AIBU to think if your boss wants you in the office, they should help pay to get you there?

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Barclays has delayed moving UK staff from two to three office days after thousands asked for help with commuting costs, and TSB staff are reportedly preparing legal action over a similar plan. In one survey, 29% of UK office workers said a subsidised commute would get them in more often.

One side says more office days is effectively a pay cut. The other says getting to work has always been the employee's cost.

Should employers chip in, or is that just part of having a job?

well, nobody argued their pay should be cut when they started wfh, to reflect their lack of commuting costs- which was entirely reasonable because commuting costs are not your employers concern (whether they are £0 or ££££).

It’s a bit much to expect your employer to pay your travel costs- that’s for you to consider when you take or stay in a job. Don’t want commuting costs? Then choose a job where you can walk or cycle to work, or one where you work from home. If you can’t find one, move somewhere you can, or reassess your choices based on what is possible.

I love WFH, but obviously it is the employee's responsibility to get into work as often as is required in their contract, and that includes paying any transportation costs. They can try to renegotiate with their employer (for either higher pay or fewer days in the office), but ultimately the employee should pay their own way or find a different job that better suits their wishes.

As others say it depends on the contract. My last job I had a remote contract plus the office was 200 miles away so if I did have to go in then they paid my expenses. My current job is hybrid minimum 2 days in the office but if they told me it was going to have to be 3 I reckon I’d need to just suck it up.

Thing is yes it does cost money but the truth is loads of us commuted a lot more before Covid and we got the benefit of not having to pay for a commute when companies went remote/hybrid then

OP, when you think about the people who do real jobs that involve building and manufacturing things, instead of playing with fake numbers on a spreadsheet in the fake "financial" sector, how do you think those people get to work? How do you think things would get built or manufactured without people on site? Or are you one of those people who thinks that things just magically come out of a machine when some guy presses a big button?

The issue is, people employed in the years after Covid may have accepted jobs that are 2 days in the office so suddenly changing them to 3 days is a change or a miss sold job. In those circumstances I think covering expenses is fair. Just because we all used to commute 5 days a week doesn’t mean someone on a predominantly wfh agreement should be screwed over.

Presumably they were aware of the terms and conditions of that job requiring them to be on site so not comparable.

Paying tax on it is still far, far below the actual cost of commuting though.

Your job in life is to get to work on the day you have to be in work. If you can’t you find a job you can get to.

You do get paid for commuting to work. It's called wages. Where you choose to live in relation to your place of employment and therefore your commuting costs are up to you.

This is ridiculous. Why did WFH in an emergency situation make so many feel entitled to do so forever more? Imagine if hospital, school and care staff started demanding expenses for their commute!

Did his salary reduce when his commute did?

Or to think if an employee wants a job they should get themselves to their work place. Jesus where have we gone wrong, what a shocking attitude to work!

It's part of the job. Why take a job if you can't get to the place of work

Also, most in the front office at Barclays will have to be in 5 days for reg reasons. So the people taking advantage of wfh will be the back office who are generally less well paid but also seen as expendable

You couldn’t make it up 😂

Where are you living in London that costs £50 a day to commute within London? I commute for an hour and my travel costs cap out at £8.90 with a combination of bus, train and tube.

All these people are doing is making the case for offshoring more jobs to India.

Id be interested to know how majy of these people were FT office based pre covid?

Did their wage stay the same when they went to wfh? If they are arguing commuting should be paid then surely they should take wage cut if they moved to wfh

It’s coming up 7 years since WFH started due to Covid and loads of people are in different jobs than they were before. Employers hired people knowing that they didn’t live near the office, this widened the talent pool and gave more flexibility on both sides. I had two jobs between the start of Covid lockdowns and retirement this summer. In the first one I hired a team, and the organisation didn’t care where in the country they were located. This impacted on the salaries we had to offer. The second employer knew where I lived when they hired me, and we agreed how often I’d be in. This impacted on the salary I was prepared to accept. For many people hired during Covid the lack of commuting costs was definitely factored in. Had I not retired I couldn’t have stayed in my job as my employer had mandated 4 days in the office which would have been impossible at 5 hrs round trip and £160 a day.

It is comparable. It's normal for people all across the country to go into work 5 days a week.

Unless someone is disabled and/or has a medical condition which means that they need to be accomodated, then it is absolutely reasonable to expect people doing fake "finance" jobs to go into the office 5 days a week.

Back in the day it was not uncommon for employers to offer interest free annual season ticket loans as part of the remuneration package, maybe they could bring something like that back?

Some of us had/have jobs that aren’t compatible with wfh. I’m a community nurse so I drive to and from work at my own expense and in my own time (a bit like teachers do for example)
the only mileage and time I am reimbursed for is travel to see patients during my working day after arrival at the base.
however I think that my job is one of the least likely to be taken over by AI so that is a bonus I guess.

In the Netherlands employers often cover your travel to work through providing a train pass, a lease car or an allowance to cover it. Apparently it is expected and seen as the employer’s responsibility

Mine does, but it was negotiated before I started.

Unless you have a fully remote contract then surely it's the employees' responsibility to pay for their commuting. That's how it's been for a very ling time, and this seems like an excuse to get bosses to stop asking them to go into the office. Many of those 'working' from home are just taking the piss. No wonder everything's going down the pan, god forbid work interferes with your 'commitments' during your contracted working hours.