How can I politely say that I am not doing extra work after back to the office policies?

Question

Our workplace decided that to support the economy we needed to be back in the office and therefore reduce our time working from home. They are very firm on this policy and very touchy about any criticism of it.

After that, they said that due to hard financial times we would need to do more work to help the company.

Since I am losing around 8-10 hours a week commuting and the office is open plan I am likely to get less work done, not more. Is there a polite way to tell them that?

If it helps, my fellow workmates who are also being pressed into this also seem less productive.

The contract sadly does not say work is remote and is vague enough that I can't do much. Country is the UK. I agreed on an informal agreement to work from home because the money was good.

Answer 1

I am losing around 8-10 hours a week going to and from the office,

This is going to be a problem. In pretty much all jurisdictions, the commute time comes out of your pocket, not the company's. The expectation is clearly that you still put your 40 hours (or whatever it is) of worktime in. That, of course, sucks for you since now your work week is up to 50 hours which was not your initial expectation.

This is a fundamental problem and unlikely to get resolved so you should prepare yourself to either make your peace with it or look elsewhere. Frankly, if they are hard nosed about "back to office" and are in poor financial condition, looking elsewhere seems a very reasonable choice here.

Is there a polite way to say that per their new policies, I am not likely to be more productive but less?

At that point, you have nothing to left to lose, so I wouldn't beat around the bush here. Just tell them what you told us. You can add that commute plus extra effort increases your work week by 25%+ percent (or whatever the actual number is), which isn't long term sustainable for you.

If your coworkers feel the same way, you can maybe align your messaging with them. The prospect of a mass exodus or revolt is a real threat to a company especially if they are already in financial trouble.

Answer 2

that due to hard financial times we would need to do more work to help the company

That alone is a reason to find a new job. The signs are there. This company is going under and you are unhappy with the conditions. What more are you waiting for? Foreclosure of the office building?

If you don't like the conditions, say no to anything not in your contract and find a new job as soon as possible.

Answer 3

For the purposes of this, you can forget the WFH part. What matters is

due to hard financial times we would need to do more work to help the company and such.

You don't need to.

You signed a contract, and that's it. You can choose to do more work, but that's your choice. If the company wants to issue you with a new contract putting the new amount of hours in writing, they can do that, sure - but you can also hold out on a proportionate salary increase.

If you think the company's going to survive, you can have that salary increase postdated in 6 months. Or it could be in the form of a defined bonus to be paid after the work - I've been on a team where we had that happen.

If the company is in genuine financial trouble though, employees are a very long way down the list of who gets paid when it goes into administration. It's quite likely that you'd do all this work and then get stiffed on a month's salary. Be wary of how much you trust management on this, because them telling you the truth in that kind of situation is literally a gross-misconduct immediate-firing situation for them, and may even be illegal in a publicly-traded company. They literally can't tell you how bad it is, otherwise it'd be their neck.

Not all companies properly get WFH

After COVID, my company wound down its WFH policy to 2 days a week. This was a pain for the software engineers who had demonstrated over that time that we were far more productive at home. I had a conversation with my manager where I said explicitly that if I was working from home then he'd get at least an extra hour a day from me, whereas in the office I'd be leaving pretty much on the clock. Near as I can remember, those were the exact words. He said he appreciated that, but that was the policy. So now they get my contracted hours.

Answer 4

Jobs are in constant flux

If this is your first job, "jumping ship" before you are pushed may seem like a big and dangerous step.

But be assured, you're going to be changing jobs yearly. Not necessarily changing employers yearly, but your role will change, or there'll be a reorg and you'll be given a new manager, or they'll pull crap like they're pulling now. Regardless, it's not the same job any more, even if it's the same contract.

When that happens, it's important to ask yourself "If I were applying for jobs right now, is this a role I would have any interest in?"

Recognizing red flags

Once you've worked a few places, you'll learn to recognize the "red flags" that mean a workplace is about to turn to utter shit, and become a place you would not apply to work. Update your CV/resume.

You have been given multiple red flags here.

Trajectory-related red flags

When they reduce the snacks in the breakroom, or start charging for the sodas, or declare a "hiring freeze", or otherwise start trimming the fat in "efficiency drives", it doesn't in itself mean "you would no longer apply to work at this place", but it shows you the trajectory of the workplace is downwards, and you might get laid off before you even apply elsewhere. Update your CV/resume.

