working from home being questioned - advice please!

[atadworried]

right, where to start - am feeling a bit knocked about by this so will try and take it slowly...

I have a new boss (2 months ago) - I have been in company 10 years, she recently joined. She made a few comments at the beginning about the random work schedules of various people but I sent her an email with my "schedule" which included a working from home day (mid week). This schedule is quite often hypothetical as I have always been flexible and come in for meetings, or travelled abroad etc as and when necessary.

A comment was made yesterday about how she "doesn't like people working from home".

She also referred to my "day off".

Today I get an email inviting me to a meeting next week on my home day. As I have made very clear, when circumstances permit, I don't have a problem with this (although since one other party is dialling in, I am not convinced that presence is everything...). But the email then referred to "we can look at you taking your working from home time on either another date, or 2 half days (which I believe was originally agreed)" - the 2 half days are nothing to do with this and was my working pattern when I worked 4 days a week - not since 2007.

I am feeling a bit "got at" to be honest. I have worked from home to a greater or lesser degree for nearly 5 years. My previous bosses have never had a problem with it. I know, and they knew, that it was an efficient system.

Do I have any rights here? If it makes any difference, I do have a letter from 2005 confirming my return to work after mat leave and stating that I would be working partly from home, partly from the office. Since then all sorts of circumstances have changed - I was promoted, I went back to full time, I have moved further away (so one day less commuting makes a huge difference)...

Oh and if it has any bearing at all, I travel quite frequently, getting trains and planes at 6 or 7 in the morning and often returning 9, 10 or even 11 at night. I thought this was part of the flexibility..

Gosh, this is v long, sorry! But I was trying to put everything in. What should I do, how do I address this? I'd obviously like to come to some sort of arrangement that works for everyone and I don't feel means I lose out (I'm already pretty badly paid).

PS - I said I was efficient working from home - clearly today is an exception as I have 2 laptops running and this one is the one I am concentrating on most!!

sorry, just to add to my own post as I sit here stewing: practically everyone in my office works from home on some basis and very few people are ever in the office every day because of the travel involved etc. Not sure if that needs adding, but it's bumping this!

Hello there

She sounds like a nice boss to have! I'm assuming that because she's new she's wanting to change things round a bit and is marking her territory - she may be having a bit of a strop because she doesn't have a clue about how the team operates because you're all in and out, as the whim takes you ??

Probably a good idea to talk face to face with her, and maybe ask to go for a coffee with her to make her feel it's a bit less formal? It might be worth you going in to the meeting asking for her help/support rather than getting too defensive about your situation - you might get a nicer and more supportive response (just a thought).

Before the meeting, I would prepare a couple of things to talk about:

The first thing that I would concentrate on is actually what you are doing/achieving at work. I don't know what your role involves, but if you set things off along the lines of "Look at all the things that I do - this is my normal duties and look what else I can do by having a day at home when I can concentrate on x/y/z and that is one of the reasons why I am so fab, and really it will benefit you because you have such a productive and stable team."

Quite often, people are scared about others working from home because they don't know what the benefits are so you might need to do a little education, and postive pr about what you can do whilst at home and how it doesn't have a negative impact.

Anything that you have documented about your working arrangements before she came along will also help to clear things up for you - formal letters, emails etc. If your positive pr approach doesn't work you may need to resort to these. If you have formally agreed a flexible working arrangement then you have the right to work that arrangement, and neither party has the right to change it without both formally agreeing to it, so she can't just do it willy nilly.

Sorry - bit of a ramble. Hope some of that helps though, and good luck!

Hmm. While it certainly forms part of your working arrangements to work at home if they really want you to go into the office every day then there is not much you could do to stop them pushing it through.

I doubt the change would significant enough where you could claim constructive dismissal.

