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?

As if most companies can be that choosy in this labour market.

@Quveas It’s so weird to read you say employers don’t do things to suit employees but to suit themselves. They are not mutually exclusive. Surely you can see that a happy workforce equals lower staff turnover, lower sickness absence, more ability to attract and retain the best. All good for the bottom line. Employers, or should I say good employers, absolutely design policies around being an attractive employer ie to suit employees.

Why do you keep saying the OP is ‘flouncing’?

I can say with 100% certainly that I (and my colleagues) did less work when going IN to the office. Meetings would last 3x longer than they would on Teams, and much time was wasted chatting to colleagues over biscuits in the tea corner etc.

When you are at home, you have no colleagues to gossip with, no office distractions. You get the job done quicker, and meetings are prompt.

If someone has time to watch This Morning (provided there is no performance issues) that either says they're getting their job done quickly or there isn't enough work to do. That's the employer's issue.

@IconicKitty Load of bollocks. All WFH claim they get more done simply because they want to stay at home.

Yes, you are definitely qualified to speak for every single worker in every single workplace.

Hi OP. Im 17 weeks and my work is hybrid. So 3 days in one week, and 3 days from home the week after. I have PGP (two babies close in she will do that to you 🤣) and my GP signed my off. Go back next week and GP is writing a letter to support me WFH for the foreseeable. If it’s based on medical grounds I’m sure you could speak to your GP. I liaised directly with HR so I could get all the facts. Good luck xx

Apologies for spelling mistakes. 11 month old trying to grab phone!

I think a lot of what people are seeing as a dip in productivity is more to do with people potentially working less outside their working hours.

Pre covid I was often doing 10 or more hours in the office when I am only paid to do 7 and a half. During covid, I discovered a better balance for my life (also met a man & got a dog 😂) so now I pretty much only do what I'm paid to do, with the odd exception. My billing numbers will be down from pre-covid times, but if they put me back in the office tomorrow I'd still be leaving when my hours were done (not to mention I'd be leaving the company for a WFH job).

It's true. HR is there to protect the employer so that employees are treated fairly and reasonably, and don't have to take recourse to legal action!!!

Attitudes like this point to a wider malaise in (British?) society, that being suffering as a rite of passage. Just because you had it tough means everyone else must endure the same and no steps should be taken to approach things with a more compassionate view.

So in the midst of a cost of living crisis and a climate crisis people should pay to travel, pollute the environment to pursue the important aim of being seen to sit in an office with their laptop working, rather than being at home with their laptop working.

Rightio - there really is no hope

Some people will be paying more in heating costs (and polluting the environment) than they'd have paid to travel to work. Not everyone has a long commute, some people even walk😮

OP, you should be able to submit a request for flexible working, and get a do tor's note if necessary for reasonable adjustments. They have let you wfh this far, they would be very unreasonable to stop this arrangement for the rest of your pregnancy.

If companies go back to being inflexible employees will vote with their feet and get another job. There are loads of companies offering flexible working now.

I work for a large employer, and we now do hybrid (2 days in office, 3 at home). This is now an agreed policy. But before this was formally agreed, we couldn’t recruit new people, and existing staff members were leaving to go to organisations who had agreed their hybrid arrangements. The world has changed, work has changed, and the OP should request a flexible arrangement.

@ancientgran point taken, some people can and do walk or cycle. That's probably a minority though overall. Otherwise at rush hour the roads wouldn't be so busy.

I work in a hybrid model. I honestly don't know anyone who heats their whole house on wfh days. More like extra layers and a hot water bottle.

Why not treat employees like adults and give flexibility. Some people wfh will be unproductive . They will be the same in the office.

If you believe half of what's written on Mumsnet most people are looking after children whilst working from home. And it's rubbish to say you have no distractions at home. I live on my own but even I can find a distraction if I wanted one. I remember having a meeting and someone's child kept coming in asking for the tv remote.

Also not sure where you work but when we are in the office we actually work and meetings can't run over as the room is only booked for a certain length of time.

There might also be an issue of wfh presenteeism. I have a job that can be wfh. I had a really bad cold last year, but could do part of my job (webchat) as no need to speak. If I’d been only in office I would definitely have been off sick. However I pressured myself that I “should” work because at least in theory I could. Took flexi in the afternoon.

(Definitely not work/manager pressure who didn’t realise how ill I was till I came to my senses and I called in sick the next day.)
That’s bad but would have been so much worse (and less noticeable) pushing through the long term depression I’ve had in the past that was slightly more obvious in the office.

Phoned up a company the other day, clearly answered by someone wfh….chomp chomp chomp,’ I said are you eating ‘ she said ‘oops sorry’ then a child was screaming in the background, then she proceeded to tell me she could not deal with my problem, I asked to speak to someone senior, she said she would put me thru, few minutes of muffled banging around and she came back on the phone and pretended to be ‘someone senior’ ….I said what’s your name, she asked why , I said’ because you are not someone senior you are the same person I spoke to before’ muffle muffle, then I got cut off! Working from home pisstaker, who deserves the sack….wouldn’t happen in an office where everything is monitored!

Not everyone who wfh takes the mickey though - i really like hybrid, i get a few days each week with my colleagues, and really get my head down when at home.

@SideshowAuntSallly if someone is looking after a child while wfh then that needs to be addressed and managed by their employer. My contract says you can not look after a child while wfh, and if wfh any child needs to have or be in adequate childcare. If anyone is found to be doing this they will be disciplined.

All those posters telling OP she needs to crack on because in their day they should for 3 hours on a crowded train, worked all day in a cramped office sat on their chain-smoking boss’s lap, it never did them any harm - you need to move with the times.

Flexible working is the future. Less commuting, less polluting, less time wasted, better work-life balance, less sickness absence, happier employees. Technology means you can have meetings easily with anyone in the world. Employers who are trying to force staff back into the office when they can work perfectly well from home - why? Control? If you’re a decent manager you can manage staff anywhere.

I appreciate that sometimes it’s useful for a team to get together in the office, but I would say once or twice a week is enough, with the freedom for staff to go in more than that if it works for them. It’s the future. Move with it!

Oh and the toilet thing is a disgrace OP, they really need to sort that out.

*stood not should

I work for a large employer, and we now do hybrid (2 days in office, 3 at home). This is now an agreed policy. But before this was formally agreed, we couldn’t recruit new people, and existing staff members were leaving to go to organisations who had agreed their hybrid arrangements.

Doesn't surprise me. This is why all the posts about what people experienced during their pregnancies 5, 10, 20 years ago all miss the point. What happened in 2006 or whatever is not the comparison point. It's what other employers are doing now. And for jobs like OPs, that's the option for more wfh. Otherwise, people who have options vote with their feet.

Ultimately, too many people haven't yet realised that while an employer can unilaterally dictate that their staff will not wfh, this doesn't translate into there being bums on seats in the office.

Thank goodness @ClairDeLaLune a voice of reason. I can’t believe some views on here. Some people must have (or worse be) terrible employers.

Back in the day women had no right to any paid maternity leave in the UK and they managed just fine. So obviously there was no need to change this, because people managed.

Not saying that at all, but women nowadays tend to think the world owes them a favour cos they are pregnant, it’s not an illness and they should stop behaving like it is.