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.

that's great, it goes to show that going to the union does pay off sometimes.

Not at all. I'm not OP's protector. I was just challenging your blatant hypocricy and double standards. It's fine for you to be rude to people but you get really offended if people are rude back and you accuse them of personally attacking you.

1. Managers are employed to enforce policies, no matter how stupid or time-wasting. It's their job.
2. They are enforcing the policy that swipe cards confirm attendance. This policy is neither stupid nor time-wasting, but reasonable, secure and efficient. OP breached it.
3. There is no policy for recording temporary passes. Managers must therefore decide how to achieve alternative confirmation of attendance.
4. There is no policy on alternative confirmation of attendance. The OP has offered a generic record. Managers have asked for a specific record, which the Op could have provided safely redacted for privacy (PPs have described how).

The only policy being enforced here is 'swipe cards confirm attendance'. The rest is decision-making to resolve the OP's breach. In fairness to other staff, they need confirmation of attendance, not an unsubstantiated claim. A record of temporary passes would certainly have helped.

i disagree! Only a line manager with minimal experience would blindly follow a shit policy!

I’ve managed various numbers of people for the last 25 years! I would not enforce something like this!

i’d tick a box if I had to to say no further action or whatever the process is!
Managers should be empowered to make their own decisions about their own staff!

It’s a policy thrashed out between management and the union. Regardless of whether you think it’s shit or not managers are expected to enforce company policy and take collective responsibility. At no time in the decades I managed people would I have risked my job by failing to adhere to a policy. I suspect you actually have very little if any management experience @rockstarshoes.

The only person who'd have an issue with a simple request to provide a quick online/paper statement (with everything else completely blurred or painted over except the necessary transaction and details) is either someone who's hiding something or someone who enjoys making a mountain out of a molehill.

This...you're making this way too complicated

The only policy here is 'swipe cards confirm attendance'. That is reasonable, secure and efficient. There is no policy for alternative confirmation of attendance. The managers are therefore left to decide how to do so (in other words, "empowered to make their own decisions about their own staff"). The OP breached the policy. The managers are dealing with that in a policy vacuum, not 'following a shit policy'.

The policy has a clear gap. You escalate to the policy owner, a quick circular determines suitable action , a decision on immediate policy update or at a later date…. I write and update lots of policies for large corporates. Instead they’ve determined their own actions which are not in policy and are very much the ones in fault. I can imagine the policy owners faces that I know. ‘Do we authorise demanding bank accounts in this document? No? Then I do not understand why you are saying according to the policy. Nothing you’ve done is according to the policy. Don’t you think if it’s inadequately addressed by policy X that the first thing to do was to inform me?? Because that is the only course of action open to you here, so it’s confusing as to why you’ve instead gone vigilante.’

The op hasn’t breached anything

"-The policy confirms the adherence to the required office days is to be measured via pass swipe data." (OP)

"On one of the days in May, I forgot my pass" (OP)

i Have never met a person who hasn’t one day forgotten their pass!

The official policy hasn’t written in a clause about what happens when you don’t have your own pass!

There is a process in place for people who have forgotten their pass to get a temporary one but somehow that hasn’t been included in the overarching one!

Therefore the overarching policy is not fit for purpose, as picked up on by the union!

Honestly as a line manager have none of you ever thought this is a pile of shit & I’m not doing it?

No, we've thought the policy has gaps and the temporary pass system lacks record-keeping, so what reasonable action might be taken to ensure business continuity?

But obviously not thrashed out in total because no one seems to have considered what happens if someone forgets their pass - even though there is a process in place for the forgotten pass!

I wouldn’t enforce that no, I’d enter what ever I needed to enter into what ever system I was using to tick a box & remind my member of staff to bring her pass in!

she hasn’t done anything wrong - she’s been in the office when she should have been in the office, she followed the process for a forgotten pass!

she shouldn’t have to be printing off bank statements or any other admin shit - she had followed the processes in place & if I was her line manager I would be doing everything I could to relieve the bloody admin burden to her and me!

Glad your employer backed down on this non issue. But card transactions don't always show as debiting on the same date you make them, so I slightly despair at the number of posters who would quite happily provide this non proof to their employer without questioning their policies on issuing security passes!

she followed the process for a forgotten pass!

Did she? Is there any process for a forgotten pass? It certainly doesn’t look like it.

And that’s asking security to check the cameras, not requesting personal bank info.

Well she was issued with a temporary pass so I presume so!

I’m glad you’re not my line manager Blossomtoes! 😀 I feel we would lock horns!

The OP said they ruled that out. I'd not have gone down the bank info route, but the OP introduced it themselves.

Not about interpreting a policy gap and handling it. Banks, energy, fund managers, they all take a reasonable approach to managing their qualified staff or they wouldn’t have any and good people are hard to find, plus there are very clear standards on who is at fault in the event of a claim when the policy was inadequate, unless the staff member has actually done something criminal. They save coming down hard for when someone has actually done something wrong, and focussing on fixing their own policy and controls gap when that is the cause.

Next time on Girl Bossing Your Way to the Bottom at Work!

Just print the bank statement and redact all the bits that they don't need to see.

😆

The policy doesn't cover temporary passes. The OP had a pass, a temporary one.

Have you bothered to read the OPs follow up? It clearly addresses what you're saying and you are wrong

The amount of bootlickers on this thread, my god. No wonder we live in a country where wage isn't going up, half of you just want to kowtow to your bosses humiliating you. Madness