Being forced to relocate - so must resign

[HopefulHamster]

This will out me if you know me - so please don't say if you recognise the situation! Very long, sorry.

I work for a company with two offices, due to one company buying another a few years back. I live and work in Herts and we have an office in London that over time has become 'head office' (though when I joined we only had the Herts office).

I have been there for ten years, full time for five and part-time after two mat leaves for the last five.

Before my most recent mat leave, my boss was in the same office as me. He left just before I went on mat leave. Then on my return, my new boss was in the London office but supportive of me working in Herts. The only other person in our department is in the same office as me.

Last week my boss was made redundant. Colleague and I were told we must now move to London in four weeks, when a new boss (with slightly different title) starts. Our London office is currently in north London but is moving to south London in June. They will cover travel expenses until December when it will be 'reviewed'.

I have two children, and I am the person responsible for doing all childcare drop-offs and pickups. DH can't manage it with his job and I have partly stayed in my role over the years because I knew it meant I could manage the kids.

Logistically, I cannot do south London. I would have to reduce my hours so much they wouldn't cover childcare and also I would be too far away in case of illness. I have told work I'll have to resign. They're all 'what a shame' but in reality not bothered.

My work is all done online, so there is no desperate need to be in the same office as boss. We work as much with the teams in Herts as the teams in London. I can understand boss wanting team near her, but not at the expense of losing the team, if you see what I mean.

Everyone is telling me I 'should' go for constructive dismissal. I don't like confrontation and feel stressed at the thought, but on the other hand I appear to be given no choice but to leave.

Thinking 1) be nice to get a good reference and maybe some freelance or 2) go for constructive dismissal after I've left if no work is coming through.

But I don't know much about constructive dismissal. Is there a good guide anywhere? Should I ask them to put in writing that I must resign if I won't go to London? Is it just a hassle with little likelihood of a good outcome? Better to move on with head held high? I don't really have the money for legal help.

So I emailed HR to say I felt I was eligible for redundancy today and the short of it is they replied to say that 'of course' we can't discuss it further until I meet my new boss in the London office on May 16th, and redundancy would be a last resort. They will try to make it work with me.

I have replied to say if we wait to make any decisions after I've met NuBoss, what happens if I can't get to London on May 17th? No reply. They had said previously I could stagger the transition into the London office so hopefully if I resigned then they would accept me working in Herts for the notice period.

As it is my husband has had to cancel an important meeting so he can work from home on the 16th but this is not sustainable. He can't do this on the 17th, we have no family nearby, there are no childminders who could take my son earlier than the wraparound care he already has.

I suspect they will throw me a bone on the 16th. Perhaps they will say I only have to go to London once a week or something. This will make it seem as if they've put forwards a reasonable offer. In fact it probably would be reasonable for most people.

But I can't commit to my husband being home once a week every week. As soon as they stop paying for travel I would also be making a loss on each day in London.

So it looks like they will probably slither out of redundancy and I will end up resigning anyway. But either way I won't know more until May 16th, and I hate uncertainty!

Maybe there's a 5% chance they offer me the chance to stay in Herts, and 5% I might get redundancy. We'll see. Will update if I ever find out more.

You have been there 10 years !
You must be eligible either for a job in the new office or redundancy

Do not resign !!!

Perhaps you can ask to work a couple of hours less each day at new office so that it fits round your child care
or
Work from home
or
Visit new office once a month plus weekly call with your new manager

I would see what they are offering first, keep your options open

Whatever they are offering it should be in writing and they should give you time to think your decision, unless they make the decision for you

Ensure any changes are in writing

One day a week in London, working reduced hours?
Your dh has benefitted from your part-time work and childcare drop offs for ten years now, it does make me sad to see this status quo being perpetuated.. He is allowed to ask to work flexibly too and the more men who do so the easier work will get for women.

My DH is in a relatively new job, v senior role (compared to me anyway). They are pretty happy with him working from home on occasion but not on a formalised regular basis. He's been in it less than a year so I feel he still needs to appear very committed. He earns over twice as much as me so while you are right YellowWiggle that he has benefitted from me supporting his job, unfortunately his job pays the mortgage and my job barely covers our groceries. We might be able to manage without mine, but not without his. I know what you mean though. The overall trend of women stepping back to allow their partners to prosper is a depressing one. It begins early on. Back in 2004 we moved across the country for his career and I had to restart mine. Ever since then I haven't been able to catch up in salary or seniority and now having had two kids I have somewhat lost my ambition. A subject for another thread perhaps!

When we had just the one child we actually worked at the same company and he did work flexibly then. The old MD was quite good and allowed him to work from home one day a week while looking after our son.

Anyway, work replied saying not to stress about having to work in London on a regular basis in May until things are decided with NuBoss and/or my future, so all I can do in the meantime is try to put it out of mind for the next three weeks.

If I had the energy I would start trying to get a bit more freelance work (I have done v small amounts of freelance writing for an ex-colleague) but we are actually really busy at work at the moment and I'm just exhausted! Alternatively I could be looking for a new job but (this is probably worthy of a new thread too) I'm trying to weigh up looking for a permanent part-time job (super rare) vs freelancing around kids (super-hard). Not sure what is best while the kids (5 and 1.5) are young and prone t random illnesses.

