Mums forced into office by big UK company?

[MM90]

I work for a big, well-known company. The bosses are considering plans to force all colleagues to come to the office 3 days a week. They are thinking about checking our turnstile data individually and disciplining anyone who doesn’t come in for 3 days every week, whether they need to be there or not. I thought this was the 21st century where working women have the chance to create a sensible work / life balance so long as they perform in their job. My line manager gave me a great performance rating during Covid. I have two children under 5 and no family nearby. Any thoughts on this?

You think pointing out that someone in OPs position needs specialist legal advice isn't constructive, but you imagine your crowbarred in, nonsensical lectures are? That's funny! Dunning Kruger writ large.

I think the problem is that some of the people who want to stay at home want to because they are super productive and it really helps their productivity. But some are taking the piss and want to stay at home to continue taking the piss.

There are tons and tons of threads on here with posters admitting to WFH around very young children

I can tell you from experience that it is much easier to performance manage someone when you can see them than remotely. Many jobs aren't easy to track outputs.

@pinacollateral I spend a lot of time on buses and in taxis.....I get bored. So I read Mumsnet.
What's your excuse?

I think there are now a lot of women with even more caring obligations foisted on them because "well, you're at home, of course you can look after the kids/pop in on granny

Well if that's the case you go into the office more often, or find a local co-working hub and work there so you aren't at home when people "pop" round. I have a garden pod so if people knock on my door I don't know. Quite good for avoiding cold callers.

There's a new private member's club opening near me in September. It looks lovely. I dread to think how much it will cost to work there though ;)

She doesn't need specialist legal advice.

First, she needs to check the terms of her contract. Assuming that she doesn't have a contractual right to wfh, she then needs to submit a flexible working request. She might need specialist legal if this is refused and she doesn't believe that there is a valid reason provided for the refusal, but right now, it is ridiculously premature to suggest that she wastes money on solicitor fees that certainly aren't necessary at this stage.

To an extent but change was already happening. From 2008 I specifically worked from home one day a week and sometimes two. And there were people in my workplace who were homeworkers and just came in once a month for team meetings. Between 2013 and 2018 I had a job where I was more or less 100% homebased.

For most of my career a lot of people have worked from home on Fridays. In fact the one thing that does annoy me is that you can't arrange face to face meetings on a Friday - I do think that's taking the mickey. Fine to work from home nearly all the time as far as I am concerned, but if someone wants you to come into the office on a Friday you get off your bottom and go in! I have no idea why it has this mythical status as not quite being a working day!

Oh on the "turnstile" thing, my husband's employer checks the data from the "turnstiles" as well. When he goes in he swipes his card, and so they know if he's meeting his 3 days out of 5 in the office each week. It's not done on a weekly basis, I think it's over 2 months so if you do a whole week one week and one day the next, that is ok.

But if you have covid and want to work from home so as not to infect your colleagues, that counts as home working. Utterly stupid. They clearly don't trust their adult workforce to decide if they are too ill to work.

She/someone who's actually in the position outlined really does, and you as a clear non-specialist have just shown that here. Because one of the most important points is whether there could've been an implied change to terms and conditions. Your 'assuming' is very premature.

It's also foolish to assume such advice would have to be paid for. You don't know whether OP is in a trade union, for example, or whether she has a partner who is. I mentioned this in my very first post. Another possibility is home insurance legal cover, which again you have no information about. Additionally, you don't know what free legal advice services might be available to people living in OPs area. CABs and law centres aren't what they were, but some still can offer employment advice.

Surely you are not working with two under fives? You need to source a nursery or childminder. You are lucky a portion is funded.

A lot of jobs can easily be measured on outputs if the managers are any good.

