Flexible working request denied - advice please!

ACG

Why would you make all of these plans without written permission from your employer? That is a massive life choice change being reliant on something that you do not have agreed, that is silly at best.

This seems to be one of those things where it is all or nothing. You do not say where you are moving to or where your office is. I am going to assume it is not somewhere you could fly from on a Sunday night, work in the office for 2 days and then fly home on a Tuesday night for the rest of the week?

Assuming the above is correct, there is not really a lot of negotiation is there. It is either agreed or it isnt. The only thing you could try is to do it on a trial for 3-6 months and maybe agree to come in to the office one week a month (if that is feasible). Put a few options to them and see if any of those would work for them? It is not ideal but you have basically put your employer in a position of saying yes or no by the sounds of it.

FBaby

the company already has a lot of fully remote workers.

Maybe they've realised that this doesn't work, makes supervision difficut if not impossible and decided to stop that practice.

As it's been pointed out already, it's one thing if it all works well, another if they were not satisfied sifed with your work. You've been there less than 2 years anyway, they can let you go without giving you any reasons.

It does sound you were a bit ambitious going ahead with the move without any written agreement. Hopefully you'll be able to find work where you are moving, assuming you'll be entitled to work there.

TBagpuss

It may be that they feel that they have as many remote workers as they need / can support, and that they need some eople to physically be in the office.

I know this is quite often the case with people who have requested flexibility for different hours / part time hours to fit round child care, for instance. The employer may be able to grant the first few requests but may have to refuse later ones because they need a minimum number of people to cover in-office work.

As long as they have considered the appropriat ecriteria then they are entitled to refuse your request.

You may have painted yourself into a corner where your options are to go ahead with the move, and leave this job, looking for a new one local to your new home, or look into whether you can return frequently enough to do your in-person shifts, or cancel the move and stay put.

Of course , you could say to your employer that you will have to give notice if they are not able to agree arrangements for you to be remote the majority of the time, but only do this is you are OK with them saying "OK, your last day will be xx"