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.

@BrickBiscuit not really. They use passes to record it usually - this is obviously a one off
for this employee where a temp pass was used. So you don't need to trust everyone all the time, you'd be able to tell if someone was taking the mick (frequent temp passes etc) and then you could escalate. Seems ridiculous for a one off

It was a once off.

But even then, what's wrong with expecting an employer trusting their employees? I mean, if the work is getting done to an acceptable standard, then that trust has been earnt, hasn't it?

You don't employ or manage many people, do you?

Just use a Sharpie to cross out all the references to '24 Hour Express Giant Dildo Supplies' and let them have it.

I mean, if the work is getting done to an acceptable standard, then that trust has been earnt, hasn't it?
There can be quite a lot of reasons why a business wants to make sure there's some reasonable level of in-office staffing.

I'm in a much smaller company than the OP, and have a lot of hybrid workers, and we need to make sure for practical and client-care reasons, that we have at least one person from 'role A' and one from 'role B' present. Most of both roles can be largely performed from home, but some elements require someone being physically present (and some others dont require it but some clients strongly prefer it).

The role A folks make ad-hoc arrangements via a Teams chat, role B have a rota.

A bit different in a big company but I guess they're just going with "well, if everyone is in-person at least a minimum number of days per month, that'll probably line up" (and if data showed big clusters of people on some days, and few on others, they could presumably switch to something a bit more rigid).

It depends on the business but, generally, its not too hard to imagine instances where a company cant, or validly doesnt want to, give up on the idea of a physical staff presence altogether.

For the union to have signed off on the policy in the first place, it probably has a justifiable basis.

(Assuming any of this thread were true, of course).

"Hey, remember that time when you were in that dispute with your employer, so you reached out to the union, let them know the issue, and they made those written arguments on your behalf, and then the company's management chain responded and said that you won and then you took a victory lap and everyone clapped?"

"Yeah! Quite the 18 hours wasnt it"

oh boy, I wouldn't want to work for you 🙄

No you wouldn't

Give them a statement with your a/c no and all other transactions redacted.

Oh. Dear. 😆

I manage people, and I trust them unless given a very good reason not to.

That I feel is a pretty basic level of respect to show towards people. If you "employ or manage" people and you don't trust them, why are you continuing to employ them?

With an attitude like yours, your card at work is marked.

Why the need for a policy to monitor office attendance then?

I don’t know why you’re arguing with me. I agree that the employer here is ridiculous.

Good for you!
I’d watch my back from now on though. Looks like your manager really doesn’t like you.

Op has sounded like a dick throughout - she has done herself 0 favours in with workplace. No promotions for her in the future

Bloody hell you need a new job that's awful micro management !

Yes, I hope you find a great new fictional job, OP. You must be wiped after all that drama in an unbelievably short space of time. And a belated "welcome to Mumsnet" to you.

Because it could have personal items on there, OF payments, etc

I know it could have been redacted easily, but as I've said as soon as the bullshite excuses of not being able to check the CCTV came out from her manager, I'd have been inclided to be just as difficult.

For a company that is so reliant on the work passes to ensure office days are met, their policy is lacking.

No company should be using CCTV to monitor attendance or performance. It is there for the protection of people and assets and to be used as evidence for criminal activity. Not to check whether someone turned up or not.

This is all so petty on the employers part and I'm glad that OP stood up for herself, the employer was duly furnished by a knowledgeable union rep, and they saw sense and dropped it.

Surely you must have had to sign in somehow to get tge temporary pass issued and the building security staff/system must have a record?

How about blacking out all the bits u don't want them to see with a big ol marker pen?? Then scanning it to them? Still paperless (at their end) and no way it can be seen? Would take u about 2 minutes. It's what I did when I had to provide similar proof.

Luckily OP works somewhere where there is a union and she is a union member so any attempt by her manager to withhold promotions out of spite because OP showed up the gaps in their policies will be taken seriously by the union.

No wonder OP sounded smug when loads of posters who have told her that she will lose her job and that they would sack her if she worked for them are now miffed that OP was vindicated and the onus is on her employer to plug the gaps in their attendance policy.

Which is should be - the onus should be on the employer to plug the gaps without asking/demanding for private and confidential information and it is very clear any monitoring methods should not be overly intrusive and within data protection.

asking for a bank statement for me crosses those lines

the easiest solution would be to get a proper temporary pass trail so it was clear having forgotten her pass she was in.
it would be hard or complicated to do so

Perhaps also raise your concern that temporary pass information is not held. Had there been an emergency that day such as a fire etc does that mean nobody would have looked for you. I smell a Health and Safety Issue.

Good result.

shame it caused you stress and required the union to be involved.

your managers are arseholes