Work location moving over an hour away

[WorkingMummy1234]

My current office location is around 25 min drive away. The company has bought another company and told us we’ll need to move to their office almost an hour and a half away. I only started this job 4 months ago and would NEVER have accepted a job at the new location. With 3 children in primary and husband working an hour away, it’s just not practical. Even with school breakfast clubs and after school clubs, I just can’t see how it’ll work. They want me to go into the new office twice a week. I’ll be losing an extra 2 hours of my day to travel time but work load not changing so even if I leave earlier in the morning and earlier in the evening to get home, I’ll still have the same workload so will have to catch up in the evenings and I’m so worried that there will be accidents on the M25 (unavoidable) delaying me getting home to collect kids. Also, the money! I’ve worked out in petrol alone it’ll be over £3k per year! Not including wear and tear in the car. Also additional wrap around/childcare costs.

Sooo.. we need to send our questions in next week. What is reasonable? Can I ask for compensation for these additional costs? I’m so worried!

OP, ignore posters who are saying you must have to ‘suck it up or get sacked’! You most definitely do NOT!

If you have a union rep, go to them. If not, arm yourself with ACTUAL facts and arrange a meeting based on ‘Indirect Discrimination’ based on your protected characteristic of being a woman. There is plenty around if you search online, but basically the following is what you need (from here https://workingfamilies.org.uk/articles/discrimination-against-parents-and-carers-in-the-workplace/:

‘Indirect sex discrimination occurs when an employer has a policy or practice that applies in the same way to both sexes, but which puts someone at a disadvantage because of their sex, and the policy or practice cannot be “objectively justified” by the employer.
Because women tend to have more childcare responsibilities than men, a policy or practice that disadvantages women because of their childcare responsibilities can amount to indirect sex discrimination. This was confirmed by the Employment Appeal Tribunal in a case in which Working Families intervened called Dobson v North Cumbria.
This argument can apply to employers who refuse a flexible working request, or a mother’s request to work part time, or the insistence on working patterns that are difficult to make work around childcare responsibilities. In Dobson, the employer had a policy requiring employees, including Mrs Dobson, to work flexibly, including weekends, as and when required by the employer. The Employment Appeal Tribunal confirmed that women are more likely to find it difficult to work certain hours (for example, nights and weekends) or changeable hours (where the changes are dictated by the employer) than men because of childcare responsibilities. As a result Employment Tribunals must accept as fact that women still bear the primary burden of childcare responsibilities and this hinders their ability to work certain hours.
There does not need to be a formal policy in place for an employer to challenge an employer policy or practice on the basis of indirect sex discrimination. A one-off or discretionary management decision can be challenged as discriminatory. For instance, in British Airways v Starmer, Ms Starmer made a request to work 50% of her full time hours following her return from maternity leave. Her employer rejected this request and offered her a post working 75% of her full time hours. The Employment Appeal Tribunal found that the employer’s decision was indirectly discriminatory, since it disadvantaged women and was not justified.
Indirect Sex discrimination – same disadvantage
The wording of the Equality Act had previously required the individual bringing the claim to belong to the disadvantaged protected group which meant that a man was not able to rely on indirect discrimination if he was refused flexible working for childcare reasons as he does not belong to the the protected disadvantaged group (women). However, the Equality Act was amended on 1st January 2024 to enable individuals who do not have the relevant protected characteristic but are nevertheless disadvantaged in the same way as the disadvantaged protected group to bring a claim for indirect discrimination.’

I don’t think if the entire office is moving that indirect discrimination can be cited…they’re doing it to everyone. 🤷‍♀️

certainly when I had the issue the regional union person said anyone’s contract can be changed with the correct consultation period and then I’d have a new contract which if i didn’t sign would mean I’d be out of a job. They said being asked to move an hour away was reasonable. I obviously disagreed. But my union were useless, maybe OPs would be better but if the whole office/business is going I don’t see what can be done. This is very different to refusing a flexible working arrangement.

Ultimately the OP has been there less than two years and they can get rid of her for any reason as long as they don’t break equality legislation.

I don't think so

Well presumably you don’t think so, if that’s what you’ve told them!

When will the closure and move take place?

This entirely depends on what your contract says. If you're in a union, talk to them - if not, ACAS will be able to help. But in the end your options are (1) suck it up (2) leave with or without a payout (3) try to negotiate full time WFH.

Your power at the start of any negotiation depends what your contract says.

The company weren't honest with you at the interview stage. They should have told you, that a relocation is in the pipeline, and it's likely the office will be relocating. Based on that information, you could have made a judgement, if you wanted to take the position if offered. By not disclosing this information, they've blindsided you into accepting a job, if you'd known about the relocation, you wouldn't have accepted. You need to negotiate as much as possible now, and see if you can get extra money, less office time or whatever would be best for you. You do need to check your contract as it's possible knowing about the office relocation, they added a clause into it, in which case you might not have much room for manoeuvre.

The company weren't honest with you at the interview stage. They should have told you, that a relocation is in the pipeline

Then they'd have had to tell all their employees and so would the company they've taken over. The details probably hadn't been finalised at the time of the OP's interview. The two companies wouldn't want to announce it until everything was watertight, especially if the process involves redundancies or TUPE for the taken-over company, and they'd need to make sure everyone was told at the same time so they didn't have people finding out via social media or whatever.

A better approach might have been to have a recruitment freeze in the run-up to the change.

The relocation of a workplace is a redundancy triggering event. However that’s not going to help you give your length of service. I think it’s time to start looking for another job and write this one off as a bad experience.

For those posters who are going through similar who do have more then 2 years service if you can justify the rejection of your role in the new workplace eg due to travel time or cost you will be entitled to your redundancy pay.

I would start looking for a new job. If you've only been there a short time they almost certainly knew they were moving when you accepted the job but didn't tell you.
A few years ago, I took a job that was a long way away. I knew it but they wanted us in the office two days a week, and after weighing it up, I decided that was reasonable. Three months after I started, they increased that. I sucked it up for a while but then I just started looking for a new role as the time and costs for travelling were excessive.
A company that holds back that important information at the point of hiring you, doesn't deserve any loyalty as far as I'm concerned.

If it is a significant change in distance it should trigger a redundancy process surely (won’t help OP unfortunately)

It would be reasonable to ask for allowances to ease the transition period, towards travel costs, but these are often for a fixed period.