To think if you moved out to the countryside during Covid, you can't demand remote working?

[JacquesHarlow]

Before I get piled on, the key word here is demanding remote working based on their lifestyle choices, and therefore going against an employer's setup (mandated hybrid or full 5 day wees).

The number of people I have interacted with in the last year who feel entitled to fully remote and flexible now, never coming in, because they took a gamble five years ago and relocated outside of where the work is....is staggering.

Let me rewind for a minute -

I understand from the ACAS site etc that people are legally allowed to request flexible working. But surely employers are equally allowed to turn it down or request a modified version (you have to come in X days). So why do so many people moan about this, as if they're entitled to fully remote?

I guess the answer lies in the pandemic.

For desk based jobs such as mine and many others, we were able to work remotely in Covid-19 office lockdowns. Many people reported increased productivity. We could work variable hours, walk the dog at lunchtime, pick up the DCs and then jump on Teams calls. No need to pay expensive £6k a year season tickets, less money spend on childminding to cover the commute etc.

However these couple of years also saw all kind of people look at what their flat or house inside the M25 was worth, cash in, and then flee to all points of the compass in the UK, using their strong London pound so to speak to buy up all kinds of acreage in Frome, Weymouth, Cambridgeshire, you name it.

Where I'm struggling is how many people I've seen on here will say "I've applied to a job which is clearly stated 4 days a week in person in the office. Does anyone work here and can say how firm this is, can I demand it be remote? I live 2.5 hours away from London and it'll cost me £70 a day" etc."

Why though? Does an employer have to throw its office policy out the window every time someone who moved away from London wants the same salary and access to the job market, but won't come in on their terms anymore?

Am I being unreasonable to say that people are being unrealistic about this?

Do any of you think that we should be able to request fully remote when applying for a job, no matter what the employer's policy is? And that it is "discrimination" if they don't?

I mean, one person on here was told by a prospective employer that they need to be mindful not to have their toddler crying out too much while they're on Teams calls with clients. The job seeker then got upset in their post and said "I don't think this job is for me"...

Has COVID completely changed people's expectations that they should be able to do it all with a toddler on their lap?

AIBU?!

Least of all the tax take.

Ok I get that people can interrupt your work sometimes @Swirlythingy2025 to ask questions, but -

How did "covid prove most office roles can be "completed" (your words) remotely" - ?

Yes you can have your laptop and voip software to call people etc.

But rightly or wrongly, a lot of companies predicate culture and success on in -person collaboration.

Have you got the evidence you need to push back against your employer's assertions?

Otherwise it's just a matter of opinions etc.

even then theres more distractions at the office and then traffic delays etc, covid proved the old office model is outdated

People have realised there is more for us out there than being up early in the morning, stuck on a long commute, crammed into an office, to come home with barely any time with our families in the evenings.

All to keep the people at the top richer. They want us to keep spending on public transport, in coffee shops, buying meals, in offices where they collect high rents and rates. They don’t want us at home, rested and relaxed, with our families and with money in our pocket.

WFH allows the work life balance to tilt towards a better way of life for us at the bottom at that won’t do. We get one life. Call me unproductive or lazy all you like. My performance says otherwise. WFH has certainly improved mine and my families and for that I’m grateful.

then that also applies to managers etc and their view of how they think it is or is not productive

plus the facts are there about companies that were running during covid if the workers were not productive then the companies share prices etc would of dropped and or projects stalled

plus the whole colab thing. sometimes yes in person it can help but other times its a mix

YES , the bobby axelrods of the worlds or the mike princes all want the worker bees at the office because in theory the worker bees are ment to support the local economy eg starbucks etc too. which to me is buy supermarket and make in advance not spend over £5 just on one drink etc

It's only my situation but before WFH I was limited in the hours I could work due to childcare and the commute. Being able to WFH meant I could increase my hours and work the time I would normally have been commuting. I still go in to the office on a hybrid basis but I would be out approx. 6-8 hours commuting time per week if I had to go in full time. I work another 4/5 hours flexibly during the week that I would also lose. That's 40+ hours a month 😬

Does your work only exist in London, or could you move to a lower rent area of the country where you could access work?

It's even worse when, during the interview, after confirming their name and the role they've applied for, you say "do you understand that this role requires the roleholder to be onsite 3 days a week?" and they say yes, but then still try to negotiate fully remote at the point of offer.

I think the difference is you aren’t woe-is-meing if the company says no to the remote working.

It’s the people who moved away and are now bitching that their company is making them com in and the people who are far away and are complaining they can’t find a remote job.

I’m close to being in the same position as you. I plan on moving in the next 5ish years and will be looking for a remote position or asking my company if I can move to another US state. *️⃣. I’m not going to complain if my company says no and I won’t take a job that isn’t remote. I know what I’m getting myself into.

*️⃣In the US a company has to be willing to have a tax presence in each state that employees live. It can exponentially increase the complexity of the tax situation and will open a company up to the employment laws of each state which can be different. It’s a similar concept to having employees work in different countries.

For a lot of companies the hassle of having 1 employ in a different state is not worth it.

I’m fortunate that my company operates and has employees in a lot of different states. So when I asked our tax guy on the sly he thought we had what’s called nexus in the state I want to move to.

