Angry my manager has taken away WFH perk?

[ZaHaK]

Am I unreasonable to be angry that my manager has taken away my wfh perk whilst I’m on maternity?

I have put in a proposed flexible work plan.

I used to do Tuesday - Thursday on site and Friday morning at home.

I requested to do less hours so I can drop the kids off to school and pick them up and keep my wfh Friday morning hours.

He’s rejected it and basically cornered me into just doing Tuesday- Thursday on site but I don’t want to reduce my hours too much so I’ve had to add an hour in the morning which means rushing my kids to breakfast club and nursery.

I am annoyed because on my last maternity 6 years ago, I applied for another job in another department which guaranteed wfh and my manager promised me more flexibility and wfh when I able to to keep me in his team.

But I feel like he’s used this maternity as an excuse to take it away from me. It’s not in my contract, it was an agreement between me and him.

What would you do? I feel like emailing him to say I am disappointed in him. Not many of our team like him but I used to rate him quite highly on the surveys etc because he always let me be. But I am really disappointed. I should have gone to the other team.

So there hasn't been anyone covering your job while you've been on maternity leave? Are you coming back to a year long backlog of work - if so surely they will not want you to reduce your hours at all?

The point here is that your employer isn’t obliged to accommodate your preferred childcare. You put in a request for reduced hours and your manager has accommodated your request based on the operational needs of the business. If you’re needed in the office Tuesday to Thursday then it makes perfect sense to cut the WFH hours.

I don't think you are unreasonable - if you have been WFH for years on a Friday what is the difference now? I would appeal their decision.

So who did it when you were on maternity leave?
This is the only aspect where maternity is relevant here. You were off for (presumably) some months during which time someone else has done your normal job. Your manager had to put that in place so has had the opportunity to see how the job works with someone else doing it, potentially with different hours and working arrangement. It seems that this new insight has led them to think that more hours on Tue-Thurs are needed, and Friday is less busy (for example).

So you were doing 22 hours on site and 4 hours at home if I’m understanding correctly (I may not be, the way you have posted about your Friday hours is confusing), so 26 hours total.

You asked to work 22 hours total.

The boss has said “yes but we need all 22 hours to be on site”. This is not unreasonable. You always did work 22 hours on site.

The only other thing I would say, in relation to your proposed work pattern, is that the different finish times on each day could potentially be a problem depending on your role. Other people can’t be expected to remember, “oh it’s Tuesday so she’s finishing at 3.30 today” but rather it would always be “where the hell is she? She’s never here when I’m looking for her!”

This. It’s also possible that the employer suspects OP won’t have childcare on the day she works from home.

That's not what you said in your OP?

So what have you been offered?

A choice of
a) the hours you requested but they all have to be in office, including the Friday that was previously wfh
b) to drop the Friday and work slightly longer days Tue-Thurs in the office?

I think those options seem reasonable. And I'm not sure (do you live a very long way from your office) why working a very short day on Friday is so unpalatable to you? You'll still have plenty of the day at home.

The difference is that OP wants to reduce her hours overall, but wants to cherry pick that she only reduces her office hours.

You didn’t say that in your OP.

Someone’s covered me who’s put them in some predicaments as it’s a person who was made to cover me, not someone who wanted to do it ( someone who does another job at the company but I had to train to keep them going until I came back) They expect me to get them out of these predicaments when I come back.

The difference is that OP wants to work less hours. The business can't accommodate making Tuesday to Thursday shorter days so want to remove the Friday.

I am taking away 2 hours from my wfh hours and 2 hours from my on site hours.

They have reduced head count which means less work. I put that as a reason also to reduce my hours.

This. Then if it’s a no and you’re confident they need you, I’d say thank you I am unable to work in the office on Fridays so I will need to request 2.5 hours less a week.

But you don’t know it would still have there. There’s a huge move towards getting people back into the office.

I can understand being upset at not getting it but why would you be upset someone else did?

