Horrid meeting about flexible working

[chocbiscuits]

Have to have a meeting about my flexible working soon with two line managers, a bloke from HR, myself and a staff rep person (he's on my side). The issue is that they suddenly want me to drive to work on wednesdays (long commute) making three days at work and two days working at home. For the past year and seven months I've been working at home three days a week and commuting to work two days a week. (see previous postings trouble with flexible working)....

Bosses now want to change this although they have each come up with different reasons - one says that I should have more cups of tea and spend time talking to people, the other says the opposite that I should do more work.
Staff rep chap points out that I cannot please them both anyway even if I did come in on Wednesdays.

Bloke from HR has organised the meeting for a Wednesday which doesn't bode too well???? Am also bit concerned about having to discuss my original application for flexible working (which is quite a bit about breastfeeding) with a group of men. Am not overly embarassed but it feels a bit extra uncomfy on top of the whole stress of the saga.
Still bf at night and in the morning. Support/suggestions please!!!

ok. would you be happy to agree to the changes when you finish breastfeeding? or are you happy with the arrangements as they stand?

I think before I would want to go to three days a week the following things would need to happen.

1. Ds needs to sleep better (rather than waking 2-3 times a night every night)
2. Probably need to stop bf (possibly around xmas) which would mean I don't have to get up so early I have to factor in for 30-45 minutes feeding time
3. My eye infection needs to get better which I've had for over a year and the doc says is caused by stress of lack of sleep/anaemia (tried 5 types of antibiotics with no getting better and also iron tablets).

There are two/three other points to consider:

1. It's going to be very expensive to go in an extra day a week. Each day costs 10 pounds in diesel alone (and that is with a very economical car 55mpg).
2. Actually sitting in the office is something I find quite stressful and doesn't make me happy as it is quite a competitive atmosphere.
3. It's really un-green.

Tried going in three days a week for two weeks and was so knackered in the evenings I couldnt really do anything with Ds. I just don't want to live that way.

Ermm - this may not be a helpful comment - but are you sure this is the best job for you?

Kif I might well think about looking for other jobs but the trouble is that I am hoping to start trying for baby2 in the first half of next year and as far as I can see if you get a job somewhere you won't get proper maternity pay until you've worked there for a year.
Isn't that right? So I feel kind of trapped.

chocbiscuits as long as you have been employed for 26 weeks (i.e. 6 months) by 15 weeks before your due date you get maternity pay.
An employer may have extra maternity pay which you might have to be employed for a certain amount of time to get, but the basic standard stuff you will get basically as long as you are not pg til after you join a new job.
hth

chocbiscuits - keep the meeting to business reasons. I guarantee they won't care about it being green or not and the cost is just your problem to be honest. I pay my staff a wage and in return they come to work and I don't care how they do that or what it costs them.

Can you stress greater productivity on the three days at home which means you can spend more time interacting with colleagues on the other 2 days as a result? Also that when you are at home you can be more flexible at start/end of day as not restricted by need to drive home.

That sounds like probably a good plan Mmix.
I have a PhD and am very strongly self-motivated.

Thanks for comments on mat leave and previous comments fbb.

Am seeing Doc again wednesday. I do think its important for them to protect employees health.

Did they agree your current flexible working set-up, and is that part of your permanent contract? It sounds like that is the case, based on the amount of time you've been doing it, rather than on a trial basis.
In my company, once a flexible working deal is agreed, it becomes part of the employee's contract and therefore cannot be changed without their agreement.
I'd suggest listening to what they say; asking questions about what they're proposing and make sure someone keeps notes and you agree a summary of what was said afterwards.
Then if you don't like the way it's gone, take advice - either from your union (if you're in one), or ACAS or an employment lawyer.
It sounds to me like they may be trying it on if it's already part of your contract.

