Hybrid job query about annual leave

[LostMyCompass]

If you work part of the week from home, and the rest at your work base, what happens if you take a couple of days annual leave on the days you’d normally be at your work base?

For context, I work compressed full time hours over 4 days (have each Monday off) and am on-site at my work base usually Tuesday and Wednesday, with home working Thursday and Friday. I live 88 miles away from my work base, hence why this arrangement was set up.

I am finding that, if I take annual leave on the Tuesday and Wednesday, my manager wants me on-site at the work base Thursday and Friday. Is this acceptable? The main reason I’m using annual leave is for a break from the long drive and to save a bit of car/petrol money!

I feel like I have to take a full week’s worth of annual leave to get a break from the drive. I don’t need to be on-site the Thursday/Friday either.

I usually work from home two days and in the office three. If I take leave on my “office days” I would still work from home the other two days.

I think you should probably have an overall balance of days off on your onsite and offsite days - if you preferentially often take your onsite days as leave, and are therefore in work quite a lot less than half the time you’re WFH, I can see why your boss might not like it. Depends on the job I guess - is there anything different that happens onsite to offsite? F2F time with colleagues etc?

But if it’s just a very small part of your leave that you’re taking as a couple of days, on your office days, it seems picky.

I am asked to be in the office 60% of the time over a month so the time would be adjusted accordingly to what I have booked off.

I would think doing one day in the office and one WFH would be a reasonable compromise.

Yes, but it’s almost a 200 mile trip. It is forcing me to put in for a full week off.

The thing is that it doesn't matter what anyone else does. What your employer does is what matters. If you don't agree with the way the policy is being used, then you need to raise a grievance. We can't say the extent to which your employer may have good reason to require you in two days a week - or whether it may be negotiable.

I would expect your annual leave to impact WFH and on-site days equally. E.g. if you took 2 days off, you'd go in for 1 so it was still 50-50.

If you're struggling with the commute then I sympathise but that's sort of a separate issue and you will surely eventually run out of annual leave to mask the problem? Do you have a friend to stay with so every so often you could you go in every day for a week then wfh for an entire week or something?

In most places it would be a %. So if the rule is you have to do 50% of your working time in the office, you usually work 4 days 2 in & 2 at home, so when you take 2 says off and only work 2 days then you’d be reasonably expected to do 1 day in the office and 1 day at home.

Most employers do it as a % of your working days, so annual leave don’t = office days, they don’t count, you still need to hit the % for your working days.

For my staff who need fixed days, we have put in place flexible work arrangements. They're still FT but they've got a piece of paper setting out which day where clearly which means you don't have this grey area around holiday and % in the office.

Why is it a 200 mile trip? Either you moved away, you applied for a job knowing the location, they changed their policy on WFH etc.?

My employer specifically accounts for this in the hybrid working policy, we do not need to make up any office days. If I'm on leave for 3 days I can count those as my 3 office days and WFH the other 2 days.

It's up to your employer surely?

We have a minimum of two days a week in the office. As an example if you normally do Tuesday and Thursday in the office but one week you take Thursday as annual leave, you would need to do an alternate day in the office.

Same here, although if there is flexibility to which day I can take I would opt for those days I don’t have meetings. Generally there’s a higher chance that’s office days

I suspect your Manager is saying this as they may have noticed you booking your office days off.
You need to balance this really and not just book days off you are due in.
Also does it impact on service delivery or other colleagues ?.
I have team members who work 2 days in each week however if they book their office days off they don't have to work their usual wfh in the office.
However none of them have a pattern of booking office days off. They just book leave when they need/want it.
If they did I may change my approach because it looks as if avoiding office days.

So you need a job that isn't 100 miles away. If you're taking all your AL days on office days, that's taking the piss. If it's close to 50:50 then fine

I would say you do your normal WFH days at home as usual? Unless there's a specific reason why you need to be on site every week.

I work 3 days in the office and 2 at home, if i take annual leave on the 3 days i should be in the office i dont have to make it up. If i want to be at home on a day i would be in the office then yes i would have to do an alternate day instead.

It’s currently two days a week in the office but in the New Year it’s moving to three days a week in the office with the likelihood of moving to four days a week in the office in the future.