Change in verbally agreed contract hours

[Beautifulsunflowers]

I wondered if someone could advise me please?
I work for a large company and almost 2 years ago started in a new role. I verbally agreed my working hours at interview. mon- fri 8-4.
Now I’m being taken over by a new manager and my job role is going to be the same although with a few different demands, all good so far, except that the other people that are managed by this person work one day a week until 6pm and one in 3 or 4 weekends. This isn’t what I signed up for and have not gone for interviews or applied for otherwise Greta jobs with this working pattern as I haven’t wanted to work weekends and longer days.
As it has only been a verbal agreement do I have any case to keep my hours the same? Or as I’ve worked those hours for nearly 2 years does that hold any legal weight?
I’d be grateful for any advice - Thank you.

what does your contract say about your working hours?

Agreed. Depends on your contract. That will overule any verbal agreement

You have an arrangement (through use & custom) that may outweigh anything in your contract. However your employer can change your terms & conditions - not sure of the detail. Please call ACAS for proper advice.

The verbal agreement could be binding along with the ‘custom and practice’, but your manager should really have put this in writing to you to confirm it. Do you have anything at all in writing relating to this agreement? Email, text, etc?

Your contract can be over ruled by 'custom and practice'

I would call ACAS

I need to get a copy of my contract - I don’t believe the hours I’d agreed are in there just the overall weekly hours.
The job description when I applied just stated full time hours and the hours I do now were verbally agreed. It’s one of the reasons that I’m being taken over by a new management team, because the old management have no idea how to manage admin staff.

The attached is from ACAS. A contract does not have to be written. Express terms in a contract can be verbally agreed.

However contracts can be varied by agreement on both sides. I would suggest you ask for a meeting asap to chat about your contract and what the written details might say in future. If they wrote to you saying your hours were variable and to be agreed, you might find it more difficult to stick to what you have in the new role. These working hours would make me refuse the job! It’s very different.