Working fromhome/flexible working health reasons

dori2o

Has anyone ever aplied to work from home with your employer?

My health is deteriorating and though I currently only work 32 hours over 4 days a week. I'd love to be able to work more hours.

I have applied before but that was before the rule changes in 2014.

My employer has always put Data Security down as the reason for not allowing me to work at home,but last week they introduced a new service and allowed people to take home laptops which could be connected to the internal system via the internet. This was to facilitate exceptional longer opening hours for just 2 days and the laptops had access to all the systems and customers records, I would therefore consider that their data security argument is now void.

Allowing me to work from home 2 or 3 days a week would actually allow me to return to a 5 day week working fulltime as I would have significantly less travelling which is what I struggle with due to my condition.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Takeaway_Addict

dori2o wrote: »

Has anyone ever aplied to work from home with your employer?

My health is deteriorating and though I currently only work 32 hours over 4 days a week. I'd love to be able to work more hours.

I have applied before but that was before the rule changes in 2014.

My employer has always put Data Security down as the reason for not allowing me to work at home,but last week they introduced a new service and allowed people to take home laptops which could be connected to the internal system via the internet. This was to facilitate exceptional longer opening hours for just 2 days and the laptops had access to all the systems and customers records, I would therefore consider that their data security argument is now void.

Allowing me to work from home 2 or 3 days a week would actually allow me to return to a 5 day week working fulltime as I would have significantly less travelling which is what I struggle with due to my condition.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Was your reduction in hours always a temporary thing or has your contract changed to make 4 days permenant, if it is the latter I would expect the employer could refuse to allow you to go back to 5 days anyway.

dori2o

Darksparkle wrote: »

HMRC have said quite a few times recently that they don't plan on allowing staff to work from home.

There is no set guideline with them though. Maybe go through Occ Health (can't remember who they use just now)?

Will you need to move with the regional sites? Maybe a discussion to have in your one to one?

I don't know anyone who permanently works from home but know a few would do it a day a week because they have laptops. The laptops aren't a new service (just a changed one). I had one last year that was capable of being used out with the office.

I know some, especially the Enhanced Support advisers have access to laptops which can be used outside the office, but this is the first time I can recall that they have allowed contact centre staff the opportunity to work from home, albeit just for Sat and Sun for the Self Assessment deadline dealing with Web Chat contact.

Accordingtoa FoI request I made 2 years ago there are no ordinary CC advisers currently working fromhome in any capacity.

I work in Manchester so the changes in 2019/2020 won't really affect me except for moving to a new building which has been confirmed to be somewhere within Manchester City Centre, and Manchester has to gain approx 1500/2000 staff if their prediction of the site housing 6,500 staff is correct, which I believe would make it the largest of all the regional sites.

With the changes taking place and the introduction sometime this year of the Customer Service Centres which will replace the existing Contact Centre and back office structure and see virtually all staff working all types of contact medium, then I don't see their argument anymore regarding data security.

Whilst they may not be happy for me to deal with phone calls at home I could work DMS post or work management items.

With the introduction of HCPS all letters to the customer would be issued direct from the central print server and so I wouldn't have toworry about the safety of customer correspondence, either inbound or outbound.No need for secure filing cabinets etc, and those print jobs that cannot be done via HCPS could be sent to the linked printer at work and printed daily by my manager, of which there would be very few,and as they don't require a signature anymore then there is no need for me to print them off myself.

It's also beneficial for the business. It would reduce the amount of time I have on sick leave, it would at the very least maintain or increase my productivity. I could work more hours which as an experienced adviser would be of benefit to both the business and myself.

With the business insisting it wants to change then this would be the ideal opportunity for me to try and push this forward.

I think I will see if I can get an Occ Health assessment which is done now by OH Assist (ATOS in disguise). If not then I may contact Access to Work and seeif they can do a OH assessment for me.

duchy

The security aspect is a bit of a non issue nowadays with technology but the companies need to want to put in the effort.

I've worked from home permanently for years with access to a database of 18 million UK customers info including bank and creditcard numbers.

I do however question the wisdom of allowing laptop use if security is an issue- Most companies with security concerns insist on wired rather than wireless connectivity and to me that's just commonsense.

I have to connect through several layers of security to start work and often it's that companies don't want to invest in technology rather than it isn't possible - as it often only benefits a small number of employees.

Maybe you could ask to work from home for part of the week to start with OP and work towards a goal of one day working at base and the rest at home -and once that is established and you've proved how well it can work the leap to full time from home might be more digestible to your company (some are very resistant to it and need showing their fears are unfounded)

dori2o

Takeaway_Addict wrote: »

Was your reduction in hours always a temporary thing or has your contract changed to make 4 days permenant, if it is the latter I would expect the employer could refuse to allow you to go back to 5 days anyway.

My change in working hours was done permenantly when I first started to receive DLA which I use in part to offset the loss of earnings, but the whole thing was done as part of a Reasonable Adjustment,with a caveat that I should be able to increase the hours back to at least 35 per week should my condition (unlikely) or the management of the condition improve to allow me to work more hours without it having a negative impact on my attendance/productivity/wellbeing etc etc.

This reasonable adjustment was agreed, with the caveat, following commencement of capability proceedures by the employer.

My hours had been reduced to 30 p/w on a term time only basis. I have recently increased those hours to 32 per week but with no part year working, i.e. I work 52 weeks out of 52 rather than just 38.

