Negotiated conditions not met after taking back resignation

Question

I recently received a lucrative offer from a company.

But after negotiations my current employer agreed on letting me do Work from Home for 6 months. I agreed and took back my resignation. We exchanged emails saying that "I have taken back my resignation" and my manager sent an email saying that "he will let me do work from home for 6 months".

He then asked me to raise a HR ticket informing that I will do WFH.

However HR responded on the ticket that only 30 days of WFH is allowed.

My employer is now asking me to come back to office as I have completed 30 days WFH as per policy.

During negotiations I was promised in writing that I can do WFH for 6 months (which is why I took back my resignation). Now they are not honoring this.

What would be a good way to navigate this situation?

Answer 1

Refer to said email stating the allowance for WFH and let your manager handle HR.

Either way of how this goes I would start searching around and maybe contact the company that you turned down even if it only went 30 days. If they don't hold what they say and even fight back it seems like the type of company i wouldn't trust anymore.

Answer 2

I think the key question here is: Does your manager have the authority to let you work from home for six months?

If they do, then you simply need to forward their statement agreeing to this to HR, and that should be the end of it.

If they don't, then they've either made an empty promise that they can't fulfil, or they've knowing lied to keep you from resigning.

In the former case, they need to go and argue with HR about this (and they're clearly somewhat invested in keeping you at least for the short term, or they wouldn't have made you a counter offer). If it's the latter, then you should be getting back out there looking for another job - and also take this as a lesson to think very carefully in future before accepting a counter offers.

In any case, your next step should be to respond to HR with a copy of the agreement that you made with your manager stating that you can work from home for the next six months, telling them that it's been approved by your manager. If they come back with anything other than "yes", then tell them they need to speak to discuss it with your manager, and let them fight it out between themselves while you look for a new job.

Answer 3

This is one of the reasons why it is common lore (although the actual veracity of it is debated) that one shouldn't accept a counter-offer from the company.

Your position on this matter should be the following:

• A condition of your continued employment was agreeing to working from home for 6 months
• If that condition is not met, then you will be exiting the company immediately (you have already given notice)

It's good that you have it in writing - I would be tempted to take this as high up the chain as you can.

Answer 4

What should I do?

Start looking for a new company to work for.

In the future, make sure that any agreed upon changes to your pay, benefits, conditions,....etc. are either added on to your contract ( which both you and your employer should newly sign ) or a new contract is written up with the negotiated terms that both you and your employer sign before you consider rescinding a resignation, accepting a new position,....etc.

In this case, while you did have an email trail of negotiations between your boss and yourself, it looks like this was not considered official in your company for changing the terms of your employment. HR has already made it clear the work from home that the company is willing to allow, which is not in line with what you want.

Answer 5

You learned that the HR can only allow 30 days of WFH. However, you don't know (or at least didn't tell us) how often they can do it.

For me, the sensible next step seems to file another WFH ticket, citing that it has already been pre-approved by your manager (attach the written agreement if your ticket system allows).

If the HR declines, it's time to ask your manager to help with settling things with HR in favor of the agreement you together found to be in best interest of the company. Treating the manager as an ally who can use their power to help you, maximizes the chances they would just do that.

Answer 6

my manager sent an email saying that "he will let me do work from home for 6 months".

He then asked me to raise a HR ticket informing that I will do WFH.

This is a case where you need to manage 'up', ie you need to manage your manager - that is, 'up' the normal chain of command.

Inform him in writing that this is his responsibility to fix. Be polite, yet clear and concise. Set a reasonable deadline and communicate it.

The goal is, of course, Prachi being allowed to work from home for 6 months.

You do not need to spell out the consequences of failing to live up to expectations. Termination of contract and is implicitly clear.

Answer 7

It's pretty obvious that your manager has simply told you what you wanted to hear, and hasn't got approval from the company at all. If he had, HR would know everything about the changed work arrangement, and would have sent you an updated contract of employment to reflect this. For the same reason, there would be no need for you to tell them anything.

What can you do about this? Nothing. If you go the legal route your employer is simply going to state that your manager acted outside his authority - which is entirely true - and that as such, the company isn't liable for those actions and cannot be held to them. At worst the manager will be disciplined, but it still leaves you out in the cold.

Take this as a life lesson: "in writing" doesn't mean anything unless it comes in the form of an amended contract of employment from the HR department.

Answer 8

What would be a good way to navigate this situation?

