Working from Home 20 June 2022 at 2:59PM in Employment, jobseeking & training 7 replies 797 views

j83man

Hi.  We've recently been told that our office is closing.  Since people working from home during COVID, a lot of people prefer this way of working and are not coming back to the office.  As a result, the company no longer feel the office is cost effective to keep open.  We have 3 options, either work from home permanently with changes of contract and allowances, or work at 2 other sites. None of which are ideal. Myself, and a few others, have no space to make WFH on a permanent basis. One office would add at least 2 hours onto our commute and another office just doesn't have the space for more office workers regularly.  What are our rights as employees who do not want these changes? Just accept it or leave?

Andy_L

https://www.gov.uk/employer-relocation-your-rights

Marcon

j83man said:

Hi.  We've recently been told that our office is closing.  Since people working from home during COVID, a lot of people prefer this way of working and are not coming back to the office.  As a result, the company no longer feel the office is cost effective to keep open.  We have 3 options, either work from home permanently with changes of contract and allowances, or work at 2 other sites. None of which are ideal. Myself, and a few others, have no space to make WFH on a permanent basis. One office would add at least 2 hours onto our commute and another office just doesn't have the space for more office workers regularly.  What are our rights as employees who do not want these changes? Just accept it or leave?

 If it isn't cost effective to keep an office open, doing so is going to damage the viability of the business and in turn reduce the security of employees' jobs.

What alternatives do you think you have, other than accepting their decision or leaving? If you can see another way then by all means suggest it to your employer, but otherwise...

TELLIT01

You can't stop the company makin the changes, but redundancy is another potential possibility.  I have twice worked for companies who have rationalised their operations and move jobs to other parts of the country.  In one case the move would have been about 70 miles and in the other about 150.  In both cases all staff who didn't want to relocate were made redundant. 

Undervalued

Basically redundancy (assuming you have at least two years service). Even then statutory redundancy is not a great deal of money unless you have been there really long term.

It sounds as if they could easily justify the move on business grounds. 

Grumpy_chap

j83man said:

Hi.  We've recently been told that our office is closing.  Since people working from home during COVID, a lot of people prefer this way of working and are not coming back to the office.  As a result, the company no longer feel the office is cost effective to keep open.  We have 3 options, either work from home permanently with changes of contract and allowances, or work at 2 other sites. None of which are ideal. Myself, and a few others, have no space to make WFH on a permanent basis. One office would add at least 2 hours onto our commute and another office just doesn't have the space for more office workers regularly.  What are our rights as employees who do not want these changes? Just accept it or leave?

It sounds like the decision is sound from the business perspective.

Could you commute to the office that you say is too full up?  It is not your problem if that office is too small to accommodate everybody - that is for the business to address.  They may already have that in hand - perhaps some of the people currently based there will be offered WFH and take the change gladly.

You don't just have to "accept it or leave" - you can propose an alternative. A couple of ideas that easily come to mind thinking outside the box:

• Could you "WFH" but actually work from a co-working space?  Would the company meet any of the costs of that?
• Is the work you do noisy, or could you "WFH" but actually from the local library?

MrsStepford

Working from home can also be called remote working. It doesn't have to be either/or  office or at home. It could be at a relative's or friends home, at a library or an internet caff.or office sharing space (as above)or even a park or beach. You just need to have the IT to make it work. 

A widowed grandmother might be pleased to have grandson/daughter about the place if  they contributed to heating & lighting and open the front door to callers. Might get copious mugs of tea and home-made cookies. 

Alfrescodave

TELLIT01 said:

You can't stop the company makin the changes, but redundancy is another potential possibility.  I have twice worked for companies who have rationalised their operations and move jobs to other parts of the country.  In one case the move would have been about 70 miles and in the other about 150.  In both cases all staff who didn't want to relocate were made redundant. 

OP doesn't state that the company is offering redundancy. It may be a good option for OP and well worth them inquiring whether that is a possibility but no guarantees that it will be offered.