mamhaf - what happened was I wrote a flexible working application for when I returned from maternity leave in Jan '06. As far as I remembered, this was an agreement which stated I would work f/t, with going to work mondays and thursdays and working at home tuesdays and fridays. I wrote in the application that I would take wednesdays off until easter (12 days off = 12 weeks) and then left this vague because I really didn't know how i would feel about coming back to work.
When the holidays were up I said I'd try working at home wednesdays as well. No-one questioned this for a year and seven months, and in fact I was given extra discretionary points in Dec '06 having worked in this way (3 days at home, 2 days at work) for a whole year!!!
Suddenly, recently, they started piling on the pressure to go in on wednesdays. As far as I'm concerned there is nothing that has precipitated this, and my productivity so far for 2007 as well as I can measure falls in the middle of our group, some people coming in 5 days a week have less. Then they suddenly turned up with a contract I don't have any recollection of, which I must have signed the first day back at work from maternity leave. I guess I wasn't concentrating on contracts at the time.
What I signed was that i would go in on wednesdays after the holiday was up (so from easter 2006). But no-one has thought to mention this until now

How could anyone sign a contract and forget about it though? It sounds unbelievable doesn't it? Who is going to believe you signed it but forgot you had and didn't check the terms or days?

BUT take some advice. Try ACAS may be. It sounds as if whatever the contract syas for 12 months they may have almost varied it by conduct in a sense, allowed the Wednesday home working etc so it might be hard for them to vary it. I suppose if you're supposed to be working all day for them on Wed then driving to work and working there isn't so different.

I don't know Xenia, it was the first day back at work and my head was shot. I didn't realise it was a contract, I thought it was more of a statement/agreement of flexible conditions.. The only thing is that I don't think they knew what my contract said either otherwise maybe they would have mentioned it before.

As far as I can see the only person actually affected going in or not on a wednesday is me, I can't see why anyone else would give a monkeys uncle.

Usually the first thing HR and lawyers do is read the contract but they might not have noticed I suppose and normally people are stuck with what they sign but try to put the point that they have allowed this wed at home and the change would be very different for you, sex discrimination, affect childcare etc etc which might scare them enough into keeping the status quo.

as it's over a year since your last FW application (you are only allowed one a year), perhaps you could submit another one requesting a change to your contract so that you can work at home on a Wed? They will have to give you a valid business reason why that is not feasible, and seeing as you have been doing it effectively for over a year now it will be difficult for them to justify why it isn't feasible.

Just a thought...

You're right betty boop. It's difficult to see how they could justify it, although they did hint that it wouldn't be likely to get through. The other thing is that I found this link from ACAS.
It says pretty much what fbb said way back,
here

(paraphrasing...)
Contracts can be verbal or implied as well as written and implied refers to where a practise has been adopted over a period of time.
An employer can't just vary the terms of your contract - if you don't agree to it you can be in breach of contract. If varying terms of contract cannot be agreed this counts as a termination/dismissal hence you can seek unfair dismissal.

However, changes in job location seem to be a bit hit and miss according to this.

My current flexi working application has it that I will work at home two days a week and at work two days a week, we just have wednesdays in dispute.

If I put in another flexi working application (now they've randomly decided it's vitally desperate that I should come in and sit in my chair on a wednesday ) is there any way I could end up with a worst deal?

Had a chat with head of dept. today offering a few compromise situations, targets to acheive, review after 6 months, review after 6 months - phase wednesdays in gradually. Didn't want to know at all

Hi Chocbiscuits, why do employers do this kind of stuff when it has been working OK? They just don't seem to realise if they can have someone working happily flexibily then get so much loyalty from you? I keep telling my boss what a good deal she gets form me 80% of the pay for 100% of the work.

Have you any idea why the sudden change about the Wednesdays? Is there a new manager, HR person?? a colleague with an axe to grind. Or has someone left leaving a gap in the team? If you can understand the real reason why this has become an issue for them then I think you have more chance of working around it.

I don't know about contract law but I think if you make a new request for flexible working it could confuse the issue and they may turn around a say no flexible working at all.

Have you asked them about relocation packages so you can move closer?? Whether or not you would consider it, if they were looking at paying out cash it may make them change their minds

Apparantly its nothing to do with anyone else in the team, but the other girl is just about to go on maternity leave - but she has a maternity cover so not really a gap in the team, plus the cover has visited our group a couple of times before so is up with the work already and she will have her own project anyway. Hmm but there's always a colleague with an axe to grind.
AND there is a newish HR person. Was appointed a few months ago I think.

Lol about the relocation package hedgepig!

Told 'em I'm anaemic AND still breastfeeding and suddenly they don't seem to care about anything....AND it seems of iffy legality.

I think legally they are a bit iffy, you have been working this routine for over a year whether it is in a written contract or not and I think that gives you rights.

