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So I work for a big bank and following covid, everyone has recently been told they need to work 2 days a week from the office, for me that’s a 90 min commute each way
Thing is, whilst my contract does indeed stipulate my place of work is my office, in reality I’ve been working exclusively from home for past 9 years, as has rest of my team. During covid our old boss even confirmed verbally we were now classed as home workers, however he’s now left.
New boss doesn’t care where we work, and thinks policy of everyone having to go back in is nonsense, however it’s a policy introduced by the hr director and they are running reports on who is swiping in to offices
Imo after 9 years, custom and practice would take precedent over any contract. But I’m no lawyer
For what it’s worth my entire team is based down south, so there is no benefit at all of me going into office
Any thoughts?
Watching this thread with interest.
From what i understand, from an IR35/contractor perspective, i believe the working practices take precedent over what the contract states.
However dont know what it is for employed staff contracts.
Custom and Practice in my experience would mean that
1. It's well established
2. Everyone in the group understands that it's the norm
3 Consistently applied to all the people working in the group.
Certainly sounds applicable in your case. It sounds like one of those measures introduced by some-one with limited understanding of how some of the employees are actually working. Can you and your boss go to HR directly and speak with them?
What complicates things abit is that we actually sit in wider hr team, so the person whom this directive has come from is ultimately in charge of my team
Can't you move closer to work?
This would be something I would be bringing up with my union. Are you in one?
Can’t you move closer to work?
Well I could I i was prepared to sell my house and relocate, but that isn’t going to happen as I’m not
Re union, I am indeed and would be escalating this through them in first instance. However was keen to understand if I had a case first and foremost
Definitely involve your union. If you're not in a union start a branch. It's easy to do if a few of you agree to go for it most unions will help set it up.
IIRC most banks recognise unions for some groups of staff. Even if they don't currently represent your group talk to them. They are always happy for new members.
Custom an Practice
If you’ve been doing it for 9 years and been effective in your role, I don’t see how they can enforce it.
As your boss is in agreement I’d just ignore it for now and see what happens.
It’s likely that when review it it won’t be implemented as it’s unenforceable.
Lots a big companies will have large buildings they want to fill, so there will be pressure to get people in, but it’s very counterintuitive. Any company that doesn’t embrace hybrid working is going to struggle with recruitment/retention
If you've been exclusively working from home for that long custom and practice definitively applies. If they want to change you main place of employment it's going to require some recompense.
It's probably a badly thought through communication that's forgotten people worked from home before the pandemic.
A number of businesses have done this, including the civil service and then realised they don't have enough desks / office space. Classic example of a senior person making policy on the hoof without thinking it through.
Not all cut and dried, looks like it may have to go to tribunal?
It does kind of reflect contractor/IR35 working practices
Any amendments to an employment contract must be agreed between the parties to the contract and failure to obtain that agreement could result in a breach of the contract. Additionally, an employer has a duty to act reasonably in relation to its employees. So, if an employer chooses to change or end a long-standing custom or practice, they might be in breach of the employment contract between them and their employees. This could, at the very least, lead to misunderstandings and disgruntled employees but could also result in the employees resigning and then claiming constructive dismissal against the employer as a result of the breach.
That said, employers are able to unilaterally change employment terms if the change can be justified as a necessary ‘business reason’. Although a breach will still have occurred, an employment tribunal may determine that the employer acted in a justifiable manner. Employers should, however, be wary about relying on this and are advised to seek legal advice before making any unilateral changes.
As an employer you can certainly (after a period of consultancy) unilaterally change a contract. But
1. It's a pretty direct route to having pee'd off workers,
2. There does need to be a pretty strong business case, like: You work these hours which was fine in the past but now we open these (different) hours I need you to work differently.
I don't think "we have a massive building which is empty, that you've never worked in, it's needs to be full of workers" is a compelling reason
There has been no period of consultation
If they want me to go into the office fair enough, but if they want that then I feel I should be compensated accordingly. It’ll cost me 250 quid extra a month all in to go into the office, on top of rising bills and mortgage I simply can’t afford that
In the summer I’d consider cycling as it would be almost as quick, but not practical in winter, plus there are 3 showers for 3000 employees!