Really you need to read your contract I'm guessing it will contain a phrase to the effect of "you're expected to be flexibly and may be required to work from different locations depending on business need".

i.e. Work from home unless we decide this has to stop :(

Does your company have a flexible working policy? Our area manager was being arsey about the fact that many in our team were working days from home, and we were able to make him back off by quoting the policy at him, which stated that managers were to focus on the output of the staff, not the hours done, or the location. His main objection was that "we can't have people t home looking after children when they should be working" however, the policy stated that so long as we were contactable and the work was getting done, that that was precisely what working from home was about. For example, I write reports for a living, I work from home one day a week, and on that day I am available, but I actually do the reports across the week in the evenings. He backed off once we were able to quote to policy at him, and show that the council was not adversely effected. He's the kind of manager who just wants to give things a stir to show that he can, to put his stamp on things. PITA!

The new name for this in some work places is "HOT desking" Tell the boss that many big organisations are saving office costs by allowing staff to work at home.

I presume from your travel schedule that you are reasonably senior, right? Then I'm going to be a bit brutal.

I don't think this has a lot to do with legal rights. Regardless of the theory, if your boss doesn't buy into your arrangments, then she will make life difficult. And that will make your job less fulfilling. Worst case, you take legal action for some reason, but unless you want to leave the company, it's a bit of an own goal.

I would deal with this head on. Women so often don't do that. Schedule a meeting with her and put it to her - neutrally, non-emotionally and factually - that she has expressed a number of reservations about your working arrangments and you want to explain to her how they work for the best interests of the company and how they operate (when you can get in your comment about the half day business). You can also mention, later on in the discussion, that you have heard your homeworking day referred to as your day off, and whilst you appreciate it was probably said in jest (even if you don't think that!), you just want to be clear that your home day is used for X, Y, Z and you don't slack off.

When people are passive -aggressive like this, often the best way is to put them in a situation where they have to actually articulate their concerns. Sometimes they are not the ones you expect them to be, and sometimes having an open discussion puts the issues to bed once and for all.

If it all goes wrong, then if you do need to escalate it will look better if you tried to resolve it direct.

Thank you so much for your replies - I think I just need to look at this calmly. I've since had a further message concerning this suggesting we talk on Monday and stating she "would like to be flexible". Let's see.
In answer to various questions:
There's no real formal agreement, no. apparently there is a letter in my file which I don't seem to have and which "confirms" working from home 2 half days a week, coincidentally the half days I was previously off. Not sure what that's about, and since at that point I didn't have a fixed desk, I worked wherever there was space, which was quite often at home!
Any how, just need to calm down and read the very sage advice again (tomatoplantproject especially, thanks for pointers). I think you are all spot on about her just shaking things up a bit (her background is much more formal - I've been there since it started and had no procedures..) and also being confronted with us being in and out on a whim - good point!!

I would remind younot to take it personally, although this is hard, as you said manypeople work from home and if she is nit used to this sort of pattern it is really her who could be struggling to work with it eg an old boss of mine LOVED to be able to click her fingers for a management meeting, this was more about her lack of planning/ tendancy to panic than anything else though!

Agree with tomatoplant about taking a positive approach and about tackling it directly.

It is easy to make assumptions about your new boss's motivations and opinions but you will only really know (and be able to work on changing her opinions) if you speak with her. She may be doing her best to understand the total workload of the team.

My dp changed job recently and took on a team where several people were working past-time, some were on compressed hours, some had agreed home-working days, and everyone worked flexi-time. There were also a couple of people who had swapped jobs as a training exercise. It took him about 4 months to really get to grips with the range of responsibilities and because of the range of options it was almost impossible to schedule a team meeting when everyone could be there.

cross posted with RibenaBerry. Thank you for your view - brutal is good. I suppose it's also why I wanted to come on mumsnet for opinions rather than a)blow it all out of proportion in my own mind or b) react.
As you will have seen, the door is now open for a face to face discussion and I will prepare sensibly. And probably run it by you all beforehand to check I'm thinking straight.
I really appreciate all your responses.

Hi all, mini update and probably a bit of shameless wallowing.

