Work announced a move from 2 days to 4 days

[Everanewbie]

Hi all. I'm looking for some suggestions of what avenues I might have.

I started a job just over a year ago. It is company that I worked for some time ago, but had to leave due to personal circumstances, which was with regret. I was thrilled to be offered the job. I applied and received the offer where I was told at both I was obligated to be in the office twice a week.

I left a job that was entirely remote (well, with the exception of trips in to London maybe once a month) to take up this role, accepting two days in person because I was excited by the role. Pay incidentally, is much the same, above the average, but only HRT if a decent bonus is paid. I now pay to park in a city centre twice a week and drive maybe 10 miles or so to get there.

I have child that is full time in nursery and my husband works long days. He is the main breadwinner in a job that is very well paid, think 6 figures, but only just. This means that I do the majority of nursery drop offs and pickups, however, he helps where his hours allow. We also have a dog. He is great at home on his own, but I only resort to that one day a week as a try to work my other day when my husband is off or on a shorter day.

So now, out of the blue, my firm have announced they expect people in the office 4 days per week. This will not work for me. Days will be too long, I'll be £60pw on parking, plus I will need to employ a dog walker 4 days a week. The salary no longer looks decent when you consider this.

I've heard about flexible working requests, and heard that these are considered on a case-by-case basis, but does any HR-y posters have any thoughts on the merits?

Would you be weighing up other options? Speaking to my manager, or holding my cards close to my chest?

I really don't want to leave this job, but I don't have the energy to be a mum and husband to do this, and the salary will no longer be competitive.

Let me spell this out for you.

I have to be working (i.e. online, plugged in, available) from 9am to 5.30pm Monday to Friday. I work in central London. I actually work about 70 hours a week most weeks, but the bare minimum is those hours. I have to be in London in the office on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursdays. I can work from home on Mondays and Fridays.

My DS has breakfast club starting at 8am and afterschool club finishing at 6pm. My DD has nursery from 8am to 6pm. I can do drop off and collection on Mondays and Fridays and it doesn't means I'm not "giving work my full attention" because that is outside of my mandated working hours.

On the days in the office, I catch the train at 7.30am and don't get back until gone 8pm. So I can't do pick up or drop off on those days.

If my employer changed my job contract without my consent so I had to be in the office for five days a week, DH would have to do 100% of the pick-ups and drop offs for our DCs. And, if I were a single parent who WFH to accommodate pick ups/drops offs - would you rather I didn't work at all?

This is what it means by it "impacting childcare" - it doesn't at all mean you're not doing your job properly or that your children are with you while you're working. It means that commuting to and from work uses up time - you can't be looking after your children during that time (but you're not working either) - and sometimes nurseries and schools close.

Oh, and I am paying for childcare (and probably paying for other people's with the amount I pay in tax). But maybe I should go back to teaching where the salary means I take out a lot more than I pay in just so you'll be happy that I'm in work in person every day...

I won't even go into how WFH means I can do things like kid's GP appointments in my lunch hour so they don't impact work...

This isn't new information, this debate has been going on for years now. If you don't understand this by now then that's a choice.

I would either accept it or look for another job

Push back. In my experience (as somebody who has worked for the major insurance brokers in London over the past 20 years) - the "back to the office" culture is not supported by any investment in office space, so you now get 300 people competing for 200 "hot desks". With desk occupancy reviews taking place at 4pm on a Friday before a Bank Holiday weekend to demonstrate there is not a problem. Push back.

What's frustrating is you'll likely be less productive going into the office more, considering the commute and stress and time that is often wasted in office niceties and socializing.

I have done full-time in office, full-time wfh and hybrid and I got the most done FT wfh.

@Everanewbie "The actual contract has the office down as the normal place of work. Here is where I have perhaps been naive. However, the role was advertised as being hybrid, and my offer email explained the hybrid 2 days in pattern."