Would you think of getting an au pair?

Or of changing your childminding set up to one that suits your new situation better?

Oh I know it's hard, not criticising you just making the point for others, really! At those ages you certainly don't want to be wasting hours on a commute Hope it all works out for you.

Don't resign. Get advice from the sources mentioned. Sounds like you have made the decision not to try to work from London and once this is resolved to seek work elsewhere. Make it clear that you cannot commute to London for childcare reasons, and don't start working in London from the set date: they will then need to make you redundant or discipline you for refusal to relocate.

Couldn't you agree to do one day in London but on reduced hours, eg you start at ten and leave at 3.30. Work on the commute if you can. Our team is scattered around and there are days we all meet but there are no expectations you'll be on by nine and leave at five.

Possibly Stealth, that might work and I'd consider it. They have changed from you must move to see what new boss says, so she might be more flexible than I think.

If you can work from home, you could suggest you do 2 days from home and one (shorter) day in London. Your work from home days could be longer, as you won't have your local commute, so you could still do the same number of hours overall

Also, I recall that when my old co moved offices, people had the right to a 4 week trial period of working at the new location, and if the commute didn't work out for them then they got redundancy.

Found my 'new' contract and wording is the same. Lists location as Hertfordshire office and makes no mention of a London office. Says I must be prepared to work anywhere (exactly as above) under 'location' but no specific mobility clause other than that.

Still no other news, got to wait until May 16th when my poor new boss will have to go to new office, be introduced to her (slightly grumpy) team, have HR meeting, learn about department, then somehow decide our futures. Not convinced she will manage it in one day. But I will be working in Herts on the 17th! So update will come in two weeks or so. If you're lucky.

I was in a similar position in that I had been located in London then relocated out of London to Home Counties under a flexible working agreement. 3 years later my new boss decided that I should be back in London.

Advice from ACAS was that the test of reasonableness is entirely subjective. My employer could say that the move was 'reasonable' I could say that it wasnt. If push had come to shove then I guess we would have ended up in an industrial tribunal.

As it was (despite boss' insistence that a 2 hour each way commute was perfectly reasonable) my employer accepted that this was a redundancy situation.

On the down side boss insisted that I worked every second of my notice period. While I was redundant because of location I still had lots of work he wanted me to finish!

That's really interesting Gnome. I think my situation will also come down to the company saying it's 'reasonable' to move me, and me saying it's 'unreasonable'.

I also think that in order to appear more reasonable, they will offer me something that seems flexible on the surface (such as one day a week in Hertford or even two), but that practically wouldn't help me much because I still need to be in places A & B, twice a day, Mon-Wed!

I think morally/ethically they should make me redundant. I have been there ten years after all. But on the other hand I know it's 'just business' as they tried to put it in my other meeting and I think they will be able to wriggle out of it. I know I can't face any kind of tribunal. The most I can do is say that I believe it is a redundancy situation and see what they say.

After that point I plan to resign anyway so current thinking is assume there will be no redundancy, find out final leaving date on 16th/17th, and if by some miracle they agree redundancy after all, that's a bonus.

HopefulHamster dont be surprised if as soon as you state that the terms to be at the new office are unreasonable that they will back down and offer you redundancy. Dont resign until you have to.

Give ACAS a call if you can. I found them very helpful and just being able to say 'I have spoken to ACAS' seemed to focus my boss' mind. It meant that he could see I wasnt simply going to roll over and say 'okay then'.

I hope this works out for you. I know that it is stressful. When my boss said that I had to move back to working in London I was in tears. The prospect of the long commute was more than I could face.

Thank you - yep I wasn't clear above, I won't resign first, I will state that the terms are unreasonable/want redundancy first. I will ring ACAS tomorrow. I hadn't yet just because I felt like I pretty much understood the situation with the advice on here, but as you say, just saying I've done it may change things.

Hi HopefulHamster
How did the meeting with your new manager go?

Hi all, thanks seimum

Strange update but short of it is that nothing is resolved yet.

Since I posted this the company made the decision to close the entire Herts office when the lease expires and move everyone to London by the end of the year, where there won't be enough desks, so there will have to be an increase in remote working.

I was initially quite hopeful as my entire job is done online.

Anyway, met NuBoss who is quite nice but didn't know until I told her that I wouldn't be able to work in London. It was obviously a lot to take in so I have emailed over some possible solutions from doing three days remote, two days remote, to freelancing after redundancy. Said I'd be happy to work in Herts while it is still open and come into London for meetings in daytime, but wouldn't be able to do full days. Kept it upbeat and 'I want to keep working but it's logistics that's the problem'. So now waiting for a decision.

Only issues could be that she doesn't know me or what I can do (yet) and she's told my fulltime colleague that she can only do one day a week from home. Fulltime colleague (with no dependents) is now telling me she'll be 'livid' if I get more remote working than her, even though in my case I'll lose my job without it. Sigh.

I'm not sure what way they'll go so trying to be relaxed. There's a lot more people in my boat now they are closing the H office, but only a few (maybe one) is in the same situation as me, where they are the main picker-up of their kids. Back to wait and see, but hopefully not for too long. And I won't resign.