Hello - but if a long one, but hoping someone has experienced this or is well-versed in HR.
My company hired me in 2018. It’s a large, global multinational - the rest of my team would be across the US. I agreed with my hiring manager (who has since left) that I would work from home as there was no point in me moving to London from Manchester to not be with my team anyway. Plus my role involved about 40% travel. However, she said that in my contract it would say that my working place was in London because UK HR didn’t do virtual contracts. I accepted and joined.
I continued to work remotely in 3 different jobs, through the pandemic. Went on maternity leave in 2021, came back in 2022. All great, consistently rated as a high performer. They actually opened an office in Manchester, but it was for a completely different department that has nothing to do with what I do at all, so I never went in. Contract was never updated to reflect that office.
And then in early 2023, a surprise mandate to ‘return’ to the office came about. Not only that, but the list of offices where I should work from only included London. The expectation from upper management was that I would commute into London 3 times a week from Manchester. As we all know, that’s unrealistic and ridiculous. as well as unnecessary as my team continues to be in the US.
Even if I went in to the Manchester one, it would be useless, and also counterintuitive as the majority of my important calls take place between 2pm and 5.30pm as they are with Americans. Furthermore, my toddler’s nursery closed at 5.30, so I would have to leave work at 4.30 latest to get there. I don’t have family to help. Not to mention the anxiety of not being able to get to him quickly when he’s ill and needs picking up and quickly taken to the docs (long story there, we have some health issues).
After a huge battle, I managed to get an exception to this return to office nonsense, as I’d been working from home for nearly five years. This was given to me verbally by our director - and I’ve asked for it in writing since May. My manager and director are supportive as most of their team is in the same situation as me, but because they are in the US and have no labour laws, all their requests were declined.
There are rumours that these approved requests are temporary and will be reviewed every year. I have a house to buy and plans to make and already suffer from anxiety and can’t have this uncertainty over me. I asked for my contract to be changed to remote or a written letter with the exception. However, my manager had been unable to get HR to answer her.
And so today I raised a statutory flexible work request and followed the legal process. My husband is an HR director and advised me to do so. This formalises the process and sets the clock ticking as they have three months to get back to me. Read the seven reasons to decline a request and can’t see how they could use any of them seeing as Ive been working this way for 4.5 years on a verbal agreement. I just want it in writing to protect myself.
I’m looking for experiences of others, be it from HR or employees. I’ve never done anything like this, but they’ve driven me to fight for self-preservation. Changing jobs right now would be difficult as my industry isn’t exactly thriving - that’s why they are doing this now.