Evening everyone.
I’m looking for some advice please. I’m not ready to speak to my manager or HR yet but I would like to have a plan in place and an idea of what to say when I do eventually speak with them. Apologies if this is long.
I have been in my current job for nearly 19 months and work from home full time. My contract is fully remote with occasional travel (usually once a month). We all live in different parts of the country which was never an issue due to our contracts.
Anyway, at the beginning of this year the company went through a merger. Many redundancies and resignations including most of my team and manager. My new manager/team were employed by the other company and all had hybrid contracts (I think they all use to be office based but changed to hybrid after covid).
I asked many times, during and after the consultation, if there would be any changes to my contract and was told no, it would stay the same (fully remote with travel once a month) which wasn’t an issue. My contract hasn’t changed apart from who my line manager is and I’ve not heard anything since. I didn’t have any concerns until I spoke with my colleague (the only person including myself from the old team) who is currently on maternity leave. She mentioned that our new manager had contacted her for a catch up and has told her that we will be having team meetings at the head office every other week starting in the new year.
This is news to me and completely different to what I’ve been told. We’re both not happy with this. We both live 3.5 hours away from the office, whilst the rest of the team are local and only live 20-30 minutes away. I know technically it’s only twice a month, but it will mean us having to stay the night and give up our personal time. I have commitments outside of work and my colleague has two young children and can’t afford over night child care that often. I’m not saying we should be given preferential treatment but I do think the fact that we live much further away should be taken into consideration. It’s not like we can attend for the day and then travel home like everyone else (unless we want to travel in our own time when we’re not being paid for it and won’t get home until late) so we will have no choice but to stay over. I also think if this was the case that it should have been discussed during the consultation, but that’s another story.
I haven’t spoken to my manager about this yet as he will know my colleague told me. I’m wondering if he hasn’t told me yet because he’s trying to keep me sweet until the team are settled and then will drop this huge bombshell on me. What are our options here? Can they force us to do this? Should the fact that we live much further away be taken into consideration? They might be more understanding of my colleague because she has children, but does the fact that I don’t make a difference? I’m seriously considering leaving my job over this so any advice/guidance you can provide will be much appreciated!