Can my department enforce more days in the office

[Happyspringmood]

My Company prides itself of their flexible work approach and this comes up in every company meeting by the boss; however my team/department is mandating specific number of days in the office and also deciding which days those are.

It doesn’t impact me too much as I enjoy going to the office, however It is confusing , are we flexible or are we not. I am getting mixed messages.

Most people comply with it but a few are not. Can the team enforce it? What are the consequences for people who don’t comply?

Of course they can enforce it.

Depends what's written in your contract really. Anything in there then yes they can enforce that easily.

What does it say in your contract?

I think you can still consider yourself flexible while mandating certain days in the office - most employers where WFH is possible have mandated office days.

I imagine they most definitely can. Business needs and all that.

Check your contract for base location but essentially yes. If you're contracted from the office, tough.
If you're contracted to wfh, they can still change the terms if business needs dictate but need to go through a procedure.

Lots of companies doing this in 2025.

what does your contract say?

Yes they can enforce it and those who don’t comply can be performance managed. In reality it is probably used as a means of safely exiting from the business those they aren’t too sorry to see go.

Unless you’re all officially remote workers, it’s incredibly unusual to have no rules around WFH at all.

Ours have just moved from 2 to 3 mandatory days in the office for anyone not on a remote/WFH contract. We have a (non-contractual) hybrid working policy that says non-compliance may result in disciplinary action up to and including termination so presumably this is their way of enforcing the change.

We also have core hours and a “work from another location” policy, as well as WFH 2x days a week so there are other ways a company can claim flexibility without allowing free rein on remote working.

Thank you all.

Wondering how they can performance managed people out when the company continue saying in each meeting that they won’t enforce days in the office and are given people the flexibility to choose; but each department has a different approach.

I am ok to go to the office the required days but will read my contract anyway.

Some employers mandate which days, but a lot don’t.

@applegrumbling I’d say it’s now very unusual for employers to have no rules around which days people go into the office.

Being in the office is most valuable if your team is there, so you need to be able to assume you’ll be there on the same days.

Have you done a study? Because I know lots of people who work hybrid (in private, public and third sectors) and none of them have set days.

A lot work in dispersed teams where they aren’t based in the same office anyway. And a lot are London commuters who can’t just chop and change the days they’re at home.

I work in the civil service and I don’t know anyone who can’t choose their own office days, although it’s different if you work in operations.

Yes, they can; and they can enforce a contract change if needed, though there are procedures they have to follow for that, giving notice and so on. If there's nothing in your contract to say you are a home/remote worker, they can enforce it when they like.

They can also enforce it by other means; e.g. making it a condition of any promotion or sideways move that you accept hybrid terms and conditions; having a restructure where people have to reapply for their own jobs and making it a condition of getting a role.

If they want people in the office, they'll get them in although they might have to accept losing staff who don't want this - which they might see as a blessing or a curse depending on circumstances.

This is a company policy/culture question really. Can they legally so this? Yes. But it sounds like they possibly have a confusing internal policy. You and your colleagues are certainly free to ask for it to be clarified

This isn’t really a contract question I don’t think. It’s more about how much autonomy the company gives to each department. If the company says in every meeting how they won’t mandate days in the office, it might be that if they found out an individual manager was doing that, they’d put a stop to it. Or it might be that they are happy for individual managers/teams to have specific hybrid policies based on that team’s needs.
No one here can know what the company position on that is.

I do think this is one area where policy is lagging behind practice. If you're coming into the office to see/work with your team then the office-based days do have to be mandated so that everyone is in at the same time. I can see how that doesn't feel 'flexible' but I can also see why it has to happen.

I think we're still playing catch up on all this really.

The team says there is a business need.

I think these mixed messages create confusion and it will be better if they are aligned with company policy. Instead of saying in each company meeting they are flexible, inclusive, etc.

Yeah totally fair and definitely something you can and should ask for clarification on. Could start with HR who'll have responsibility for the written policies. But it is an internal policy question and not a legal one