Reduce my pay because of working from home?

[Psm92]

Long story short, a few months ago I was diagnosed with a disability that causes a lot of fatigue, pain, etc. As such I have been wfh for the past few months. Other colleagues work from home 3 days a week, and attend the office twice a week. As my wfh is due to a health condition/disability, I would have thought this is a reasonable adjustment to enable me to let me do my job. I live in London.

My workplace is now saying they will have to reduce my salary because as my "principal workplace" is now the office, I do not qualify for the London weighting. Feeling really upset by this. Any advice?

The reasonable adjustment is that you will be able to work full time from home when normal policy would require you to attend the office.

The fact that it's a reasonable adjustment doesn't mean they can't adjust pay to reflect the change in role. Same as if you'd reduced your hours as a reasonable adjustment they would also reduce your salary accordingly.

For instance, another type of reasonable adjustment is to redeploy or demote someone into a more suitable role - in that case, salary can and is adjusted downwards. The RA is the redeployment, there is no entitlement to keep the previous salary when role changes.

The EHRC has quite detailed guidance on the EA with examples of how RAs work in practice.

I'm still working on the exact same projects, doing the exact same job and hours as everyone else in the team. No change in hours or responsibility at all.

Yes but your terms have changed because anyone else in your role would be required to attend the workplace each week. If part of your salary is based on attending a workplace you no longer attend, why should you receive it?

That seems fair if you're not going in at all.

What do full time homeworkers get? You should get the same.

NHS here..... from September, London weighting is based on being in the office 2 days a week. Before the pandemic it was 3 days a week.
I've given up London weighting to be a contractual home based worker.

I think it sounds fair. If your reasonable adjustment is that you wfh full time, then the salary reflects that.

It doesn’t seem right that others have daily commuting costs and you don’t, but you get the increased office based salary like they do. Your disability and adjustments should allow you equal opportunities, (wfh doing the same job/projects etc) not the best of all worlds of wfh and increased salary that others have to physically be in the office to receive

I’ve been applying for work recently and practically no company who is recruiting remotely is paying London weighting any more.

Right now it seems unfair because your working full time from home is because of your disability. But if you were working from home full time for any other reason you would also lose the London weighting.

It doesn’t matter why you’re working from home full-time. London weighting doesn’t apply to full-time remote working and therefore you no longer qualify for it.

Personally I wouldn’t find permanent wfh to be an acceptable adjustment for disability. They’d be within their rights to terminate your employment if wfh doesn’t suit their business needs. It also seems reasonable to remove the London weighting if you’re permanently wfh, assuming that’s their blanket policy. It sounds like you want to have your cake and eat it - you want to wfh but be paid the same as an office worker.

Is this a temporary adjustment or permanent?

Maybe that’s not what the London weighting is for. Maybe it’s to cover the costs of transport and refreshments. Costs you don’t have.

If the whole company have managed to work from home during the pandemic and other employees work from home 3 days a week wfh 3 days a week they would be on very dodgy ground if they terminated someone’s employment on the basis of disability.

If it was a job where wfh wasn’t at all possible they might hae a case, but given it is and has proven to be possible they could find themselves up in front of a tribunal pretty fast if they tried to pull that one.

The salary is a different matter, but terminating someone’s contract because they’re disabled and because they are able to do the job they’ve always done from home while others do the same is discrimination and illegal.

But you’re not in the office so don’t qualify for London weighting. No reason you shouldn’t be paid the same as any other permanent home worker.

You could move away from London so your bills and rent/mortgage is lower so you haven't got the added expense so won't actually lose out of the LW.

In my non legal opinion they have a right to do this, you are not commuting to a workplace, you can do the job from anywhere so you don't qualify for the London weighting. You are choosing to stay in London.

If that was the justification, they'd be on shaky ground ie move away from London to save money.

However, as PP say, if the requirement for the weighting is to come into the office on a certain amount of days & you are no longer doing this, then yes, it would seem appropriate for the weighting to be taken away.

I think there's major political pressure on departments to have civil servants back in the office nothing about efficiency it's about them being seen to be in the office. Also I think the pressure is on that if London based civil servants aren't in the office they shouldn't have the allowance.

Are you in a union OP and have you spoken with them?

The thing is in my civil service job some of the London weighted workers now don't live in London or commute in.
Where as others of us who have always been at home more don't get the weighting and never have.
Why should they get 3k extra. Many of them did this throughout pandemic and kept the extra money. So I think organisations are now looking at this.
In a fair world you'd be keeping the money and those at home would get an uplift (we have to pay a lot more to heat our homes now for a start). But let's face it. That's not going to happen.
I think if you've been forced to be home then perhaps there's other things here that overrule that. But also could be argued that you don't qualify. One of our team relocated and was properly annoyed she lost the allowance. Moaned to all of us who had never got it. So limited sympathy.

I think that sounds reasonable as the extra is for commuting and you won’t need it as you’ll not be commuting. When I was on maternity leave, I wasn’t paid that amount as I wasn’t commuting (it’s an extra to my base salary), and I am now starting a new job that is working from home so I won’t get that either, but if I have to go into an office for some reason, I can then claim travel back.

If you're working from home check that you're claiming the tax allowances for home workers.

The xatch is if this could be viewed as indirect discrimination. So a disabled worker is more likely to have issues getting to a place of work by public transport, so therefore has a reasonable adjustment to wfh. Thus if this new rule is disproportionately affecting workers with a disability assessment so they are paid less than colleagues then it could be indirect discrimination. It depends on whether London weighting is for the cost of accommodation and transport or just for transport. Given that public transport in London is actually cheaper than public transport in the rest of the country, i think thats a hard one to argue. Thus if it is for the cost of housing then and you lived in London at the time of your employment and they were away of this and gave you London weighting on the basis of knowing that, then they might have a problem. It might in effect in future mean they may only take on disabled staff living in London at a lower rate of pay than other employees which isn't ok either.

I don't have a legal background but i do this there is very much a case to be made here.

What a good thing that you're not in charge of equality policy . . .

Indirect discrimination is very hard to prove.

So you want to work WFH permanently and take home more than any of your colleagues who have to pay astronomical commuting costs? Have I understood that right?

It sounds perfectly reasonable to me , your colleagues who work on exactly the same things as you do and equally hard no doubt have to drag them selves into the office twice a week and the pay should reflect that .