I hardly slept last night and, after talking it through with DH (and showing him the emails), have really come to the conclusion that this is the beginning of the end. You know you sometimes pick up on things that don't mean a lot individually? For example, projects I worked on are being discussed on very regular occasions with all and sundry about how it was all done wrong and has to be redone (the joys of hindsight!), projects that I start suddenly end up elsewhere, documents that I write get slightly rewritten and then sent on with no mention of me...maybe I am being paranoid, but I think I need to start considering plan B.

And in which case, I really have to be careful on Monday.

I propose I prepare along the lines of RibenaBerry's suggestions and completely focus on the issue at hand ie my working hours. Should I raise my performance or wait to see if she does?

Finally, I have seen enough people pushed out of this business to worry, and also to know the speed with which it can happen. To reassure myself, what would my next steps be should it all go pear shaped on Monday (or any day after that?)

Morning OP, I don't know much about employment law, but just wanted to say that they can't 'sack' you straight away re performance, unless you had done something that could be classed as gross misconduct. Otherwise, they would have to give you a series of warnings (often verbal, then written, then final or something like that) before pushing you out. So you will not suddenly be jobless next week whatever happens.

If I were you I'd wait and see how the discussion goes on Monday, you might be pleasantly surprised. I think tomato and ribena's suggestions are great re how to handle the discussion.

If she brings your performance up, how do you think you would handle this? Do you feel your performance is below par? Or have things had to be 'redone' for reasons beyond your control?

Try to keep upbeat. It is really horrible when somethign like this happens, but it does happen. Bosses change and the equilibrium shifts. It isn't about you and there is little you can do other than - as RB recommends - trying to clear the air.

Try not to lose sleep about it. It sounds as if there are enough frustrations building up in your current job that moving on may be the best thing that could happen to you. But make sure it is on your terms by standing up to her in a professional manner and keeping your head held high. You never know, you may find that there are other concerns about the way this woman is managing things and you could be the catalyst for them to come to the open - it may be that she is not as supported as you might think she is.

I think that, if you have other particular concerns, I would probably raise them when you have the chat. I don't mean an 'are you trying to push me out' type conversation. More like "I originated X project and it has been reassigned. We haven't really talked about why that was, so I was hoping you could just fill me in a bit."

As I mentioned, if this is passive-aggressive management, being put on the spot in a non emotional, matter of fact way can be very illuminating.

I think RibenaBerry has given excellent advice.
Please try not to worry - easier said than done I know. But there really could be a straightforward explanation. It sounds as though there are very complex working patterns going back a number of years, and as the new boss, she has a responsibility to get a handle on them, and then make adjustments as she sees fit. Doesn't necessarily mean anything sinister. If things really don't work out well for you, then no harm in having a Plan B, and it sounds as though you have worked for this company for a number of years without any problems, getting through everything you need to do efficiently, so if you do end up moving, it should be in a postive way, with a good reference. There is nothing wrong with dealing with these issues head on, professionally, and deciding that the new regime is not what you want. That leaves you in control - you would be behaving absolutely professionally and simply making a decision based on the changes in the company

Hello all. Thanks again for your wise words - it is great to get the objective view.

I have been thinking of very little else over the last couple of days, and tried to have an honest reflection of performance. I would probably say that it has been less than usual over the last couple of months, mainly down to insecurity (circumstances of the change in situation, getting used to new management, uncertainty of job role in new structure etc). But I would certainly not say that it has been a major problem (no deadlines missed, everything had been done).

New boss is very critical of all that is past and clearly I am part of that. In answer to questions about stuff being redone - I followed one strategy and was praised for my work, but new direction is different and therefore it doesn't work. Clearly not my fault, but she's very good I noticed at setting up "false" arguments - creating a problem which she can solve but which did not necessarily exist!

OK, so I need to look forward. I was, until this week, quite excited by the proposed changes in direction and where that would take us. I will have a meeting with her on Monday and, following all advice here, see what she wants me to do.

At the same time, I will work on Plan B. I am not convinced my future is there now. And, as you have so wisely pointed out, I need to be in control.

Sorry for length, it's helped get it straight in my head. I am very upset - but I think that's because I know it's the end of an era which has been great.

