Working from home Travel Expenses

Scott1313

Hi all

Pre pandemic I walked to work locally. I've been told though that we will now be permanently remote but that we will meet once a fortnight as a team in a different office or meeting place (not local).

I've been told I need to pay for this travel as it is commuting which I'm unsure of. My understanding is that is either:

A: a temporary workplace and this is not commuting.

B:It is a permanent workplace in which case I'm traveling between two workplaces if my home is a workplace too?. Therefore not commuting.

Can anyone advise if what they have said is legal? I ask as I have a £23k salary and the travel is around £400 per year so quite significant. It seems wrong that my commuting when I work from home costs more then when I had an office.

Thanks

Scott

AskAsk

i am guessing it will be classed as a change in the office location so they won't agree to re-imbursement of travel expense.  lots of people earn less than you do and still have to pay for commuting.  if you don't like the new situation then you can look for another job.

Scott1313

Thanks for the reply and I appreciate some people have it worse.

However I'm not clear how a change of office applies if it is only 1 day every 2 weeks.

Surely it's still a temporary place of work?

TELLIT01

I would expect the company to say the office is your permanent place of work i.e. your base.  Many people work from home, or on the road, but still have a base. 

Scott1313

Thanks for the reply.

I can see why that may be the case but if I work from home 9 days out of 10 then surely my home is a permanent workplace? 

For example, we have a colleague in Exeter who travels to HQ in Gloucester sometimes and this is expensed as it is travel from her main work (home) to another permanent place (HQ). 

If both locations are offices are inter office travel is payable it feels like this should be?

JamoLew

TELLIT01 said:

I would expect the company to say the office is your permanent place of work i.e. your base.  Many people work from home, or on the road, but still have a base. 

Agree - having your home considered as your base opens up all sorts of Health+Safety and Insurance considerations for starters

oh_really

Scott1313 said:

we have a colleague in Exeter who travels to HQ in Gloucester sometimes and this is expensed as it is travel from her main work (home) to another permanent place (HQ). 

That being the case, the employer has set their own precedent, argue why this policy isnt being extended to you.

If your base has become your home this isn't a commute.

Savvy_Sue

oh_really said:

Scott1313 said:

we have a colleague in Exeter who travels to HQ in Gloucester sometimes and this is expensed as it is travel from her main work (home) to another permanent place (HQ). 

That being the case, the employer has set their own precedent, argue why this policy isnt being extended to you.

If your base has become your home this isn't a commute.

Agree with this. if you're in a union, you could ask them for some support with this. 

AskAsk

Scott1313 said:

Thanks for the reply and I appreciate some people have it worse.

However I'm not clear how a change of office applies if it is only 1 day every 2 weeks.

Surely it's still a temporary place of work?

as far as i understand, your home can only be your permanent work place if you are self employed.  if you are employed your work place will be an address belonging to your employer but you may not be required to come into the office on a daily basis and can work at home.

covid has changed a lot of things but even though your employer may say that this is the new policy going forwards, they can still change it back to office again when we are back to normal and covid is a thing of the past, like flu.

Scott1313

Thanks for the replies all. I think. I will raise this again and see what they say.

Thrugelmir

Scott1313 said:

Pre pandemic I walked to work locally. 

Where you choose to live has nothing to do with the employer. You could decide to move further away from the office locations and as a result ask for an even higher level of travel reimbursement. Not a situation the employer is going to agree to. What does you employment contract say about where you can be asked to work from?