You need to ask for clarity from HR, explaining your team has worked from home for 9 years, does this new mandate apply.
We've had the 'ideally you'll be in three days' but that's been left to individual Teams - some are still only doing two days, and a few just one day (don't like coming in). Me, I'm happy to do 3 days as I'm cycle commuting so it's guaranteed miles for me.
Playing devil's advocate here, but;
As an employer you can certainly (after a period of consultancy) unilaterally change a contract.
my contract does indeed stipulate my place of work is my office
It's not a change of contract.
New boss doesn’t care where we work, and thinks policy of everyone having to go back in is nonsense, however it’s a policy introduced by the hr director and they are running reports on who is swiping in to offices
Sit it out.
TBH I'm kinda the same, in that I'd always done a couple of home days plus out with suppliers so my attendance was patchy pre Covid, and Banking. Various Directors are demanding certain attendance, luckily ours isn't one of them but he's leaving next year so...
One thing though they tried was moving to more standard hours, I've always started at 7 and finished early - it's not in my contract but now accepted and I've no issues with declining 4pm meetings etc. If they ever do force us in (I've a 100 mile round-trip commute), I'm near enough (early) retirement to decline (on my own terms).
but if they want that then I feel I should be compensated
Most companies (for obvious reasons) won't expense their workers to get to work. But, it may help your case if you mention that in the meeting you and your boss are going to have with the head of HR, won't it?
It’s not a change of contract
Hence the question around custom and practice
It’s not a change of contract.
See the discussion about Custom & Practice, they are essentially understood as unwritten contractual elements that are meant to suggest that if we could bother to get around to doing it, these C&P would be written into your contract. so while it's not a de facto change, it's a de jure one. Hence the need for it really.
Have you actually asked the HR manager or spoken to your manager about it?
Sit it out.
This.
You're going to end up on report with hundreds if not thousands of other employees. Your boss is going to get an email going 'tpbiker isn't coming into the office', which he knows already.
How easy to leave and find another job that would not expect you to make a long/expensive commute? Ultimately that is your negotiating position, not contract or custom and practice arguments.
I would imagine that HR can monitoring swiping in/out as much as they want. If an entire team isn’t there, they have their bosses backing and the work is getting done nothing is going to happen
OTOH, take them to task for being eejits
Can't comment on custom & practice but is this a wider remark around a return to office - so may not apply to those with flexible arrangements pre-Covid? Needs clarity I guess.
I would wait it out and attend the office if there are any key meetings that would actually benefit you being there (there maybe none).
I have had the same recently, been WFH since before the pandemic and used to go to the office (90 min/2.5hr drive depending on traffic) as and when it was needed. They then shut the office down and moved location and I now have a 2-3hr train journey but have an expectation that I average 1 day a week at the office. They upped my salary for 12 months to cover this but it wasn't permanent, I wait to see what happens in 2023. I find that as long as you are a respected employee and don't take the pi$$ then where you are in the world when working makes no odds. As soon as someone gets annoyed becasue you wern't at a meeting face 2 face when they thought you should be (whether they were correct or not) this is when it gets awkward. So flexibility on both sides is the way forward here, don't poke the bear if you are not being pushed on it.
Most companies (for obvious reasons) won’t expense their workers to get to work. But, it may help your case if you mention that in the meeting you and your boss are going to have with the head of HR, won’t it?