Oh, and 2 last points: RibenaBerry has mentioned "passive aggresive" twice and I think that is spot on (not that I thought I knew what it meant before!) and GingerGlitterGoddess, I'm afraid I've seen them in action before and I do not think I will be hanging round a moment longer than they want me too if my card is marked.

An update and where to start? It has been, as they say on the telly, a rollercoaster of a week (and sorry this is getting v long).

I had my meeting on Monday afternoon in which she explained that she is trying to get used to all the arrangements in place for her team (fair enough) and wanted to discuss what worked for me.

We discussed my ongoing informal (exboss and I kicking ourselves for overlooking that, but never mind) arrangement and we talked through them. Upshot is that I have them "agreed" with a small change until the end of January so she can see how it works out. I do not see this as massive victory to be honest and I think this is quite a short deadline especially given my not having worked the exact office hours of 9-6 has been the case for 10 years.

In making an issue of this, she is ignoring the bigger picture, which I think is what's annoying me. For example, I did a 16 hour day this week as I was travelling. This meant that DH had to deal with the kids for drop off and pick up as well as homework etc - but he did not get anything in return - in times past I would have simply gone in earlier and left earlier one day to take over his pick up duty. Basically, in return for me working 7 hours extra in one day, I would have liked one hours flexibility.

Is this really unreasonable? I actually don't know as it is common practice in the office I work in and as I say, I've been there a long time!

Anyway, back on an even keel although still feeling slightly screwed over, I had a conversation on Friday with her, during the course of which she made it clear that my having family committments was making her job harder because I couldn't come and go as she pleased. She was particularly annoyed that Dh and I share a car so I do have certain restrictions - all of which can be worked around with a little notice or adaptation.

I do feel that she is going about this entirely in the wrong way and that is perhaps what makes me so nervous! She is making the issue "I need to know where you are" into "I need you to be in x place of my choosing", ignoring the fact that since the team is spread over a number of locations, the bulk of the work is email and phone based and in any case, the workload and efficiency is not coming up in any of these discussions, simply where we are. I am not the only one affected.

The thing is, I do think the challenges ahead are really exciting. I'm bloody good at my job and this would be a great step forward. But I'm not sure I can work for someone whose entire focus is presence not output and cannot be organised enough to plan ahead, thus requiring people to drop everything when she clicks her fingers (as someone mentioned before in this thread and was a good point!) Equally, I am not sure that I fit into the ideal profile for her - I am not single with no commitments and I'm afraid it's not looking like I will be. The company has always been at least notionally family friendly - we may all put an awful lot in, travel a lot and take work home, but they took pains to thank partners and families for their support.

Argh. I feel stuck. Not sure what advice I can seek, I think I just needed to get that down.

Oh dear.

I wonder if she is daunted by the task ahead (the whole job, not just resources), and so she is focusing on the "easier to solve" issues, or what she sees as issues, like looking at working patterns. Not the best way to get staff onboard though...

It sounds to me like you are incredibly flexible for a working parent. Some people for a variety of reasons simply couldn't do what you do. Added to which as a working parent we also offer the other benefits; less likelihood of hangover sickies, when we have child related time off I am sure we generally work the time back and more, we are generally aware of not being seen as slacking/not doing enough so work as hard as we can etc...

I think as other posters have said, you need to focus on the fact you get the job done well and when required you are able to work outside the core hours.

It probably feels like the last thing you want to do, but are these early days an opp to "get her onside" by trying to help her. I am not suggesting brown nosing etc, but if all of the team is feeling defensive, she'll probably gravitate towards those that she sees as helpful/going to help her achieve her plans. Something like "I am really excited about the opportunities of this new team, what do you need from me in order to meet your goals?" So away from the hours/working set up and more about the actual job. Or something similar. You never know, she might ask you back what you want!

I have just moved jobs as a senior manager and have been thinking a lot about new work relationships and reading various books. It seems to come down communications.

On a less positive note, is it worth (if you don't already) keeping a note of the hours you actually work, the times you work outside these hours and any things of note you do well. Should she want to push for a different set up post Jan, you'll have some evidence to hand, even if it is only 6 weeks worth.