• Citing "hard financial times".
• Increased workload rather than increased hiring.
• RTO (Return To Office) orders may be an effort to get some resignations, saving them from redundancy payments.

A downward financial trajectory can be recovered from. That's their whole point of having an efficiency drive. But it tells you that they're in a dive that they might not pull out of, and in general I'd say that "weathering the storm" may not be as effective for your career as transferring to another company that's still on an upward trajectory, and taking the pay raise that job-hops always grant.

It's also often the case that bet-tightening is a step on the way to selling the company: a way to make the company look more healthy, like a sportsman going to a sauna to sweat off some weight before a weigh-in. Buyouts and takeovers are usually accompanied by layoffs: in the EU, usually 99 people a year will get laid off (because otherwise they need to give more compensation). UK used to be the same, not sure any more.

Bad management red flags

Bad management is something that cannot be recovered from other than by shedding the management. It WILL turn to shit if they don't go. Fixing management will only usually happen by the company being bought out, and even then the middle management will still stay, and will continue to make bad recommendations, so the rot will carry on under the new upper management anyway. Update your CV/resume.

• Open plan office (all studies point to a 15% reduction in productivity).
• They're "very touchy" about criticism.
• Transparent lying and bullshit, eg "to support the economy" excuses.
• RTO (Return To Office) orders.

Update your CV/resume.

Update your CV/resume. Trade away your company stock. Get active on LinkedIn. Make sure your Indeed account is active. Take days off for interviews even if you're not absolutely sure you want to jump. You will be rusty at jobhunting and will need the practice. Brush up on interview coding exercises or whatever field you're in.

It's up to you whether you inform your manager that you can see the writing on the wall and are looking for another job because you've taken an effective 25-35% pay cut in hourly wage(*). They might agree, or not. They might offer you better pay, or not. Do you really want a 10+ hour day even with better pay? Decide ahead of time what level of pay raise would make it all worth it? If 0%, then you're good for now, but update your CV/resume anyway, because layoffs may be coming.

It may be worth casually mentioning that you wouldn't object to being laid off, if that's true, so they'll consider you if they're required to cut headcount. Otherwise you might miss out on a redundancy package.

Update your CV/resume.

(* Assuming old requirements = 40hrs, and new requirements = 40hrs + 10 hrs commute + say 0-4 hrs of "more work", that's then 25-35% more time, for no equivalent raise in pay. And yes, a 25-35% pay cut would technically need 13-22 hrs extra, and the actual hourly pay cut for a 25-35% increase in time spent is only 20-26%, but nobody cares about math nowadays.)

Answer 5

Is there a polite way to say that per their new policies, I am not likely to be more productive but less?

You can try using exactly what you've told us.

Don't expect it to be successful, as people making that decisions almost certainly did so knowing that there will be pushback (would take a really extra level oblivious to not predict that) and asking is not likely to change their minds.

But explaining and asking politely shouldn't cause any harm either. You've explained your lack of productivity, and if they are happy with it, you are in the clear. Now if the job doesn't work out for you anymore, of course consider looking for another.

Answer 6

Negotiate if you can. Try to find a solution that works for both sides. If they want extra work, explain you could use the time it would take you to commute (as long as the extra work is paid) if you can continue to work from home.

After that, they said that due to hard financial times we would need to do more work to help the company and such.

Generally in this situation, most of the real talent quickly leave (why would they stay?). This leaves the company understaffed with only the worst employees remaining, and that leads to more and more pressure and stress until the company eventually goes under.

If they cannot find a solution that keeps their top employees happy and motivated, you're going to be in for a very bad time if you stay.

You can't staff a company with people who can't do the job and don't want to be there while simultaneously making the working conditions worse and worse.

Answer 7

So the company took a huge benefit away from you, with no good reason as far as I can see, so you lose ten hours a week and a substantial amount of money. And now they want you to work extra long hours for no pay. Because they have financial problems.

There's two things. One is that obvious you should start looking for a new job. I doubt very much that your salary is competitive now. And you are on a sinking ship. Always good to jump off a sinking ship as long as at least your salary is still paid. If you have too much work and no time to apply for jobs and go for interviews: Since you have less time to apply from home, I would have not the slightest bit of a bad conscience to do that from work.

The other thing is that you need a serious talk with them. At the very least they should allow people to work from home again. It's much easier to work five hours more a week if you don't waste 10 hours on a commute. And it's much easier to do that without pay if you don't have to pay out for your commute. Not that you should accept either, but it should be made clear to the company that this would very much improve their chances.