IANAL (despite claiming to be devil's advocate in this case) so don't know whether this stacks up with C&P but before going all guns blazing for the cost of commuting, how do you answer for the 9 years when your contract says you should have been in 3 days a week and haven't. That's 108 x £250 = £25,000 you've saved on commuting costs by being in breach of contract 😉 (ok, inflation, etc. means sums aren't right but.... in before the pedantry)
I only say because we had similar post covid - someone who'd been working from home in the main over that period complaining over the cost of going in for 2d a week once covid was 'over' and wanted an uplift for it. Was fairly quickly put straight by those that were hands-on workers and didn't have that luxury and had been in for the whole time and had consequently incurred considerable expense and time cost while they'd been WFH
That’s 108 x £250 = £25,000 you’ve saved on commuting costs
Before covid I lived 2 min walk from office so didn’t save a penny by working from home. I moved in dec 2019, then covid hit us a few months later
I wasn’t not going into the office due to commute previously, I’d not go in because it was absolutely pointless sitting in a noisy office surrounded by people I had no working relationship with, then spending the day on conference calls
I was only playing devil's advocate, not suggesting you pay it back.....
I disagree with everything I'm saying (not the same as trolling, bear with me), I think C&P is probably relevant but as I said, IANAL. All I'm doing is playing the role of HR and the counter arguments they might put up to your claim of being put into hardship by now being asked to do what your contract says.
So, you moved 90 minutes away from work despite your contract saying you are office based, presumably to a better house / location / whatever, and now are asking us to pay you expenses because you have a longer commute? If you get a big gas guzzling luxury car to make that commute as easy as possible, would you like to claim for fuel supplement too?
Sit it out.
This. It will all blow over. There will be a slow return to some equilibrium of greater occupancy. We have the same at work, but there is no system to monitor who is on site anyway. If it blows up, only then would I "union up".
Our company solution has been to close head office and move to another smaller site next year. By all accounts, it may be 7x smaller than the current office.
Most companies (for obvious reasons) won’t expense their workers to get to work.
my newly contracted place of work is my home. If I have to go to an office, it’s on their time and money. I fly up once a month for a couple of days but even that I’m looking at knocking back a bit.
The company I left recently are fairly insistent on high office attendance and are really struggling to recruit as a result.
This is easy.
1) Your place of work is legally defined as where you work most of the time, not least to prevent tax fiddles with travel expenses. If you WFH three days a week and are in the office for two, then you are ipso facto a home worker regardless of what it may say on your contract. (And of course, as a home worker, if you were to visit a remote office twice a week then 45p/mile plus three hours overtime could get lucrative fast...😁)
2) That's all irrelevant because Flexible Working is a legal right. If you want to work from home then an employer has to either let you do so or justify why you cannot, and "we want you to" is insufficient. There has to be an actual reason why you can't do your job from home and if you've been doing it for the last nine years then I'd expect that they'd struggle to demonstrate otherwise. If they're going to insist on playing silly buggers beyond you going "if I ignore this it'll all go away in a couple of weeks" then get a formal request in.
it’s a policy introduced by the hr director and they are running reports on who is swiping in to offices
Well, so what? 🤷♂️ Let them run their reports if it keeps them busy.
Most companies (for obvious reasons) won’t expense their workers to get to work.
Most companies won’t expense their workers to get to their regular place of work. They absolutely should (and may be legally obliged to, I'm not sure?) be expensing their workers to travel somewhere different. If you work out of two different offices then the one most visited is a commute, the other (should be) an expense.
If you work out of two different offices then the one most visited is a commute, the other (should be) an expense.
Incorrect, as in incorrect as a statement and depends on contract.
Our group is in retail, they have Managers who look after multiple stores and don't get expenses for travel.
Well, they should. 😁
Interesting thread, definitely the mood music out of our exec is they would like people back in the office, but with massive turnover they aren’t pushing it much at the moment as I think they know those who are wfh are content with wfh.
From my perspective I only go into the office for actual face to face meetings or workshops, I see little point in commuting in, to then be on teams calls to people at home just to satisfy a quota
Our place was very clear contracts and place of work were staying the same for existing staff. Many new hires are on home contracts so I believe can expense travel into the office. Im local so it doesn’t effect me too much but I do know several people who have moved since Covid and would now have commutes that would require a stay over. Fine if it’s expensed, otherwise that could add up fast
How long does C&P take to be enforceable? Since Covid long enough?
That’s all irrelevant because Flexible Working is a legal right.
