office 100% like many employers are doing now

moved back to her hometown which is about 2 hours away.

Thats quite a trek. How would she fare if work said she could no longer work from home and needed to be in the office every day?

Depends on lots of different factors. If you have any sort of on call setting then yes there can be a maximum time distance, or if the company has any relocation package than distance might be included.

Regular job it is unusual to have a distance stipulation. If you want to have a very long commute that is up to you, but they might query it as you could end up being late/ unreliable as a result.

They might have their fingers burned a few times before with hybrid roles and the person saying the distance is ok but then using it as an excuse to not turn up so now have a maximum distance written into the contract.

I worked for a university in London that had a clause in the employment contract that you had to live within a certain distance of London. I don't know if they enforced it or whether they still have it in new contracts.

Of course they can't dictate where someone lives!

Unless as already mentioned there is an occupational requirement (on call for example) as already mentioned by other people.

But I assume it is sensible to choose a job where you still have a reasonable commute if you need to be in the office on occasion. I work with someone who lives in Scotland and commute to London a few times a month, to me that sounds exhausting (not to mention expensive...).

I assume if a role came with a London weighting, there's an expectation you live in London?

This is not the case, plenty of people earn London weighting and live in the Home Counties.

As fas as dictating things in your personal life, I was told in one of my first jobs that I had to have a phone.

No. Unless its a job where you have to live in, you can live where you please. The only things they can 'dictate' are the times and locations you're required to be at work. Provided these don't too far breech your T&Cs. The exception may be working remotely from abroad. I do think employers need to get their managers on some employment rights training sharpish especially with all the new legislation. The tribunal courts are going to have queues round the block otherwise.

If it isn't in the contract it doesn't exist.

I have to be within 30 minutes of my workplace (hospital) when on call. You don't actually have to live there, but if your home is further away, it is expected that you will stay in a hotel/airbnb/other accommodation within that radius for your on calls.

Well what does her contract say? If it's not mentioned there then it's not a case of being 'allowed' or not but it's risky if they change the WFH arrangements to be so far from work.

As long as it doesn't hinder you going into the office as required by the company and you are not on call then I can't see it would matter.

Contracts can require you to live in the same country as the job (can't live in France and commute on Eurostar 2 days per week to London) because the tax rules are different in different countries.

Not exactly the same, but I had salaried graduate study position that required I live 1 hour from the university. I had to get the head of school to waiver it for me during COVID.

If they commute into London that’s fair enough.
But people shouldn’t be working from home elsewhere in the county while on a London salary. This has become more of an issue since Covid with people trying to pull a fast one and I think London workplaces are clamping down, checking where people live.

And when I say required I mean that it was a clause in my contract.

I work for a local authority. It's in our contracts that we can't move more than a "reasonable" commuting distance away from the offices.

DH can't live more than a certain distance from the hospital, or if we did he has to live in for his on calls. Can't remember now because it's really local to us.

Same here. During lockdown when a lot of people were talking about relocating our workplace put out a notice saying when considering house moves staff bould be aware they were expected to be within reasonable commuting disance of an office (we have seven across the UK).

They let you decide what is reasoanble but the signal was they would not entertain whining about long or expensive commutes when we went back to the office.

I was given a certain radius to move within when relocated by my employer as they were footing all the moving/legal/stamp duty costs.