To refuse to provide bank statement to my work to prove I was in the office

[HanExplorer]

I’ve found myself in a very unusual situation and am standing firm so far despite pressure.

I work in a hybrid role with a requirement to attend our office twice a week, this is measured monthly based on card swipe data. On one of the days in May, I forgot my pass so was issued a temporary one to use that day.

Earlier this month my manager flagged I was showing a day short for office attendance in May and said I’d need to make up a further day in June. I looked at the dates they had on record and quickly realised the missing one was when I had the temporary pass so that obviously hadn’t registered on the system.

I explained this to my manager and she still maintained I’d need to attend an extra day to balance the totals on the system as there ‘wasn’t any record of me attending’.

I realised I’d spent money in the on site restaurant that day and there’d be a record on my bank showing the company name. I screenshotted this on my phone, cropped it so you could see the date and sent it to my manager.

She has checked with her manager and told me that I need to provide a copy of a bank statement which shows my name and the transaction - that would of course also show all my other activity!!

This has been dragging on and I’m standing firm so far, but I’ve had a call booked in with my manager and her manager for tomorrow and I’m wary of what they are going to say.

My office is over an hours train journey each way so not a case of driving 5 minutes down the road to work a further day - regardless, I don’t feel I should do out of principle.

My mind is literally blown at the concept of a company that wastes this amount of time on this crap. So bloody unproductive. If the environment is really this toxic and untrusting, I’d be making plans to leave.

Can you ask them why it's so important for you to come into the office, if the only way anyone notices is because of your pass being swiped? Surely there are in person meetings or informal catch-ups or IT system connection or something that makes the trip worthwhile?

You must have signed out your temporary pass? Or what about your train ticket? I’ll be stunned if there is no CCTV… and you will have logged-in using the IP at the office.

but yea, just redact the rest of the statement.

I'd be upset too OP, not so much at the original request but at the implication that you would fraudulently obtain somebody else's bank statement to prove something so trivial!

I'd be saying that to them myself. It's that more than the original request that would upset me and I'd be asking questions about trust, values, competency etc.

Record of temporary pass from reception
Train tickets
Bank statement with other lines redacted

Or just work the day.

I'd also look for another job if they are micro managing in this way. Seems pathetic.

Big firms like PWC, KPMG and Deloitte dock your bonus by a certain percentage if you don’t hit your office day requirements.

Nope. The office bores just want you to believe that. I work ft from home (lawyer). You just have to shop around and know your worth. This thread shows how stupid the requirement is - if it made sense OP's manager would remember her being there.

Security Must have a dated record of issuing a temporary pass?!

OP I have worked in places with such low trust of their employees and it was hell. Honestly, low trust and micromanaging are so demotivating.

I now work in a place with high trust who treat us all like adults and couldn’t be happier. I know this doesn’t help you now OP but I’d be planning long term to move jobs.

I work in a professional services role (a large, international company) and it’s a condition of our insurance that we’re in 3 days a week on average. We have to come in and all be on video meetings to each other whilst sat in the same building 😂

I thought it was petty until they explained that the rule is completely out of their hands. But we aren’t accused of lying like is happening with OP.

I outsource a fair bit to these firms (panel requirement) and they'd do better trying to provide a decent service. Chaining staff to the desk is not doing it.

This is definitely not true - you are being had.

Sounds like they are being really anal about this.
Surely it doesn’t matter THAT much even if you had missed one day at the office (even though you didn’t).

I was going to say just go to the office to shut them up but as it’s over an hour away, then no way.

Seems excessive that they want your bank statement to prove you were there. I would get your bank statement and just blank off all of your other transactions.

Definitely sounds as if they aren’t dealing with this in the proper way though.

Your reception desk should have a record of issuing the temporary pass.

Nope. I’m hybrid and can work as many days in the office as I chose, we are allowed to look at our own roles and tasks and judge when we need to be in the office.

You know, like adults.

I worked 3 days last week as i needed to, week before I did 1. I’m on leave this week but next week I will probably be in all week due to nature of work that needs to be done.

Yes but this level of controlling and checking is a bit much. We are monitored on our attendance but if we forget our pass we just say “I forgot my pass that day” and thats it.

If it became a frequent thing, your manager would notice and it would get picked up on, but generally we aren’t pestered to prove something like that as a one off. I’d find the level of micromanaging very tedious.

This. Although it's easily fixed by redacting transactions. Where has the trust gone that they feel you would be lying about this. Has anything happened in the past to make them mistrust you?

Print the bank statement, use a sharpie to black out any information you don’t want them seeing. Leave name address spend etc

Yeah the day counters are depressing. I manage a team - some WFH fully, some in the office five days. It's fine and we all do our jobs.

On that day I was the only one in my (small) team in the office so it was a headphones in kind of day - I’ve checked my calendar and only one call was with someone from my team. I’m reluctant to drag them in to this though to say I was sat in the office.

Log onto online banking then click on that particular transaction which will give them all the proof they need. I think a refusal to do so looks like you have something to hide. If you like your job and want to keep it then I would just comply

Did you do any work while you were in the office? Surely there will be evidence of that

It's not that OP has office days requirements, it's the fact that they're essentially accusing her of lying and producing faked evidence. In a decent workplace with an atmosphere of trust and confidence, OP simply telling her manager that she had been in that day using a temporary pass should have been enough.

My online banking lets me filter by day so I can print just this. I can also download and redact the rest of the items. Are either of these an option?

As I say, I know lots of companies whose bonus is linked to hitting office day requirements and it’s reduced by a certain amount depending on where they hit their office requirements.
If that’s the case I can see why the company demand “proof”.

A colleague took a £9k hit on his bonus because it wasn’t financially worth him travelling the additional days.

In some cases there’s considerable money at play.