Try not to worry too much, it might all die down as she gets stuck into the rest of the role, I am sure she'll realise her energies are better spent elsewhere.

Good luck.

She's bullying you. Stand up to her pleasantly. Can you suggest a review with your outgoing boss, to help thresh out the informal arrangements into a more formal work pattern.

If I were you, I think I'd go above her head to find out company policy on TOIL when you've done a 16 hour day.

Good idea to keep a note of hours. When you travel for the company, you might take off the usual commute time but any hours spent travelling above that go down as work hours.

But, trying to see things from her POV - are you good at your job but in a rather informal way? Does she need to see you presenting yourself in a businesslike manner to be reassured that you're doing the best for the company not just for yourself?

You are doing everything right and it is she who is out of whack. Instead of learning the culture of your firm, she is trying to fight it head-on. This is a really really common mistake for people to make when they are new to a firm and want to SHOW RESULTS.

I don't think you should deal with this by yourself, unless you have to. If you can I would speak to her boss and tell him that you are feeling very threatened because the family-friendly culture of the firm is changing, and ask if he could have a quiet word with her.

If you have to do it yourself then I think you should ask for another meeting and tell her that the culture of the office has always been to be very family friendly and flexible, and that you are beginning to feel uncomfortable that she is trying to change the workplace culture and that this is causing you a great deal of stress, especially because you yourself have always been very flexible and tried to make things work. I would point out that it is not just yourself who has noticed this and that you can of course understand that she has probably come from a very different environment. I would try to stress that you know it must be very difficult for her to adjust to a new company and that this type of stuff probably isn't on her radar, but the fact is that you are starting to feel undermined and this is having an effect on the role you have loved and been passionate about for years. See what happens then.

yes yes yes to what Squiffy said, but if I was being really picky with an added layer of 'this has been a really productive way for the company to structure things' worked in - i.e. its good for the commpany and for us.

I totally agree that you shouldn't be handling this on your own unless absolutely necessary.

I thought I had posted an update earlier from my phone but it seems to have gone astray!

Anyway, all now calm. I think one of the additional problems is that the company is undergoing a fundamental change and trying to introduce formal policies where they previously relied on trust and goodwill. However, their management of this leaves something to be desired! So for example, all this fuss about strict working hours, comments about working from home, investigating what's "contractual" etc - but there is no policy on TOIL of course. The travelling is something you do, and the little bit of flexibility was the payback.

Alongside this, I think many posters have got it spot on about her being overwhelmed, daunted, trying to show results etc.

I was wondering if I should prepare something outlining how flexible working is not onesided for my benefit, that it has adapted from the original "contractual agreement" over the years as my situation has changed and was always done taking into account how the needs of my job/the company would be met, the historical position of the company at least trying to promote a work/life balance. And finally, the fact that I have been working odd hours since 2000 and this has never once been raised in an appraisal as anything worth discussing!

I think I'd like to get my position straight as I'm worried her version will become truth if you see what I mean. Does this sound OK or too defensive?

We're not in the same office now until next week, which helps. Obviously I will travel to the office and not work from home, since a 3 hour commute will make me exceptionally productive the day after 2 5am starts! Bitter, me?

One thing which sticks out: If the business needs someone who can work insane hours, then they can quite easily make your role redundant and get someone who will work 80 hour weeks/fly off the Bhutan at the drop of a hat/pull an all nighter the day before a big presentation.

That's not conducive to family life and why would you want to work somewhere like that? Go brush off your CV.

Atad said:

I was wondering if I should prepare something outlining how flexible working is not onesided for my benefit, that it has adapted from the original "contractual agreement" over the years as my situation has changed and was always done taking into account how the needs of my job/the company would be met, the historical position of the company at least trying to promote a work/life balance. And finally, the fact that I have been working odd hours since 2000 and this has never once been raised in an appraisal as anything worth discussing!

That's a brilliant idea. The way you've phrased it here is so rational and intelligent and clearly full of concern for the company - she'd be mad not to listen.