This is the most important statement to focus on - ignore the dogs, childcare and travel, which as far as your employer is concerned are of no interest to them.

The offer email forms part of your contract of employment - and from what you've said, you would not have accepted the job if it entailed more than 2 days a week in the office. If the job offer email set out in a clear and definite way that you would be working a maximum of 2 days a week in the office and you accepted the job based on this information, and if you fulfilled any conditions of employment stated in the job offer (e.g. proof of qualifications, or satisfactory references), or the job offer was unconditional, it can be argued that the offer email is in essence the contract that you agreed to, regardless of any subsequent contract that you were presented with.

This should be your starting point when discussing the proposed change with your manager.

The second card that you have is that presumably the company is satisfied with your work, and that you are accomplishing everything that you have been asked to do. Ask your employer to explain how working in the office will improve your performance?

Thirdly, recruiting staff takes time and costs management time and money. The time and money spent on recruiting you only a year ago will be lost if you resign - and of course it will take more time and money to recruit your replacement. If you are senior enough, or important enough to the business, they presumably won't want to lose you.

Our office did this. From 1 to 2 days and then 4. There was a process to request reduced days. Almost everyone got denied. Only those with long term health issues were given a pass . Even then it’s reviewed every year

My company also done this. We are working from home during COVID full time for a year, then we came back to the office 2 days a week, then in January last year the announcement was made that we would be going to 3 days a week Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday from the September.
The push back was immense, however they stood firm and we know soon enough 4 days in the office will become the norm.

Several of my colleagues requested "flexible working" myself included due to childcare, not all were granted (I was one of the lucky ones, due to being at the company total of 9 years now)

If say speak with HR, put your request in writing and be prepared to meet them half way, could you do Flexi hours? That was another option that was offered to me but it wouldn't work.
The role was offered as 2 days in office but they are in the right to move the role to office based (4 days or full time) whatever suits them/needs of company.
We had a few resignations after the announcement, that may also be the option you have.
Good luck

Has your employer carried out a consultation across the workforce to understand the various impacts of upping the office based days?

I’d speak to ACAS and take it from there.

As someone now 3.5 hours into my commute home (for the second time this week) due to delays, I beg to differ that this is all ‘par for the course’. Many of us cannot afford to do more than two days in the office because of the costs involved. My travel costs more than my mortgage as it is. Wages haven’t increased at the same rate as train fares/parking charges. If employers want people back in the office full
time they need to be prepared to lose people and go back to a much smaller recruitment pool.

i don’t believe OP is asking for any favours, she’s saying the proposed changes simply won’t work for her and she’ll have to leave.

I get that. There are reasons people don't put things in writing though and that's because they know the company won't want to commit to it on a permanent basis

OP - could you drop a day? If you're only working 4 days, they might agree to you going in 2 or 3 days. And your 2 year old wouldn't be in full time childcare.

they’re doing this because people are less efficient when they are working from home. Everyone I know is either going gym, cooking, cleaning, walking dog, picking up kids in emergency. It’s normal for companies to stop doing this and I dont fault them because people are taking the piss

But the cost is your responsibility. Surely when you take on a job you consider commute and costs.

This is a great opportunity for your husband to do his half of the parenting and stop making you compromise your career to support his.

why do you put up with that incidentally? If you divorce in the future he’ll have been feathering his own nest at your expense

As your employer I’d ask why I had to be more flexible to support your husband and why his work weren’t picking up any of the slack

I have my WFH enshrined in my contract. Glad I did because our place has gone back to 4 days.

In terms of a flexible working request, I would make one. Remember location is just one aspect. You could start earlier and have DH drop off at nursery and then pick up. I know it doesn't solve the problem of the additional parking costs which would have pissed me off.

I love that some people think because you are moaning about nursery costs you don't have your child in childcare. Erm NO. There are some jobs where a full day in nursery doesn't cover the hours demands. Not everyone works 37 hours a week FFS.