First is to understand/appreciate what is going on.
The first HR response to you (or me, or anyone) is generally what their policy is, and that they cannot make exceptions. This is a normal part of dealing with HR, generally there is a combination of poor staffing and underpaid low level HR people that are the 'first responders' in most companies.

Other answers have mentioned:

• contacting HR again
• quitting and/or resume looking for a new job, and
• contacting legal.

Here's the order I would tackle them in - if you haven't already responded to anyone:

1. First contact your manager who signed the promise to you.
   Forward HRs response with this prefix: "At your request, I created the HR ticket informing that I will do WFH for six full months' but their response was that I'm only allowed one month, and I need to start coming in. How do you want me to proceed?"
   This message must be in writing (email counts, keep a copy for yourself - printed or BCC to a personal email account) because you may need to prove it happened.

I've had a number of times when the manager said, yeah don't worry it is approved you don't have to come in I will handle it.
NOTE: Be sure they (within a couple days) send you an email that says it is all handled and specifically says you can work from home until X.

In my past there was one case where answer from HR to me (an answer about 3.27 hours of PTO) was stupid. My managers response was, "That's not just stupid, but it is morally and legally wrong. Let me know when and you just take a full afternoon off, without putting it into the time system. Do you agree that will make it right?" I did agree.

Why contact the manager first?
In general, you contact your manager before replying to HR to give him/her a chance to correct it, if they want to... it's a courtesy to them – and it keeps HR from digging in its heels. In this case you have something in writing, so that's less likely to happen. Regardless it gives the manager a chance to work it out with HR, without it exploding into a big deal.

At this point you need to make sure you have a copy of everything that has transpired – your signed modification, the rejection from HR and any communications done below. A copy that is accessible to you even if they turn off your company access.

2. Step two is where it can get ugly.
   Definitely restart your job search and/or contact the previous company to see if that job is still an option.

If your manager folds:
If your manager says, "Well, I'm sorry I thought HR would allow that"
Or if your manager says "After we did that, they made a new policy, I'm sorry"

Attach the signed copy of the work agreement to the HR ticket, with text that says something like:

"I'm sorry, I guess you didn't realize that this is already a special case and it has already been approved. I was asked to send this in just to have it documented. Please reference attached to view my signed job modification that allows six months instead of one. My manager said I needed to inform HR, I'm sorry that I didn't attach this to the original ticket."

Reminder, you'll want a new copy of the HR ticket – if you cannot print it, then forward an email to the rejecting HR person's email address and BCC your personal email account. If you cannot do that create a new ticket with the text and the same verbiage from above.

3. Contact their legal department, if they have one.
   Many firms use outside council and if you don't know who that is, you'll have to decide who to contact – the head of HR, the President, the CCO, the CFO, and the CEO are all good choices (in that order).

It should be obvious taking a new position with another company is probably a better path than doing step #3. When anyone asks you why you left you have the paper trail showing they went back on a promise – and I'd hire you in a second based on that fact: you wanted to stay rather than leave, and you made a reasonable request.
But sometimes the hassle is worth it if you feel wronged enough to put up the fight.

It should also be obvious that if it goes beyond step #1, you may be involved in an (openly or secretly) hostile work environment, where someone is watching you carefully.
(Maybe "hostile" isn't the best word, but I couldn't think of a better word for close observation for the purpose of catching you make a mistake.)

Answer 9

Forward all the communications to the company's CLO (Chief Legal Officer).

It is their job to mitigate risk. They will see a fight they will lose.

Politely and in as few words as possible, state that you: Gave up a better job based on the promise of the manager. HR is not keeping the promise. You would like to solve the issue in-house. You only want what you were promised.

To @Xavier J's point, I am not a lawyer. I am a long-time business owner. The manager effectively made a contract that a reasonable person would expect to be at least 6 months. In the US, even in a right-to-work state, a lawyer would jump at the opportunity to sue. A CLO isn't going to waste company time and money fighting something as minimal as an "HR Generalist" coming up with a meaningless rule.

Answer 10

If you want to continue to work for the company you should, as others have said, work with management (primarily your boss and their boss) to see if you can get another five months of WFH. If you're valuable enough to the company, perhaps you can.

However, assuming you live in the US and don't have a contract (such as a union contract) that would prevent it, in general you can be let go for any or no reason at any time -- with a few exceptions such as being let go because you're a member of a protected class (although the fact that you are a member of a protected class doesn't legally preclude you from being let go). Although, laws vary somewhat from state to state.

Did the manager's email promise you six months of continued employment or just promise you that you could work from home for the next six months if you were working there that long?