Pregnant and now work are stopping work from home flexibility

[DD0923]

Does anyone have any advice on how to deal with flexibility of working from home being taken away? We have been able to work flexible between home and office since covid, now they are switching the rules back to basically pre covid. We are no longer allowed to WFH if feel unwell for any reason, you have to take the day off sick.

I'm half way through my pregnancy so I am torn between just sucking it up and getting on with it as I don't want to raise any negative attention before I go on mat leave but equally I am now full of worry about days when I am struggling with the commute, or having toilet problems and the toilets are horrible in the office so just want to be at home to use my own toilet.

I can do 75% of my job from home but I do need to be in the office for the rest. I just feel on edge now to have the option taken away, I'm constantly exhausted still and the wfh days I have been doing have been a god send.

Anyone have any similar experience or any advice at all please?

Are you able to speak to HR and see if there is any discretion for you as you’re pregnant?

I always think it's quite interesting how taking the piss when wfh is seen so differently to taking the piss when working in an office or other physical workspace. We presumably all know people who use or used the office environment as a mechanism to skive. I certainly did it myself enough times. Yet the response to this seldom seems to be that it's a problem with the work environment and that office working should be withdrawn and everyone made to go remote.

(Not aimed at you here as I can see you're reporting on this happening rather than instigating it yourself).

Hi OP.

This happened to me while pregnant this time last year (although reasoning different - I had health issues stemming from first baby and needed to be close to hospital I'm 3rd trimester, office was 55 minutes vs 10 mins from home).

Regardless, I asked for my pregnancy risk assessment to be reviewed due tp change of circumstances and was then able to continue working from home.

Could you do this? If you can discuss your concerns with your manager it may be they will continue to allow you to wfh

OP I think it's pretty shitty to bring you all back in after being so flexible for so long. I'd be absolutely gutted of my employer did that, no no one is entitled but I know for a fact my team have been much more productive, and so much happier having hybrid as an option.
Yes I worked full time in the office when I was preg (with HG) and it was he'll. I would never begrudge any woman now having the option to WFH cos it would've made life so much better for me.
Some people on here are just bitter and twisted, they walked 10 miles to school barefoot so why shouldnt everyone else 🙄

This!! This whole thread reeks of “it was shit for me so it should be shit for you too”.

I had to do a horrible commute when pregnant, twice. Doesn’t mean I think everyone should now.

OP if I were you, I would quietly ignore the new policy and carry on wfh some of the time. I suspect nobody is going to want to tell off a pregnant employee for wfh sometimes, as long as you are getting your work done.

speak to occ health and ask them to do another risk assessment. I struggled going back to the office last year after wfh so long with covid. I was 7 months pregnant and had a panic attack on the train going into the office. I also suffer from bowel issues and appreciate being near a private toilet. I also had spd and my hugely long commute was awful. occ health said I could wfh immediately and also reduced my working hours so I could get enough rest and take a slow walk round the block each day to improve circulation.

If businesses or organisations haven't collapsed while staff were working at home during Covid and since, then I think withdrawing it doesn't make sense.

People want, and need, the flexibility now. I'm sure many will be prepared to change jobs to keep it.

I do go to work. I go to work in my spare bedroom. People who WFH still go to work you know.

OP you have the right to request flexible working and they have to have a good reason to say no. Google your rights to this.

100%. If my employer removes WFH I'll just leave and go somewhere that does - it's that simple really! (Well, I'd have to wait until my maternity leave, and then work 3 months afterwards so I don't have to pay it back 😂 but my notice is three months anyway).

they've added in that we are not allowed to WFH if we feel unwell

I can understand this up to a point; obviously it's not helpful to spread germs, but a lure of WFH if "a bit poorly" is almost a guarantee of pisstaking

Ironically I'm a big fan of WFH when it can be made to work properly, but that's got to be for everyone, employers included, and what staff have to say about their own productivity isn't always the view of those doing the paying

In your own circumstances I'd make sure a full assessment's been done; you may be entitled to reasonable adjustments, but not to be treated as a "special case" because (thankfully for em mployers) pregnancy/parenthood aren't protected characteristics

I had to work 12 hour shifts on the wards right up until a couple of weeks before DS was born. I wouldn't have dreamt of making a fuss about it. The only concession I got was I had a maternity uniform. My boss would have said well if you don't think you can do your job maybe you should leave. Mind you this was the early 80s.

You wouldn't make a fuss because that was your job, you don't have any comparison to come here with a realistic option. Please don't comment on what you can't relate to.

@Quveas the unintended irony of your post. Telling the OP she can’t ‘flounce’ in and demand anything and won’t like the statements she gets back. And in the same breath talking about provisions for pregnant women being achieved by ‘women who fought back’.

The reality is that most good employers recognise the benefits of a hybrid model. Insisting that people work full time in an office based role that can be done remotely will ensure those employers will neither attract nor retain the best people. Then they will see what happens to efficiency and productivity.

‘when you are the employer your opinion counts’ - the most depressing thing I’ve read here.

‘when you are the employer your opinion counts’ - the most depressing thing I’ve read here.

The term I'd use is short sighted.

