Work location change?

1pudding1

1pudding1

1pudding1

Associate
Joined
25 Jul 2003
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1,241
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Cornwall/Bristol
Hey all, hopefully someone might have a bit of expertise in this area?

My partner is going back to work next week. She's had a year off for maternity. She works part time as an Ecologist 2 days/week. Before maternity she was working from home, and her job usually involved 1 day/week out on a site carrying out surveys, and 1day/week at home report writing, with a trip to the office every month or 2, which is 55miles away.

She had a little meeting today before starting back next week, and her boss had said she wants my partner to come into the office at least once a week, and would not get paid any extra for mileage/extra travel time/car parking etc.

This is going to be a massive pain, cause real problems with childcare, cost us nigh on £1000/year. Sooo, does she have grounds to say no? She took the job a couple of years ago partly due to the ability to work from home, which is now being removed it seems? Any advice appreciated. :)
 
Well she found her contract and unfortunately it states her place of work is the office. It seems when she started her boss was happy for her to work from home despite what the contract stated, and just come in once a month for a team meeting. Now her boss has decided differently despite never seeming to have a problem previously with this arrangement, and wants her in the office once a week after her maternity leave. Does the verbal agreement and fact she had been working from home count for anything? I'm guessing probably not?
 
Dont think it's either of those, we'd be surpried if it was. It our 2nd child, so working from home before was already with one baby at home. And her boss is a friend from a previous company they both worked at, who left and set up her own company, makes it slightly awkward. Will contact ACAS and see what they say. I'll check if she got mileage costs previously but dont think she did unfortunately.
 
Yeah i think that's probably the reason. Bit rubbish tbh as we'll end up paying for that company benefit with our money/time if she decides to stick with the job.
 
Yeah i agree really. The only hope would be if the previous arrangement and verbal agreement to work from home held any legal strength, but i guess seeing as her written contract states work at the office, then we'll be out of luck. The only thing she can do is explain it''ll be a ballache to come in once a week and cost a fair bit, but that's not really the companies problem I guess.
 
Yeah, she had her first baby herself last year! So she should completely understand any issues with childcare etc. you wouldve thought.
 
There's only 3 of them in the company lol, so getting to know colleagues isnt a problem. With our children though, it would probably mean she wouldnt get to the office until 10 and leave at 2 in order to drop and collect our daughter/son at nursery, meaning she'll have to work an extra half day effectively to make up for the time lost due to travelling.

I've had a look at the ACAS website, and it looks like she could formally apply for flexible working as here http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=1616

It seems that her boss would struggle to deny her this and working from home, as she's already done the working from home for a year and a half before maternity which would surely nullify any argument as from the list under the 'Handling requests to work flexibly' heading.
 
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