It’s not the maternity that’s meaning the WFH is being taken away is it? It’s the fact you’ve made a flexible working request. He says he can’t accommodate what you asked for and has proposed an alternative. If you don’t want that, you can return to work on the same terms and conditions as when you left - which included the WFH on the Friday morning.

How do you know that from the OP's posts without knowing where she works or what she does?

I think the OP should appeal - the business needs to explain to her the reasons and what the business concerns are. Maybe it is what you guess, maybe not. Maybe there is an arrangement they can agree on that works for everyone?

Make a formal flexible working request (don’t call it a perk, it’s flexible working) and in that you can describe how the role can be done the way you’ve been doing it prior to your mat leave

This is what I was going to say. If it’s an established norm for such a longer period of time, you don’t need to ask permission to do it each week so it is accepted practice by both parties, it can become an implied contractual term even if not written into the contract and they could not, in that case, unilaterally change it. Seeks advice from a specialist employment lawyer.

I think the difference is OP wanting to reduce her hours onsite without it affecting WFH. If the manager can show that this will cause operational problems then he’s within his rights to refuse the request and offer the alternative best suiting the business - which is that the 22 hours OP now wants to work is entirely office based. OP is now saying that will include 2 hours in the office on Friday mornings. That’s reasonable too because the overall hours she’s actually in the office are reduced.

Based on what OP has said, if the manager has brought in cover for OP’s maternity leave, that person wouldn’t have been working from home - only OP was allowed that as a personal arrangement. So the manager has likely had the opportunity to monitor whether a different working pattern has been advantageous. If that’s the case, it’s OP who has opened the door to the changes by requesting reduced hours. If she’s working less hours overall, then l think it’s unreasonable to expect that the reduction in hours be applied entirely to WFH, as it would reduce the time spent onsite when she’s needed.

You requested less hours. He's agreed but not in the way you wanted. Nobody else has your perk. You probably need to change jobs.

Because that is the reason stated by the manager.

I'm struggling to understand what sort of childcare you must have with one child at nursery at one child at school, based on the hours you originally wanted.

However, can I suggest your easiest childcare pattern would be to work a longer day on Thursday (or whatever day it was you were proposing finishing at 4.30) and beefing up the childcare on that day, so that you can split the remaining hours between the other two mid week days within school hours, to enable easy drops off and pick-ups and have Friday off altogether.
I do wonder if the reason for refusing your Friday wfh is because it's such a short time (variously described as 2 and 2.5 hours in this post).

No, the perk would still be there if you hadn't requested the change to your working hours. You have asked to do fewer hours. Your employer has accommodated that request in a way that best meets business needs. They have retained what they see as your most valuable hours, and reduced the ones they can most easily manage without. It would be very difficult to show this was unreasonable in the legal sense of the word. Had you not requested a change and had returned to be told your WFH had stopped, you may have been on stronger grounds.
Your managers informal promise of flexibility is meaningless unless it was written into your contract. However, as they clearly valued you enough at one time to use it as a carrot to retain you, you could try negotiating with them, telling them you will be looking to move on because of this change.

Just checked back re. longstanding arrangement - the OP started off saying this 'perk' had been in place for 6 years, but in a later post she says:

i used to do
7:45 - 3:30 Tuesday to Thursday
2 years ago, I asked for a pay rise, it got denied but he said he will increase my hours, I said okay but only if I can do it from home.

So the Friday wfh isn't a 6 year-long arrangement, it's only been since 2 years ago, a chunk of which is mat leave. Not saying this invalidates her wish to keep it, but it's not quite the longstanding arrangement some have taken it to be and the deal made with the manager when OP considered the other job 6 years ago has since been modified with this wfh negotiation. So it's really not about a 6 year long set-up. Things have changed in that time off the back of OP's requests and are changing again now off the back of her requests. Wanting her in the office for already short days Tues-Thurs seems reasonable, and cutting the wfh hours (which OP already proposed halving) makes more sense for the business than whittling one of the office days down to a 2.30 finish.