Return to Office policy will make it impossible for me to work!

[SamSam786R]

I started my job four years ago under a hybrid policy, although my contract stated it was 9-5, Mon-Fri. In these four years I have managed to work from home and office with a degree of flexibility. After I got pregnant with my third child and returned from mat leave in April 2025 things changed drastically. They tried to remove all flexibilty that I had (rigid 9-5 working hours when I had worked reduced hours in the office and made the time up in the evenings). I've subjected to nasty comments like 'You have baby brain' and 'your performance has suffered since you got pregnant'. Now I must juggle two pick ups (kids and nursery) the school doesnt offer afterschool provision and I cannot move them. My child is settled in nursery but the 9-5 hours wont allow me to pick him up on time - I'm alrrady stressed and sick at the thought of being late to pick up and work. For me to return to the office five days is impossible and extra nursery days and hours plus additonal travel would put me at a loss of ~£600. Going part time would also leave me at a loss because I'd still be paying the same in bills and childcare costs. I feel like I have no choice but to leave once this policy comes into action but there are male colleagues of mine who are: able to work one day a week due to relocations, have manged to negotiate late starts so they can go to the gym, not to mention our HR person (also male) comes into work after me most days and does not even come inot the office regularly himself. I feel like they are pushing me out. Please note my manager is based abroad and I work in comms - similar roles I have done fully remote. This was along the lines of what they emailed us: "Over the past five years the business has operated a discretionary hybrid working trial. This trial was a temporary, non-contractual arrangement and Following a comprehensive review of our operational needs and performance targets, the business has made the strategic decision to formally conclude this trial."

@prh47bridge I hugely respect your contributions on various threads and usually agree with you but on this one it’s important to flag that flexible working can only become contractual through custom and practice if there is no contrary term in the employment contract. If the employment contract says the place of work is the office, working from home (even for a significant period) under a non-contractual or informal policy cannot override that express term. I am not being pedantic for the sake of it but don’t want people to misunderstand the position as others on this thread may be in a similar situation to the OP.

Have you spoken to your trade union? What are they saying? Yes there may be a point to argue custom and practice, especially if you have always worked hybrid. There may be a case for indirect sex discrimination if male colleagues have flexibility around start/ finish time accommodated.
However as others have pointed out, there also is the point if you are working from home you are not meant to do drop offs, pickups etc during working time or look after young children.
So basically it is not an alternative to childcare.
Speak To your trade union rep and make sure you are accompanied at all meetings.

I find it very frustrating, because on one hand, I agree that childcare in the UK is awful, but it's also not fair that you've informally changed your hours and follow your own routines. Parents sometimes expect flexibility over colleagues because 'I'm a parent' as if childfree people have no commitments.

The comments aren't okay and definitely should not be made.

But – like PPs – I'm not sure how you are looking after three children and working from home? If I had a colleague doing this I'd be pretty irritated as there is no way you can work effectively and look after 3 children.

Yeah, the place I used to work couldn't wait to make operations dept fully remote. They begrudged the cost of operating a grotty call centre and having to have someone clean the toilets!

His did you manage to work 9-5 and also be at school and nursery pick up in those hours?

Do you have a DP or are you a single mum?

If you have as DP, why is all childcare your responsibility?

I would expect you to be monitoring your teams’ outputs and availability for key meetings not their clock time.

Presumably you were documenting each incident, the violation of policy and that documentation was used to implement a PIP or transition? Just as you would for someone in the office?

Bad staff exist, both in and out of the office. To say WFH and flexible hours doesn’t work because of one bad employee is as absurd as saying in office does’t work because one employee sits looking busy at a screen but failing to deliver anything useful.

Work should always pay. You have made a choice to have three children and saying you have been mistreated isnt really the correct way to look at it.

The fact that you think you are 'entitled' to UC is exactly why the whole of the welfare system needs a complete root and branch review. I dont know whether you are entiled to £2k but that is effectively £24k per year on the tax payers shilling

Well with that attitude you aren’t going to get far in the world of work are you. And if you think UC will be a relaxing time at home, you will be in for a shock when you get interrogated about why you didn’t apply for the vacancy in your local Subway or when they stop your benefits because you had to take your kid to hospital and couldn’t make the appointment.