I knew this would be the response but all jobs are different and many are not about how many widgets an hour or calls taken but more about expertise, client relationships, corporate contributions etc which are harder to measure. Especially when someone is task managed by multiple people

Yes and No. Soft skills and personal interaction counts for alot. There's so much you get from human interaction, I'm surprised people don't realise this. If human interaction wasn't important then lockdown wouldn't have been such a disaster. Also be careful what you wish for, if you think you can do everything over a screen, then AI will soon be able to do that for you.

I have been working mostly at home for over 20 years. For my job and many others there is enough personal interaction from weekly or monthly meeting either in the office or via Teams. Lockdown wasn't a disaster at all in my workplace. If anything, it made it easier to interact.

My job doesn't involve widgets an hour or calls taken. It can be measured in outputs if managers are any good but some aren't.

It's people like OP that use wfh as childcare that ruin it for everyone else

We are in a slightly similar situation. Prior to covid, the major UK company that I work for was renting out a building next door to our main HO. They decided it was too expensive to run both buildings so sublet it out on a 10 year lease. This meant 3000 staff members were squashed in one building, so one day WFH was introduced to help alleviate the congestion. Covid happened, then we were asked to work one day in the office.

We are currently at two days a week - if you're not in by 7.30, you aren't getting a seat, and if you do, 8/10 you won't be sitting anywhere near your relevant colleagues. A lot of departments have taken to booking meeting rooms in advance so that staff can sit there, which now means there are no meeting rooms to be had, so you end up having meetings via Teams, with colleagues that are sitting 5 floors away from you. Our CEO now wants us in three days a week, which is fine for him, as he has a dedicated office space. It's going to be an absolute nightmare.

This

It's extremely difficult to access free specialist legal advice on employment issues through home insurance policies or legal advice charities before you have first exhausted all internal proceedings. Which the OP has not.

The OP might be able to get some generalist advice from CAB, but that's not the same thing. It's possible that student volunteers at a local university law clinic might be able to offer some basic advice as well, but this depends on the area.

If the OP has had the foresight to join a TU and pay her subscription fees, I don't suppose that she would need to be reminded on MN that it is worth talking to her TU about a proposed change to her working conditions. If she isn't already a TU member, they won't be interested in taking on the case retrospectively.

You seem to be under the impression that it is easy for people to access free legal advice. I only wish that this was the case.

Also the legal advice is a bit of a red herring.

Once the OP tells any lawyer she wants to wfh so she can care for 2 under 5s when she is supposed to be working then they're likely to take a dim view of that.

In fairness to the OP, we don't know if she is caring for her dc while working or whether she has appropriate childcare in place. I don't think we can make assumptions either way on the basis of what she has said.

Regardless, it is premature to be talking about legal advice at this point.

If she had appropriate child care in place she would not have used her children as a reason why she can't work from the office.

She could have just extended their nursery hours.

She said she had 2 children and no family around purely because she is wfh to avoid paying childcare.

She might not want to pay the cost of extending childcare, she might not want to put the children in nursery for longer days, or the nursery might not be open for long enough hours to fit around her commute etc. Or she might be looking after them while she works. We just don't know.

Her best option would probably be to put in a flexible working request at this point. If she has been wfh successfully for an extended period, she has the evidence to show that it is workable, and her employer would need to come up with a solid business reason as to why they couldn't accommodate it. Which they may or may not have.

The point is, you don't know.

You gave a view based on the false premise that advice would have to be paid for, and you simply don't have enough information. You made assumptions, and you're still doing that here. OP might not even know whether eg her partner is in a union! There is, for example, at least one free advice charity that doesn't require an individual to have gone through all internal processes yet.

Access to free services may also vary depending on where OP is in the UK, as the provision isn't uniform in all the constituent countries. Her location is yet another piece of information that's potentially relevant but you do not have.

And this is further evidence that OP/someone real in this position would need more specialist advice than anyone on this thread is going to be able to provide.

Reading through lots of posts on so many different topics….anyone might think that all jobs are office based….simply not the case

I don't think you can necessarily just extend nursery hours. The ones near me were not open long enough if I had to commute.