Rules not being applied to everyone re. Flexible working

[notimpressedatm]

I work for a company with thousands of employees. During Covid times many people took advantage of remote working by relocating far away from the office, in some cases to the other end of the country.

Over time our employer has introduced a policy to be in 2 days a week, but they haven’t taken any action against those who live too far away to reasonably come in. It’s just been accepted that they won’t be coming in. No one’s contract changed to say remote work, everyone still has the office as their contractual base.

Because they have made these allowances for some to never come in, managers have largely felt they can’t enforce the 2 days a week too harshly , but most people have been in 2 days most weeks if not one day.

But I feel quite resentful about it - the area we live in (to be commuting distance to office) is one of the most expensive areas to live in the country, while others have upped sticks to live in much more affordable areas. I have to commute (costing money and time) while they never have to. I hate working in the office and suffer when I do so (headaches, stress etc) and have to have prescribed medication to deal with this. If working from office is so important for the job, why do others keep their job while not having to come in.

If I wanted to go down that route, would I (and others) have a case for there being unfairness here? If I refuse to go in so regularly, could they take disciplinary action against me while not doing it against others? It’s not fair some people can get away with never going in while we have to on a regular bases. Most of the people I work with are people who live in other countries (but still in UK) as they have moved while I’m talking to them from the office.

And no, I can’t just up sticks and move myself.

Stop being petty about your colleagues...

Focus on making your own request for flexible working if you have genuine health issues but frankly if you don't leave far from the office being able to already work from home 3 days a week is not a bad deal.

You would have to prove that you were being discriminated against due to a protected characteristic to have any chance of success on those grounds. E.g. if all the people on the home working pattern were male, and women were being refused.

Yes, they could discipline you for not going in - to what extent they'd enforce this is an unknown.

This is good advice

My department head tells everyone 'no one has a remote contract'. Whilst I sit there on teams on a remote contract.

Nonsense. I have a 200 mile commute and a colleague has a 400 mile commute and we still do 40% in person attendance. Companies can and do enforce returns to the office now - decisions to move during the temporary covid situation don’t factor into that.

Exactly.

So either management aren't pushing it for some, some have got arrnagments not to go to the office etc.

It's really unfair when management don't enforce issues

🤦‍♀️
Snowflakes…

But OP hasn't requested flexible working, and presumably these people have.

In any case, it would be perfectly reasonable for an employer to exempt someone from office days on the basis of a 200 mile journey, but not exempt someone else for a local journey. Because one is a reasonable commute and one is not, and if they push somrone who lives 200 miles away it's fairly obvious they will lose that staff member, so if they value them, it's in the companies interest to offer flexibility.

But since OP refuses to request flexible working, she's never going to get it granted. She cannot just not turn up to the office without making an agreement. Therefore, since she is refusing to request a flexible working arrangement, she needs to attend the office as per the agreed rules or expect to be disciplined.

The problem is that OP seemingly is unwilling to raise this with her employer/ manager and thinks her only options are to either keep turning up the expected 2 days a week (which doesn't seem a hugely unreasonable expectation in itself) or simply start only coming in when it suits her with no communication and see what happens/if she's disciplined. The thing is, the law as it stands is very much in favour/encouraging of employers having a 'baseline' expectation of working hours, working patterns etc from which people can apply for a variation based on their personal circumstances/preferences. OP seems to want it to be that for any flexible working agreed for one person, every single other person should also be allowed that same option. But it's clear in the law that isn't the case, and it's perfectly fair for an employer to say, for instance, that they now can't allow Sue to work from home on Mondays even though they've allowed Mike, Bob and Tim to do just that, in fact they can say Sue isn't allowed because the others aren't in, if there's some reasonable and demonstrable reason for needing a certain level of office cover e.g. visitors needing to be greeted or security checks on the building. This is the case even if Sue has really strong personal reasons for wanting Mondays from home and is a brilliant employee and the men just want to play golf after work and are a bunch of lazy slackers. Flexible working isn't prioritised for one group over another (although employers are not allowed to discriminate directly or indirectly either) and it's not earned by being a good performer.