Surgeons and anaesthetists have clinic days, surgery days (which tend to start early I admit) and admin days, I’ve never met a consultant level dr that didn’t have some flexibility done days. Can’t your dh do drop off on non patient contact days?

Could you afford it and would the job work if you made a flexible request to work part time? So maybe drop days or do long days but fewer or a mix of this? Just thinking there are other ways of flexing you could think about asking for that might work for you and the company.

I echo all this and the comment up thread about checking house insurance for legal cover.

They would not have taken you back without a good track record and your offer letter was on the basis of hybrid. Do not go asking for grace and favour conditions without exhausting the terms of your existing offer and explanations as to why it needs to change and how they would propose to buy you out of those T&C as you accepted an overall package.

As for silly comments upthread about the great WFH experiment failing - this is nonsense. If people must generalise then the overall productivity from hybrid (which the OP is already doing), comes out top. 2/3 and 3/2 splits mostly showing the best results.

The more draconian “everyone in the office” attempts generally come from poor senior management who want to be seen to do “something” but wouldn’t know an evidence base if they fell over it. The most revealing thing about the move to WFH is just how bad many managers are at managing their own staff and productivity.

Not only have you made a fair assumption, but an email worded like that forms the basis of your employment contract. From acas:

A contract is a legally binding agreement. This could be a 'contract of employment' or a 'contract of service'.
An employment contract can be agreed:

• verbally – this is when it's agreed through conversations
• in writing – for example, a job offer letter or through emails

When the employment contract begins;

An employment contract begins when someone starts work.
This is the case even if the employer has:

• failed to provide the written statement
• not put any other parts of the employment contract in writing

The contract might be formed earlier if all the following apply:

• the employer set out the terms of the job in a clear and definite way, verbally or in writing
• the job offer was unconditional or the person met all the conditions – for example, the employer was satisfied with their references
• someone accepted the job offer verbally or in writing

Thanks for this!! Amazing.

OP, PLEASE READ THIS! I posted this yesterday, but I think you must have missed it:

AngelicKaty · Yesterday 17:35
OP, I think it's worth checking something before making a flexible working request (that the business could reasonably refuse based on business need).
Whilst an employment contract can vary the terms outlined in a previous offer letter, this can only be done if both the employer and employee agree to the changes or if the contract contains a variation clause, which allows your employer to unilaterally make certain changes. Does your contract contain a variation clause, OP? (It's usually very obvious as it's generally sub-titled something like "Variations"). If it doesn't, you could argue that your employer doesn't have the right to unilaterally change your working location/pattern as laid out in your offer letter.

So, it's key that you check to see if your contract contains a variation clause which allows your employer to make unilateral changes, because even if your offer letter does form part of your contract, a variation clause that allows them to make unilateral changes means they can change the terms laid out in the offer letter too.

Unfortunately, this information says nothing about variation clauses in employment contracts, so it's incomplete information.

Variation clauses have their limitations. A variation clause cannot be used to make a new contract that is altogether completely different to that which was already in force - and even if there is a variation clause, the "variation" still has to be agreed by both parties. A variation clause states how variations are to be agreed - i.e. the process for agreeing - not the substance of the variation.

Of course, and agreeing to the cost of 2 days is quite different to agreeing to more.

But the wider point I’m trying to make is that keeping people in employment benefits us all. Any thread that involves wfh ends up in snidey comments about lifestyle. But I live in a small town where if I didn’t leave it to work, I’d be on minimum wage, paying minimal tax and unable to save for retirement. So I’d be significantly more expensive in old age. I shop and eat locally when I’m not in the city. My employer saves a lot of money have a smaller office space and we can recruit people from further afield because the commute is only a couple of days a week so those benefits go into their households and communities too. This is one example of millions.

Yes, it’s an individuals responsibility to make sure they can afford to get to work but if they decide it’s not worth it, the consequences go beyond them.