Working from home

perfectpeter

Firstly apologies if this is in the wrong forum.

I wonder if anyone can advise. I have been working from home since last year when Covid hit. My entire work place closed down and all staff were sent home. When restrictions were lifted the occupational Health team conducted interviews with everyone to see if they were fit to return to onsite working. Although I passed as fit to work from a covid perspective onsite my OH adviser advised that I be supported to continue to work from home as I had ongoing health issues that made travelling to and working onsite slightly difficult. This was agreed and I continued to work from home.

I am now due another assessment and nothing has changed for me health wise and it would still be awkward for me to work onsite, my question is after supporting me to work from home for over a year, with no changes to my health conditions can my work place now insist I return to the office?

Although I do work in a front facing team, there is plenty of work that can be done from home.

Many thanks for reading!

Sandtree

They will be assessing both sides of the coin. 

You say your health condition made the commute difficult and so they will look at if the health condition has changed or if the commute has changed not just your health condition in isolation.  It is possible that things have changed outside of your health condition that means they no longer deem it an issue for you to commute.

JamoLew

Simple answer is yes, they can insist 

Your ability to get to and from the workplace is not their problem as I assume you managed to do it before lockdown last year 

Undervalued

JamoLew said:

Simple answer is yes, they can insist 

Your ability to get to and from the workplace is not their problem as I assume you managed to do it before lockdown last year 

I largely agree.

However, if the OP's condition now amounts to a disability (for employment law purposes) then the employer must make "reasonable adjustments". They might include allowing the OP to continue to work from home providing any detriment to the employer is "reasonable" and not excessive.

Otherwise the fact that they allowed the OP to work from home because of exceptional national circumstances doesn't mean the have to do so indefinitely. There is some talk in the press about possible changes in employment law to give greater rights to work from home. However unless or until that happens it will be back to the office if the employer says so.

perfectpeter

Thanks all, its all confusing as my manager seems to think they can't make me. Just to clarify I started to wfh due to national circumstances, but was passed as fit to work onsite from a Covid point of view, it was my individual circumstances which prompted them to recommend I carry on in this format. I have the same OH adviser as last time so its unlikely anything will change. It was more a question of ' have they accepted my condition as a disability as they have already accommodated the changes?' and can they back track on that? They are a good employer so I am not overly worried, its just nice to talk these issues through.

Thanks again