Is it acceptable to work from home from somewhere else?

[SeventySphinx]

My parents live in the far north of Scotland. There is no point going up there for a night or two. My new work have a policy of minimum 3 days in the office, but preferably 5. I want to fly up to Scotland on the Thursday night, work all day Friday, have the weekend, then work all day Monday before flying back down to London. Do you think I would be in trouble for doing this?

If it's only one day, I honestly wouldn't ask-I'd just do it.

Wouldn't be an issue at my company, they let you work from anywhere for up to 5 weeks a year so a couple of days in another part of the UK would be acceptable. My colleague usually works from her parents house in Australia during January after spending Christmas there.

That wouldn’t be allowed at the company I work for. We have dedicated PCs and specialist software and a lot of security protocols. We wouldn’t be allowed to work on a laptop, even if it had all the software installed. We need two large monitors etc. We couldn’t work anywhere public due to client confidentiality either.

I know loads of people who do this. Perks of WFH!

I was in the nhs so never had such perks 😂

Depends which country I'd have thought.

We actually can work from overseas a certain amount of days a year 😁 it has to be pre-approved before anything is booked and you must be online during the core uk work hours

Nobody knows your work policies or employer. No one can answer this for you. Ask or just do it

Check with your employer. We can work from anywhere as long as we don’t go over 30 days in a country other than our home country (unless we are working on a customer project that requires us to be in that country and then work sort out the tax implications for us). Lots of people wfh-ing from villas on Lake Garda etc this summer 😁

It would be a little foolish surely to rely on what randoms say rather than asking the only person who can give you a definitive answer

If you get into trouble will your justification be that user78262102928 on mumsnet said it was fine 😂

Mine probably would be fine, but would have to be in the UK.

Mine would be fine about it - I know several people have irked from somewhere different from their home.

I work from home, as per my contract, and we are definitely not allowed to do this.

You can work from anywhere in my firm (big international law firm) but if you intend to work from abroad, you need to get HR's approval first and "risky" (security-wise) jurisdictions won't get approved

Do it subtlety and just don’t mention it. See if you can check the policy on the quiet just in case it does say it’s supposed to be at a particular home address (unlikely). If you do get discovered and there’s a problem just say you hadn’t realised, won’t do it again if there’s a problem. Better to ask forgiveness than for permission.

It depends on your work. My last job it wouldn't have been an issue. This job we have to login through a secure VPN which is set up through my home WiFi so I'm not able to work from anywhere else.

All those posters saying "how would they've know?" must have lower security protocols than my employer. We have MFA using work mobiles and when you're not in the office they know exactly where you are. I took my phone abroad because I needed to make sure something happened when I was away and IT Security contacted me to check I actually was in another country, i.e. my phone hadn't been stolen and taken abroad.

I wouldn't have an issue in my work but I would run this past my line manager to be on the safe side.

I guarantee it is fine! 😜

Well played 😂

I’m keeping the username 😅

That would be fine where I worked. I've done it before.

Depends on the company's policy. My company have a policy where I have to apply to work from somewhere else. I think it's for tax reasons

Absolutely fine and very normal at my workplace (central government department).

Working from abroad might be agreed in exceptional circumstances and depending on the role and country, the default assumption is no though.

I often green light my remote team do this, but they've always cleared it with me first.