So OP you either have the choice to talk to your manager and see what they say, it may well be that they're actually fine about offering a bit of flexibility (in my work the official policy line is minimum 2 days in too but no-one bats an eyelid at occasional extra from home days so long as you aren't taking the piss and are prepared to be flexible the other way too and sometimes come in an extra day if there's a particular reason to). Or if you put in an official flexible working request they may well agree. Or you may be able to get some adjustments made to your office environment if that's the main problem, get a fixed desk agreed rather than a hot desk in a quieter zone etc. No need to mention your health issues if you don't want to (although I think you stand a better chance of getting this agreed if you do due to the legal requirement to make reasonable adjustments for disabilities), you can just express it as a personal preference and not explain why exactly if you want. Or you could just see what happens if you quietly stop coming in as often, I very much doubt they could/would sack you on the first offense, at most you'd likely get a warning first (or maybe just a word from your manager), for me I wouldn't risk even that without having a conversation with your manager first but I don't know the culture at your place of work so maybe this and blind eye turning is the done thing?

Exactly this. The OP needs to be proactive here and submit a request for the adjustment she wants.

Thanks everyone for advice. My employer has nothing in their policies about statutory flexible working requests - only reasonable adjustments for disabilities and caring etc. so I had no idea we could legally put in a request they have to at least consider. I suspect they have kept the option quiet for a reason. I believe most people only have informal arrangements as my manager hasn’t a clue about statutory request procedure. so I will speak with HR about how to make a request officially.

Good luck OP, I hope it goes well. There's lots online about how to write the request and I'm sure you'll get help on here too if you want/need it.

That's the correct thing to do.

However, note that each case will be considered on a case by case basis, and arrangements that others have (formally or informally) don't give you an automatic entitlement to the same.

Yes they could, if it was for one of the legal reasons. Business might cope with a certain number working gbfrom home but not everybody.

Some posters are assuming that OP’s colleagues who don’t attend the office have a formal flexible work arrangement in place. That’s not necessarily the case. Some workplaces are inconsistent about flexible working and let some people pretty much do as they like, with nothing being agreed in writing.

OP isn’t ‘petty’ to be pissed off about apparent inconsistency, which has the effect that some colleagues have better pay and conditions.

If there are people in the same or similar roles who almost never attend the office and you simply stop complying and are then left disciplined for that explicit reason, you could argue it’s unfair. I have seen people do this where I work and many managers can’t be arsed pursuing it if there aren’t any other problems. That’d be a high stakes approach, though, with risks around being made redundant or something.

Most people have differing pay and conditions - unless you work in the public sector. It’s a combination of your value to the organisation and your bargaining power. Ili couldn’t get aerated about what my colleagues were/ were not doing. Instead I’d focus on whether I felt fairly compensated for my efforts and consider whether I needed to move on if this wasn’t the case.

It’s a bit ‘they’ve got a bigger slice of cake than me’!

Why don’t you move away as well?

Even in the public sector, flexible working arrangements can vary depending on individual circumstances and business need. There isn't a one size fits all - and managers shouldn't discuss one member of staff's requests with anyone else. I know that's different to pay and policies though.

What did you do pre Covid? Was the office a problem for you already at that point?

If your personal health issues are such that reasonable adjustments would be justified then you do have to discuss them with employer to get the reasonable adjustments. If you don’t want to, then put up and shut up, or find another job.

The company can choose whether or not to require individual employees to attend office X days a week, whilst still having a policy generally. In general, if people perform well and are valued employees then employers often give more latitude in flexible working.

Yes it was. I left a job over it and moved to a job that didn’t require so much desk work. Then lost that job (redundancy) and got this role as it was advertised as remote working during covid. Now they ignore the fact they advertised it as remote.

All those people that said they’ll have their own request approved don’t know that. I suspect that barely any of them requested it and therefore if you were to push this they would struggle to say it’s okay for some people to not have to come into the office but that others do. I do have a HR background (albeit it ancient now) and it’s the sort of thing that would make them a bit nervous if they were to discipline you and you pushed back. People stating that each flexible working request is built on its own merit are correct but employers do have to be fair. Moving away from your workplace without good reason is not likely to be considered a good enough reason to grant a flexible working request to multiple employees IF they then tell others’ (like yourself) that it is a business need to have you in the office 2 days a week. I think you have a very strong case. Also, flexible working is a legal right to request in England and any employee has to consider it and give you a reason if they decline it (usually business need). Your employer / boss wouldn’t necessarily ‘promote’ it to you.

Flexible working arrangements are so varied and based on individual circumstances as well ss organisation need. Within my team of 10 we have flexibility due to having caring responsibilities for disabled children, following cancer treatment, young children, wanting to work part time.

Also, flexible working is a legal right to request in England

It's a UK right.

What would happen if you did nothing, just occasionally lowered your in office days to 1 per week, like others do. Would your manager even comment?