Answer 8

UK employment contract law is a very complicated topic. But at it's heart, it appears you have two changes to your working conditions. Any change to the contract must be agreed by the employee, or it is illegal for the company to enact.

You say the working location isn't specified in the contract - that may not be too important - check the employers wording on the policy that allowed WFH. If they didn't write a policy for it, check for emails on the topic. If there's any hint of them putting qualifiers in that allowed for variation, there likely isn't much you can do about it, other than openly state you're not happy about it.

The requirement that you "work more" to help the company financial situation, however, puts the company at immense risk, legally speaking. Unfortunately you haven't qualified what "work more" means - which is probably because the company haven't been clear to you about it. This very much sounds like there are redundancies on the horizon, when the upper management targets of "more" aren't met.

As an example, I was once told "in order to guarantee the financial security of the company, we're asking everyone to reduce salary by 10%, and if we don't get everyone to agree, we might have to look at redundancies." The fair and appropriate response to that it "if you agree to reduce my hours/workload by 10%, then I'll agree to the change of my contract."

So overall, I would:

• If you're not already a member of a union, sign up now. There's a period of time where they can't act for you, but they can still give you advice. Your contract may say you're not allowed to join a union, but that is unenforceable unless you work in a very specific type of role.
• After you've joined the union, invite your immediate superior and company HR to a meeting with you to discuss this new policy, in private, with them. Tell them that you're not happy about being forced back to the office. Tell them that you would have been working during the time you will now have to commute, but this is now impossible. Tell them that you're worried about the "work more" and ask them what the requirement is, in detail, and ask them for tips on how you can be more productive within the contracted hours. Tell them that you're aware both of these changes might constitute a change of contract.
• Follow up immediately after the meeting, by sending the attendees a summary email. Repeat things you said in the meeting. Repeat things you understood that they responded. Ask for a timeline for things to get answers if you're still not clear on anything.
• While working from the office, call off at the local coffee shop just before starting your day. If you start at 9am, walk into the office at 8:59am. If anyone challenges you about it, the response is "I'm supporting the local economy." Similarly, if you finish at 5pm - be through the door at 5:01pm.
• Unless your contract requires you to be responsive out of hours, don't answer calls, don't respond to emails whenever you aren't physically in the office.

Finally, get on LinkedIn, find recruiters that are local to you and deal with your job role. Have a conversation with them, starting with a "I'm not sure I want to move on just yet, but I want to see what the options are, at least."

Answer 9

You should think about the structure of the office in your decision to say something. Presumably you are hoping to cause a change in the policy. Just saying to your boss that you won't work 50 hours because of the commute time seems unlikely to change it, though if enough people say that it may be enough. One alternative is to just work the amount you are willing to in the current situation. It may be too much trouble to fire you for this. You might talk to your coworkers to find out their take on the situation. The advantage of not drawing a line in the sand is you can change just your behavio(u)r if circumstances change. If you see people being let go over it you can rethink and if your personal situation changes and you don't like the risk you can work more.

Answer 10

Here's an approach. You have X tasks do work in, and Y hours per day to do them in. Your Y hours needs to be a hard boundary. Don't stay late. Go home and be at your leisure when it's time to go. Don't work weekends or overnight.

However, push to your boss to prioritize which of those X tasks needs to be done in those Y hours per day. They can't all be priority one, even though bad management will try to insist on such. Revisit your boss with this prioritization step as often as you need to, but don't change your boundary.

You probably got more done as a WFH employee, but it's not going to work out the same. Your boss will notice at some point. That's not your problem, friend. A bad boss will at this point pull out all the stops to shame or scare you into working longer hours with no extra pay. The boss may compare you to others who don't practice good boundaries. Ignore that, and stick to your guns.

Here's an Indeed article that may help.

Answer 11

No one seems to have mentioned that since you work in the UK you have the right to request flexible working which includes the right to request to permanently work from home.

You can do this from day 1 of starting work, you also do not need to give a reason for this request, although it's probably helpful to do so.

You can submit your request and the business must give you an answer within 2 months.

The business must give you a valid reason from a small list defined under law to refuse the request, and they must consult with you if refusing. They also cannot prejudice against you for making the request i.e. reducing bonus/pay etc

I would suggest there are times which you should still go into the office such as: if collaborating with an office based colleague, important face to face meetings, social events etc.

More info: https://www.gov.uk/flexible-working And here: https://www.acas.org.uk/statutory-flexible-working-requests