In the opposite way I used to work for a horrid employer who wanted us to sign new contracts messing about with hours, introducing weird shifts etc We didn't want to sign but we were advised that even if we didn't sign but then urned up to work we had agreed to the contract by turfing up to to work on the 1st day of the new regime. I got a new job soon after than heavens.

It could be that they are concerned that you colleague who is about to start maternity leave will want to come back in a similar flexible way to you, but they have to treat you as individuals.

good luck

Meeting finally fixed up for tomorrow. Hoping to try and impress HR with a brisk professional manner!

Turns out the other girl does want to come back and work flexibly 3 days a week in the office. She has just gone on maternity leave and they are trying to fix up her weekdays to work at the end of the same week they are fixing mine up.

Is this a coincidence????

Had meeting with boss, HR and staff rep.

I'm supposed to come in three days a week to improve team working. Boss said that it wasn't a meeting about productivity as there was no question that my productivity was insufficient. I said that if they insist on me now coming in three times a week instead of two I will be that much more tired and that much less happy that inevitably my productivity will fall.

To that he said that I would be happier and more productive if I come in .

They said they would hold me to my contract of coming in three days a week so I mentioned the fact that I have an implied contract. They had taken legal advice on that and the closest part of the explanation that I could fulfil was that I would have to show tacit approval from the bosses that I was at home on wednesdays. I don't have any emails saying 'wednesday working is fine' or anything like that but indirectly I have a bunch of emails sent on various wednesdays about work.
I talked it over with the staff rep and really we think that I could make a go of some sort of legal/union challenge on this point but the reality of the situation is that I probably would lose and would really be put through the mill on the way.

I mentioned my health was an issue. HR offered me an occupational health appointment. This seemed fine until later they said that the OPH would only either say that I am fit for work or not and make no comments on days of working.
I asked for a compromise of coming in wednesdays from next year. The best they would offer was coming in every other week until November then having to come in three days a week.

We have adjourned for me to think about part-time options, vs putting in new flexible working conditions.
AAAAAAAGHGHGHGHGHGHGHHGH!
New meeting on monday......

In the rest of the day - boss took loads of people for lunch (but not me). Then I had to sign a statement promising not to damage any data.

oh heavens.......On the bright side its 110 days till christmas

Had another meeting with HR, staff rep and boss. Offered to compromise and come in three days a week from Easter. Boss was amazed (which was odd). Asked for an adjournment, he and HR guy went out to discuss. When they came back in boss had two points written down on piece of paper. They were i. contract and ii. health. He said right I'll deal with these points one at a time, I'll start with contract. I waited. He said 'actually I'll start with health'. HR guy leaned over and said 'I think you'll have to discuss them both at once because they're intertwined'.
It would be funny if it wasn't my career on the line.

The upshot is that I have to see an occupational health guy tomorrow who has been told that my contract is to come in three days a week and am I fit for work? Erk.

Looking for jobs!

You summed it up when you said you would probably be put through the mill if you mounted a legal challenge - although it does sound like you're in the right and would have a good chance of winning.
If you can manage it, go for the 3 days without putting up too much of a fight until you can find something better - you'll need a reference after all. Good luck.

o god it is becoming so apparent that the world is run by total bastards. They are legally in the wrong but you will damage your career and probably your health by bringing any kind of challenge, they exploit that to do totally illegal things .

They used to be fine then suddenly overnight seem to have gone on some sort of mad power trip.
Anyway saw the occupational Health guy who actually turned out to be rather a cool dude (and looked like father christmas). He had been sent a letter explaining "the situation" which I got the impression he felt was rather hard-nosed and was not overly impressed by the tone of it. Unfortunately the upshot was that he couldn't say I'm too sick to start going in three days a week at the moment which doesn't exactly help me at all.
However he said he was going to write something about how I was clearly very distressed by the whole event and would require careful and thoughtful management.
We discussed how I felt that having to go in three days would mean that something has to give somewhere and I'm concerned that it will be me. He said he thought I should get stuff in order to leave or get pg or both!
Not exactly looking forward to their glee that I'm not too ill to have to come in three days a week......
Think I've burnt my bridges on the contract thing as they kind of backed me into a corner with getting me to say I accept it although I haven't written that anywhere.