I would love to be able to work full time again and working from home 2or 3 days a week would make that more likely. It is also my view that being able to work more would be beneficial to my mental state which currently is poor and isa result on the ongoing chronic condition I suffer from.

It would also have one final benefit in that (assuming my wife's provisional job offer at HMRC is sucessful) we wouldnolonger be reliant on tax credits to top up our income and whilst the DLA/PIP is useful, it wouldn't be so much of a struggle if for any reason that was lost, especially since the Gov seem to be moving the goalposts with PIP again.

dori2o

duchy wrote: »

The security aspect is a bit of a non issue nowadays with technology but the companies need to want to put in the effort.

I've worked from home permanently for years with access to a database of 18 million UK customers info including bank and creditcard numbers.

I do however question the wisdom of allowing laptop use if security is an issue- Most companies with security concerns insist on wired rather than wireless connectivity and to me that's just commonsense.

I have to connect through several layers of security to start work and often it's that companies don't want to invest in technology rather than it isn't possible - as it often only benefits a small number of employees.

Maybe you could ask to work from home for part of the week to start with OP and work towards a goal of one day working at base and the rest at home -and once that is established and you've proved how well it can work the leap to full time from home might be more digestible to your company (some are very resistant to it and need showing their fears are unfounded)

To be honest I don't think I want to work from home fulltime.

In order to stay abreast of changes, take part in training sessions, meetings etc, business change, then I would want at least 2 days in the office, plus I don't think working on the phone necessarily is the best thing for home working as there will be other people in the house at times when I am working, and my kids are not the quietest of children.

So to remain in the role I have now (which I really enjoy and which I find stimulating) which includes phone work then I would prefer to do that in the office.

I think starting small and working up is however the right thing to do, and maybe as I don't currently work Fridays I may be able to get them to agree to trial it with 5 hours work on a Friday for a month, with no restrictions on when I start/finish between 7:30am and 8pm, so long as I do the 5 hours.

At least then they are still getting my standard week and the usual high quality productivity, plus 5 additional hours.

dori2o

Darksparkle wrote: »

The people I know who have done it (including myself) where not CC staff. It was visiting officers. It caused many arguments amongst my team though because half of us had laptops and the other half didn't.

We don't use Central Printing, we need to use local printers. Given the amount of post I send, the number of enclosures required etc, it would be near impossible to ask someone else to do it for me.

I understand your reasons for wanting to do it, I would love to myself but there is little to no chance of it happening. I don't have any actual medical condition that would benefit from it, I just felt a million times better when I could do it and having that one day at home. I'm generally just a very tired person. I got loads done but was far more relaxed way of working and enjoyed the peace and quiet. I'm no longer in a visiting role though so laptop was handed back.

If they allow one person to do it, everyone would want to. Where do you they draw the line? Not just those with medical conditions but care issues, travel issues (especially with the regional sites as eg there will be no offices in Scotland other than Glasgow and Edinburgh).

I also have this vision of calling the "taxman" who is sitting at home on their pjs. Don't think the general public would be too happy with that.

Why not so long as their query is being answered in a professional manner?

I don't actually think it lends itself to doing telephone work at home, but there is no reason why post/work management/web chat cannot be done.

Those people who use telephone interpreters have no issue with the interpreter being sat at home, and on Sat/Sun just gone anyone who was web chatting with HMRC between 6pm and midnight was doing so with an officer sat at home, who may or may not have been in their pj's.

TBagpuss

It would be wroth you making a request for flexible working. Look at he guidlines and make sure that you request is tailored to that. You need to show that you have considered how the request, if granted, would efect the emplouyer nad how the impact could be addressd, so you would need to be clear about how you would propose to deal with things such as any printing of physical filing, security of any material taken or kept at home, impact on colleagues etc.

Also check whether your employer has a flexible working policy and what it says, so that you can also ensure that any relevant points are dealt weith in your request (for instance, if you are proposing to work from home only part of the time, then the impact on other members of staff may be reduced as you would be abel todo the office based stuff on the days you were in, rather than needing a colleague to do it for you.

It might also be open to you to request the option to work from home as a reasonable adjustment to your disability, if your health issues qualify as a disability.

ohreally

dori2o wrote: »

According to a FoI request I made 2 years ago

And there it is - you've p!$$ed off management and they are settling a perceived score.

sangie595

Neither flexible working nor reasonable adjustments include the right to increase working hours. On that basis your argument fails. The fact that working from home may allow you to work more hours is not valid. And since there is no reason why you then cannot carry on with the current adjustments on the current hours, there is no good reason for the employer to agree a further change.

dori2o

sangie595 wrote: »

Neither flexible working nor reasonable adjustments include the right to increase working hours. On that basis your argument fails. The fact that working from home may allow you to work more hours is not valid. And since there is no reason why you then cannot carry on with the current adjustments on the current hours, there is no good reason for the employer to agree a further change.

I never said that they did.

I merely commented that the agreement I have in place, agreed between myself and the senior management, and of which I have a copy signed by myself and the senior management, is that I can increase my hours if my condition improves (which it won't as it is degenerative), or if my management of the condition via the use of treaments, medications, changes to working practices etc improves to such an extent that I would be able to sustain working more hours/days per week.

In my case it is neither the flexible working regulations nor the employers obligation to provide reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act that would allow me to increase my hours. What will allow me to increase my hours will be the signed agreement that I have with my employer, assuming that I can prove that the change is beneficial to both parties and not detrimental to the management of my long term condition.