Can an employer force you to work in the office?

Thrugelmir

Apintplease said:

Dont this time around employers who are expecting staff to still work from an office have to do a risk assessment?

Home working is without risk. In due course there'll be both complaints and claims made. Employers again will be painted the bad guys. 

Barny1979

Thrugelmir said:

Apintplease said:

Dont this time around employers who are expecting staff to still work from an office have to do a risk assessment?

Home working is without risk. In due course there'll be both complaints and claims made. Employers again will be painted the bad guys. 

Just wait for all the claims due to poor DSE compliance at home.

Ned_Kelly_3

On a similar theme. A member of staff at the call centre where I work (a very large, well-known national retailer) has asked if she can work from home. Many people doing the exact same job already work from home with laptops provided by the company. However, she has been turned down because there are no laptops available. It will be weeks before there are some available and she isn't at the front of the queue. She's asked to be furloughed until a laptop is available but has been knocked back for this as well. Now the latest lockdown rules state: 'You may only leave your home for work if you cannot reasonably work from home.' Now, from her perspective, she could 'reasonably work from home' in the sense she's perfectly capable of doing so as many others already do, but who gets to interpret 'reasonably'? In the meantime she will have to continue to get the bus into work. What do you think?

Grumpy_chap

"Reasonably" is only if the employer can provide the necessary tools to support working at home.  While the laptops are on order, then it is not "reasonable" to work from home.  If the employer is taking "reasonable" steps to facilitate working from home (ordered laptops), then that would probably be deemed reasonable for her to continue to work in COVID-secure office in the meantime.  I am surprised the laptops have not been provided already given it is now 9 months since first lockdown started.

Barny1979

I presumed they were all furloughed back in March?

phillw

Grumpy_chap said:

While the laptops are on order, then it is not "reasonable" to work from home.

Unless they've had laptop's on order since March 2020 then I'm not sure I'd support the employer on that.

The numbers have only been going one way, any employer that can allow employees to work from home should have been preparing for it.

The solution doesn't have to be giving everyone laptops either.

Jonesy1977

Jeremy535897 said:

Grumpy_chap said:

Is "maintenance" within the "construction" category?
Could be if it is building maintenance, though quite a stretch as well.
The guidance does also say "Where it is necessary for you to work in other people’s homes - for example, for nannies, cleaners or tradespeople - you can do so. "  This would seem to include a maintenance company.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/national-lockdown-stay-at-home?priority-taxon=774cee22-d896-44c1-a611-e3109cce8eae#summary-what-you-can-and-cannot-do-during-the-national-lockdown

It doesn't need to be, as "construction" is only an example (including but not limited to).

Including but not limited to includes (by definition) every company that can not provide the technology for you to work from home.  If you work for a company that cannot afford or through best endeavours practically accommodate home working then you have to work where you are contracted to work or potentially risk furlough or redundancy.  

BenDCFC

I work for a large financial company. In my department around 1/5 of staff have been given a laptop and allowed to work from home full-time. 

We've been told that they won't buy any further laptops and everyone else has to work from the office. When asked, it was confirmed that it's that they *won't* buy laptops, not that they *can't*.

Other departments, such as telephone customer service, have been and are still taking desktops home to work from. Around 1/3 of telephone staff have already done this (note: it costs the company money for the software to allow telephones to work from home - my department doesn't need this software). 

When asked if we can take desktops home to work from, we've simply been told no. 

I guess my question is, should they be either buying laptops for us to work at home on, or allowing us to take desktops like other departments are? Or is it solely down to company choice? We are able to perform our job at home to the same standard we do in the office as the 1/5 of staff are already doing...

kmcatherall

If he feels unsafe he could ask to see a copy of the covid secure police?  

MattMattMattUK

BenDCFC said:

I guess my question is, should they be either buying laptops for us to work at home on, or allowing us to take desktops like other departments are? Or is it solely down to company choice?

No they should not be buying laptops for you, they can if they deem it reasonable, they do not have to and you can not force them to, it is entirely down to their choice. If they deem the office "Covid Secure" and they view that it is not viable for you to work from home then they can require you to work from the office, if you refuse then you have effectively made yourself unemployed.

BenDCFC said:

We are able to perform our job at home to the same standard we do in the office as the 1/5 of staff are already doing...

Just because it works with some people working from home does not mean it will work with all people working from home, it may also not be viable on a risk, cost or security basis, they may be suffering with bandwidth issues into their servers, people may not be as efficient if they have children at home (most people are nowhere near as efficient when their children are at home) etc.

They company probably worked out which staff could work most effectively from home and allowed those teams to work from home, reducing the numbers in the office and helping make it Covid Secure, that then allowed the remainder to work in the office safely.