I think we'd need more information Ewelina. Has the current contractual place of work being at home been driven by the pandemic, or was that always the nature of employment? My initial thought was that you can list the contractual places of work as being both the office and the person's home address, and that the expectation must be on the individual to attend the office (surely?) at their own expense when required to do so.

However, it would of course depend on the expectations created during the employment to date - and whether home working has always been a thing, or whether it became a necessity during lockdown that is now being formalised and a future plan put in place.

Good luck.

Hi Eweilina,

I agree with Nina... and this is certainly a nuanced take on our usual remote working discussions. Why is the employer picking up the cost of routine employee commuting?

In reply to Nina Waters:

Hi Nina. Before pandemic all of us were on office based contracts. From March 2020 until now our place of work is home and we have had a letters confirming this new arrangement. It was also because we closed our offices so there was nowhere for us to go. In April 2022 we opened the new office and we want to change everyone's place of work to the new premises. However during that time I have recruited people on the basis that their place of work is home and that was quite appealing option (it gave me greater access to the talent pool). Now those people from outside of London are happy to come to the office when required but they are expecting their travel to be expensed. I am worried if I change everyone's place of work to office and therefore they will lose ability to expense the cost of commute, I might lose them, which could be really tough on the business. I was planning to suggest to the CEO if we could review it on case to case basis?

In reply to Ewelina:

Thanks, Ewelina. That is some additional helpful context.

Has a hybrid / agile working scenario been considered? Not sure swinging from one 'all in' regime to another... and back again will go down well with many employees.

A classic case of wanting to have the cake and eat it as well, and a fair amount of confused thinking to be picked through.

They don't want people to claim return journey to the office since folks moved to places like Isle of Weight, Southampton, Margate, etc.

So it's not that they don't want people to claim their journeys - rather, it's that the journeys people are claiming are *too long* (and, ergo, too expensive)?

by definition your permanent place of work is were you worked continuously for over 24 months and spend over 40% of your working week so it a situation where an employee has to travel to the office that journey can be expensed .

I take it from this that these individuals spend *less* than 40% of their time in the central office, so the office fails to meet the legal definition of a "permanent place of work", which suggests that you have answered your own question.

it also states that working from home is employees' choice therefore the cost of commute to the office can't be refunded.

This refers to situations where an employee has a designated place of work, as legally defined above, but chooses to work from home as a viable alternative. If the employee *has no choice* but to work from home (because the central office is in London and they live in, say, the Isle of Wight) then it doesn't apply.

I know that our people won't be happy about this change and there is even less chance that they would travel in to the office if they won't be able to expense it.

Well, now that's even more confusing because you're suggesting that they don't *need* to be in the office at all to do their jobs if they can *choose* to not go to the office if they can't expense it.

So, two questions:

1. If they don't need to be in the office, why are you making them come in at all?

2. If they need to travel for work, but not to the office - such as to visit a client, supplier or site - would you let them expense the travel for that? Assuming, then, that occasional travel to the office is essential for work, how is that different to any other occasional, essential travel?

In reply to Steve Bridger:

We don't want to do 'fix' anyone's days in the office. My understanding of hybrid/ agile working is that you work at least 1 day in the office and it's your choice what day it is. Am I thinking right? It's almost like we want to create another way, let's say hybrid flex, where one week you can be 2 days in the office, another week work from home, then next week 1 day in the office, etc. Basically the message to our folks was always as work how you want, where you want and when you want provided that you don't let your team and client down and it has been working well. However, now the CEO wants to move everyone to office based contract purely due to the cost of commute that is being claimed and started to add up.

In reply to Robey:

Hi Robey,

Thanks for your answers.

Replying to your questions:

1) We don't want to force them to come in to the office. We want to change their place of work to the office so that then don't claim back any cost of commute. However, full flexibility would remain. They can work how they want so effectively they can work fully remotely one week and hybrid next week.

2) If they travelled to the client's site, we would allow them to expense it. If there was a training, client meeting in our office, project meeting that has to be done in person, etc. we would let the folks expense it too. I think the situation would be different if you are coming to the office because you want a change of the scenery (fed up of working from home and you need a change), then in this case I wouldn't expect the company to cover the cost.

We too are just formalising the hybrid working arrangements as we emerge into some sort of settled (ha!) state after the Covid disruption. We are in a slightly different position to you, in that we did not amend people's contracts during the office closures, because we were only ever closed when the national guidance required it. Once office working was permitted nationally, our offices re-opened over a phased period.

We held individual meetings with people who requested continued flexibility, including remote working. The outcome of those meetings resulted in amendments to contracts, stating the proportion of time that could be worked remotely/in the office, and also stating that their primary place of work continued to be the office.

Our legal counsel advised that if people were 100% remote and their office visits were for separate discrete purposes i.e. a visit for a client meeting, and then another visit for a performance review, then travel could be expense-able. However, if office visits were for a continued ongoing purpose i.e. just doing their normal work, then they could not be claimed. Not sure if that helps?