That can be true. At the same time it can be true that there are more or similar distractions at home.

I saw this headline/story on MN this week where the civil servants are refusing to return to the office unless they re-open a pool on site and get more money to cover their commute costs! Costs that they had to take into account when they originally took the jobs! Shocking! https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/06/24/snp-civil-servants-swimming-pool-pay-rise-return-office/

So yes, I really do think the level of entitlement to work from home and do what they want when they want is shocking since Covid.

Can't imagine any of the people demanding these rights were happy themselves when doctors/nurses did video appointments instead of in -person or when their dentists refused to see anyone over the same period. And they expect teachers, nurses, doctors, bin collectors and so on to show up to work ... but not themselves.

But travelling was never included in hours at desk. A 9-5 job never included the hour of commute so doesn't make a difference. Unless you are saying all these people being paid to work 9-5 are now working 8-6 from home and working for those full hours?

on mumsnet threads themselves people were saying they could log on and do extra if needed rather than travel etc

Since this moved on a bit to WFH in general. I really feel bad for the ones who are new in their career. They are the ones who lose the most from not having a full office. So much learning happens from observation and listening in on work related conversations that is hard if not impossible to recreate online.

I spent so much time (with my manager’s encouragement) as a fly on the wall getting exposed to different situations that I would have never encountered if I was WFH. It was a huge component in my early career development.

That’s usually in the context of “I log out at 3 to pick up my kid and then log back in at 4 and work until 6”

Not always for sure, but that’s the common context.

Not really. Surely people still do 9-5. If they wfh, they get up at 8.30am, instead of 6.30am. So no actual extra working hours worked.

I think it is unreasonable for employer to demand employees come back into the office if they have been fully remote. With that being said, I think it wrong for people who do not live or work in London to receive London weighting.

Five day wees - hee hee

It’s wrong to use a sweeping statement though and imply productivity is down everywhere. Eg in my field of project delivery, analysis of our outputs against deadlines etc. including individual appraisals shows no loss at all. In fact if anything wfh has been a big plus as when things really heat up we can choose to log on again in the evening and work late into the night if need be. I have to go in 3 days per week during which they’re definitely less productive days. Have to wake at 5am those days because of traffic and then to ensure I get parking close enough to the train station for safety reasons and because of my hip tear. It’s a roughly a 3 hr round trip. I’m utterly shattered (being peri probably doesn’t help) when I get back home and am good for nothing much just dinner then bed. The most hilarious thing is my project division has people scattered all over the country and in my office there’s currently 0 people on my project team. So all that just to sit alone at a desk except I’ve lost 3hrs to travel and contributed a bit more to polluting the environment and lost approx £10 pd on travel (£120 per month) with no discernible benefit.

There is a difference between you 'being in the house' with your 10 yr old, who is occupying themselves in another room, and a baby or toddler 'crawling round your feet'.
There's a period of (depending on child) perhaps 4 years or so where (most) dc are able to play / read / do homework / watch TV / play in the garden etc without needing close supervision and can get on without interrupting their parent for 90mins or so, but where they are probably too young to be in the house on their own between school and 6 or 6.30 when their parents might get home from office + commute.

I thought it was obvious that we were talking about jobs that can be done remotely.

I think the days of being able to "work" whilst doing childcare, especially babies/toddlers, are well over, and quite right too. We cannot ever expect to thrive as a country again unless productivity increases and this means people take their work seriously and don't take the piss. Unfortunately it's become endemic.

My job is local authority and we mainly work from home, with a few site meetings and the occasional office meeting.

The office for me is a 1.5/2 hour drive then a 30 minute bus journey then an 10 minute walk each way. So I have to be up at 5 and out of the house by 5.30 to get to the office for 8am (most of my meeting start between 7.30/8am I do cancel my 7.30 meetings on office days) and then leave at 4.30 and not get home till 7pm on a good day on a Friday the latest I’ve been home is 9pm.

I took this role as it offers me the flexibility I need, however there have been mumbles from the senior leadership team they want us back in the office 2/3 days per week which would be great but they have sold off our office and now we have to hot desk so yeah that fun as there are never any desks to book…

If they do demand a proper return/mandatory 3 days I will be off, there are better paying remote job out there. I’ve regularly contacted for roles within my sector so I am pretty certain I could get another job quickly which would cover the costs of the commute.

I will agree there is a lot of entitlement around working from home, and I can think of several cases of people doing nothing

You can’t demand but by same token employers can’t moan they can’t recruit or retain staff if they aren’t offering wfh and competitors are. I have a friend whose company needs skilled workers (specific type of engineer) and all competitors in the industry offer wfh. They get people asking re policy at interviews (industry standard is wfh so they ask what wfh policy is not if it’s allowed) and then obviously declining offer. So they fill with expensive contractor staff as can’t recruit.
I’m in a mainly wfh role been here 5 years. I’ve never worked in office full time. That is my normal. If they wanted me in 5 days I’d leave. It’s a very hard to recruit to area. My section has some staff based hundreds of miles away full remote as can’t get qualified staff. We also don’t all fit in premises (some sold off, some leased to 3rd party)