If the OP is getting good results, good appraisals it makes no business sense to create a situation where they will lose a productive member of staff. If her male colleagues are being given flexibility whilst she is being denied and she is subject to regular negative comments relating to “baby brain” and similar then she should be documenting them as there may be a case for discrimination.

The devil will be in the details - only someone with the actual details can really say if its discrimination.

I agree with PP though - if the OP is the higher earner it makes no sense to priorities DH’s income over hers.

To me it sounds like you are doing childcare during working hours.

I don't think it's your employers fault that you are unable or unwilling to use a care setting or have the kids dad do some of it. Nearly everyone else who works 9-5 has to find a way that doesn't involve letting your work slip because you're doing two things at once.

The way they phrased it and talked about pregnancy is out of order and could be discrimination. But the underlying fact remains they've noticed your output or quality has decreased.

It doesn’t sound like she is doing that well though if she’s getting comments like that (albeit that the comments are discriminatory and out of line). But it doesn’t sound like the employer will be fighting desperately to keep her.

You need to employ after school carers.
Or source a part time nanny.
Can you share with a neighbour or friend?

Being a parent and working full time is almost impossible and I have huge sympathy for you OP. I have also been the employee 'carrying' another employee with kids who was only working about 5 hours a day as they had been 'permission' to work 10-4 while being paid for full time hours (the rest of us were working really long hours). It is really difficult to manage this situation as the people who are working the actual hours get really annoyed and leave.

I agree completely, which is why I said if OP's flexible working has become contractual. We don't know enough to say whether it has.

Actually during work hours work should be your priority.
Of course that doesn't mean in the case of emergency but a work place employs you for set hours and you take the job based on being available for those hours and during that time that is the priority.
If you can't make work the priority in work time and you can't organise adequate child care or they're with you when you're working and you're up and down to them then you can no longer do the job and it's time to move on.
That is not works problem that is a you problem.

And has worked evenings to compensate for this, as stated in the OP

@SamSam786R you've mentioned a male colleague who's been given a later start because of gym thing or something

That's ridiculous

But does that fall into before or after this new set of rules comes into place?

I'm just curious to know if they're trying to put a stop to what he's doing because if he can do that, then it gives everyone the right flexibility for anything surely

Otherwise, you would be dependent on custom and practice

I don't know how universal credit would work out in terms of your salary. This is not a choice you should be forced into - you could clearly do the job.

I wish you all the best with it

It's always good to have work and the pension and so on, definitely talk to them, I'm sure there will be a way out of this and they're just being wankers

And making up time in the evenings. It's called flexible working ffs!! Always has to be one arsey comment.

Why are some people bitter and sad just because they have a different opinion to you? My colleague works part time and after this time phone work as Victim support counsellor. She knows she needed a job that was near for her to drive to (5-10 mins) and near her children’s school. My NDN has luckily managed to move her hours and pattern around at her job (been there for years) with the arrival of her second baby but with her first child she had no choice but to do 9-5 with a long commute and work a 4 day week. My SIL works in the office 9-5 (and sometimes longer) with a commute and has an occasional WFH day and has done this since she’s had babies.

What do you think other people without your responsibilities think about you doing far less hours and WFH? If things don’t work out with you negotiating a more flexible work pattern then so be it but your employers are running a business, not a charity.

After school club, longer hours at nursery. What most parents do.

But op doesn't have childcare for 2 of her 3 kids - she leaves work at 3ish to pick them up and then cannot work until later in the evening when presumably they are in bed. Leaving in time to collect DC FROM childcare would be comparable to the example quoted but this isn't the employers problem to solve. She started working when she had 2 kids, presumably in nursery at the time, so was able to work core hours from home. She's had another child and the older ones are now at school with no wraparound childcare. This is a problem!

I’m guessing it’s this. You have been doing child care whilst ‘working’ and it maybe that the company have picked up on this or had some feedback around this issue.
if you are going to challenge this then you need to make sure you are going in with ‘clean hands’ .

But it is sex that is the legally protected characteristic, not 'gender'.
Plus why did those societal expectations you refer to arise? Because you have a vagina and gave birth to the babies, because of your sex.

“Of course work isn’t my priority, my children are”. Imagine if someone said that who was a surgeon, barrister, air traffic controller, politician, teacher or so many other jobs where so many people depend on it in fact being your priority. But the OP is all like “Universal Credit is designed for people like me”. No it’s not actually.