An employer can decide they only want people working in the office/physical premises. That part is their decision only. What it doesn't mean is that they'll definitely be able to get sufficient good staff at the wage they can afford to pay who will accept those conditions, and this is where the need to listen to the employees comes in.

The reality is that in work like OPs that can be done remotely, some flexibility in location is increasingly part of the standard offering and as such, employers not wanting to provide this need to have something else going for them to compensate. Big name, oversubscribed industry, better wages than the competition etc. This lot, on the other hand, have failed to provide a pregnant employee with access to a toilet.

If the toilets where you work aren't usable, you need to make a major fuss with HR and management to get that rectified.

This feels like a post-covid world problem. Your employer is not oppressing you by requesting you return to the office. Pregnant people have being doing this for a long time but you seem to think it’ll be too hard for you?

When I had DD I worked 5 days 8-6 in an office in central London (oxford circus tube station), I commuted by overground and tube. Aside from my boss turning a blind eye to my taking the full hour for lunch (everyone else tended to work through, or take shorter breaks), and being given a foot rest for under my desk, no concessions were needed or made. I did this until I was 37 weeks pregnant. I was lucky to be young, healthy and able, but it was considered normal, it wasn’t hard and I wasn’t being oppressed!

I find this difficult to compute when as a heavily pregnant teacher I was working during the huge wave of Omicron early last year. I was still having to go in every single day, despite being high risk. I posted on here and was there effectively told to suck it up.

I’m sure you can request flexible working but you do need to get a bit of a grip.

Women fought collectively. They didn't flounce around going "ooo I am pregnant and need special treatment".

And most good employers do not recognise the benefits of a hybrid model. They recognise the benefits that benefit them. In the OP's case the employer obviously recognises the benefit of people being in the office. For whatever reason that is, although I am sure that many of us can guess. Those employers who prefer hybrid or home working are not doing it for their employees - they are doing it for their own benefit. Oddly, despite the number of people who claim that they are much more efficient home working, quite a few employers don't agree and that is why the hybrid model is being rolled back. Individually people may be more efficient, but that doesn't mean that other employees are. Bearing in mind the savings generated by closing offices and having people work from home, the fact that some employers are going in the opposite direction suggests that their workforces are not as productive working from home.

Everybody here is assuming that working from home is just as productive for the employer as working from the office because the OP said so. That is not a measure of accuracy. Where I work some people have been returned full time to the office because they were not working at home. Oddly, every single one of them claimed to be as productive when working from home, but the evidence said otherwise.

Up until Covid happened your job was probably 5 days in the office. Had covid not happened you'd still be doing 5 days in the office and none of this wfh business would have been brought up. Companies can decide they want their staff back in the office full time especially if it's not in your contract(mine is stated as hybrid). Don't like it find another job.

There isn't a wide scale trend of homeworking or hybrid being rolled back, as per the ONS:

www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/articles/characteristicsofhomeworkersgreatbritain/september2022tojanuary2023

Obviously it peaked during lockdown, as you'd expect. In mid 2022 about 38% of adults were doing some wfh. In January 2023 it was 40%, and there's been some bouncing about in the middle.

To balance it out, I had both my pregnancies pre-COVID and my employers (2 different companies) DID let me wfh more, I was knackered with a long commute and really uncomfortable sitting for prolonged periods towards the end. They were reasonable human beings.

I would ask for a new risk assessment.

One of the main things coming out of WFH for me are this.

I get more work done because Becky isn't constantly yapping and interrupting me with her wild stories about getting pissed like she does every weekend, and I get to work while I am sick meaning i'm not nagged into feeling like shit because of occupational health reviews and my manager "showing concern" every time I have to take a couple of days off for a minor sniffle that would feel much worse to have if I had to sit there and listen to an office full of Beckies and be cheerful and chipper while trying to crack on and get through the day.

Most jobs can easily be done if you have a cold if you can literally open a laptop and press buttons. It's the commute and having to interact with colleagues while you have a cold that make it unbearable. Anyone who tells me I have to take sick time when I am perfectly capable of doing the work, at home, when sick would end up losing far more productivity and work time from me when I decide long term sick would be far more beneficial for my mental health than listening to my manager preach on about how WFH is so bad and trying to be a tyrant about.

Unless productivity is actually PROVEN to be suffering then there is zero need for uppity managers to force people to come into an office to do a job they could do from home.

Reading your replies on here I can see why companies want people to go back in the office. If also think people like your good self will be the reason companies will be reluctant to employ women.

Bearing in mind the savings generated by closing offices and having people work from home, the fact that some employers are going in the opposite direction suggests that their workforces are not as productive working from home

A fair point, Quveas
Of course some may be old school types wedded to presenteeism, but while I'd have expected most to have got over that if productivity really had improved or even just stayed the same, some accounts teach us that it's not necessarily so

I also agree that employers will look first at what suits the company, though it's worth adding that a happy workforce is a major plus too - it's just that some expect rather more to be "kept happy" than others, and not always reasonably

I'm sorry but I agree with a lot of the other replies.I remember being in a very tiny office, extremely stressful job working with 8 other team members and just had to get on with it. Oh it would have been delightful had I been able to wfh but back then it wasn't an option. Not saying you have but a lot of employees have had it way too easy!