I though you only had a right to ask for it, they still have the right to refuse.
^ correct, although to most employer's now the onus is on why you can't flexi-work, rather than why you should be allowed it (subtlety, yes unless no rather than no, unless yes)
Although I'm sure someone in Whitehall is preparing a bonfire as we speak.......
We have a 3 day a week in the office rule.
They have started monitoring it, managers get a report identifying those not logging on in the office 3 days a week. Managers have to check if there is a reason why, and confirm they are happy or not happy with each individual.
I'm not aware any manager has been unhappy in our business area thus far. As my own manager said "just don't take the piss"
Have a conversation see how it goes. They could play silly buggers and say well the office is your contracted place of work. So we'd now like you in work 5days per week, you know, as per contract.
I though you only had a right to ask for it, they still have the right to refuse.
Yes, but as I said, they have to justify it (and I think there's a bunch of defined criteria). They can't just say no.
, the other (should be) an expense.
It depends on what your contract says, and in what capacity you're employed, and the expense could be the difference in the distance from your normal work site to the alternate work site. so if you drive 10 mile to work normally and the alternate site is 12 miles from your home, then you get expenses for the 2 extra miles.
Since Covid long enough?
Maybe, it depends how it was expressed at the time, if it was clearly indicated as temporary because of COVID, that might not be C&P. I've heard some HR bods talk in 3-5 years plus sort of time frame for C&P
They have started monitoring it, managers get a report identifying those not logging on in the office 3 days a week. Managers have to check if there is a reason why, and confirm they are happy or not happy with each individual.
I refer you to my earlier comment. To wit, "so what?"
"Well, I'm not happy that you aren't in the office three times a week."
"That's a shame. Would you like a cuddle?"
I wonder sometimes whether people are stuck for something to do. What's this pointless bullshit 'reporting' and assorted egomaniac fannying about costing the company in man-hours, and for what gain? It's utterly stupid.
It depends on what your contract says, and in what capacity you’re employed, and the expense could be the difference in the distance from your normal work site to the alternate work site. so if you drive 10 mile to work normally and the alternate site is 12 miles from your home, then you get expenses for the 2 extra miles.
At our place at least, travel expenses are calculated from your regular place of work. So if as in your example it's 10 miles to your usual office and the site you're going to (12 miles away from home) is another two miles further away then you'd get expenses for two miles as you say. But if it's 12 miles in the opposite direction then you'd get 22.
How much of this is contract / company policy driven rather than legislation I'm not sure, but all of this crap is tied up with legalese for tax reasons and I can't imagine our beancounters giving away free money. I'm fairly certain that we were forced to revise policy away from "... whichever is closest" a few years ago.
work in HR - 30 years - custom and practice - last 9 years WFH. What consultation has taken place to change your working practice?
No consultation carried out
My boss has gone back to confirm that we’ve always worked from home however I fully expect them to push for me to go into office. At which point I’ll play the custom and practice card via the union
As an aside, it’s stupidly short sighted of them. Today I voluntarily stayed on my laptop till 7 to sort something out. If I’m facing a 90 min commute back home I’d be out the door bang on 5 every single time. Everyone feels exactly the same, and productivity will suffer because of it
I'm in the let it blow over camp and I'm having the same issues.
I work for a global company and within that company I work in team that has a title including "global solutions". So it'd be fair to say my working hours are pretty flexible currently to support various time zones and this was happening even before Covid. There's a small regional office about 30 minutes from me and the regional manager has been pushing for me to come into the office despite the fact that no-one else in said office is on the same team and the rest of the staff there would only have a very vague idea of what I do......
When the edict came out I had a short conversation with my boss about how if they want me in the office I'll only provide support during core hours and we agreed that wasn't practical......
There is clearly a few different camps in this. My current VP said at a big townhall "I don't pay you sit at a desk for 8 hours a day and even if you are sitting at a desk it doesn't mean you're working.." but not everyone appears to be so enlightened. Tracking productivity by "outputs" is much harder than "inputs" which is why I think some managers are still in the old presentism attitude.