Can your employer make you come in on a day when you have a granted Flexible Working Request Day?

[mechanicalpencil]

Hello,

I submitted a Flexible Working Request last year and it was accepted. The request states that I can have Thursdays off in order to attend a training course (for work) in the afternoon (10 hour round trip). Last year, I was working in the morning before then having to start the commute to the training course which was absolutely exhausting (06:30- 01:00 days - involves taking a train to a far city).

However, this year, my Line Manager has asked me to once again work the Thursday mornings despite me having a granted FWR for this day. They seem to have forgotten about the FWR.

Is the employer within their rights to do this? I couldn't find anything about it on gov.uk.

Any help much appreciated.

Can you not just remind them of it in case they've forgotten, as a first resort?

I would just assume the manager has forgotten

Is the training still going on? When does it end?

I sent an email reminding the manager of the FWR the first time I was asked assuming he had forgotten but he didn't reply.
Since then, he has asked me again.

The training will finish in June this year.

The second time he asked (by email, after I ahd reminded him of the FWR) - he heavily implied I was being unreasonable and that he would have to escalate things further due to my lack of cooperation.

Is your travelling time included in your FWR letter from HR or just the actual course time?

Flexible working requests, once agreed, are a change in your contract, so he is being unreasonable.

@OhFeckFatherJack
yes, the traveling time is included.

Yes do this

And maybe have a chat with HR to cover yourself. Manager is being very unreasonable

Thank you very much!

Thank you very much for your advice! My line manager has continued to ignore all my emails (his usual style) and continued to bad mouth me behind my back saying how unreasonable I am so I spoke to a different manager who confirmed all that @CantHoldMeDown said ie no, he cannot ask me to work on a FWR day.

Apparently he will be spoken to about this but unfortunately he is a very unpleasant individual and I have seen this type of thing happen many times before and he goes out of his way to target people further. There are many other examples of poor behaviour such as frequently criticising other staff members by name in PDR meetings, using inappropriate language and distributing additional duties unfairly. He has a very short fuse and can start yelling and shouting very quickly. He is also prone to sarcastic comments. Unfortunately we don’t have an HR department as we are a small company. He has had multiple complaints before but it seems the people higher up don’t know how to deal with him. In short, he is making my life miserable and others.

All of this is impacting me negatively, I am having trouble sleeping and waking up with a pounding heart rate in the middle of the night. I am dreading my next PDR meeting with this man which is supposed to be next week.

I wanted to ask @CantHoldMeDown if I am within my rights to request a different person to hold my PDR meetings with? Lots of other staff have complained about him before and at least one other member of staff has her PDR meetings with a different manager as a result but this was at a time when we had an HR person. I requested this to the other line manager I spoke to but he dismissed it and changed the topic.

Talk to the most senior person that there is and advise that he is bullying you as he won't accept that you have this arrangement. State that due to that, you want another manager to do your PDR.

You could ring ACAS for advice as well, before you speak to anyone so that you can be sure of your rights

I will speak with his Line Manager tomorrow. There have been multiple complaints about this person.
@skyeisthelimit that's good advice too, i will give them a call tomorrow.

Thanks again