Hello community, 

Looking for some advice once again :-) thank you for all the support so far. 

My organisation has a hybrid policy, but it states that staff can come into the office when they wish although with some stipulations. The uptake on this has been next to zero, with very little teams coming into the office, only for one day per month at most. 

There has been a drop in meeting targets and new projects are being put in place which requires an onsite day for these particular projects around once per week. We are really proud of our flexible working stance and want to continue being as flexible as possible, therefore we have left it up to the managers of each department on how they organise this by speaking with their team members and seeking out any issues that may arise from an individual perspective. 

I envisage we will be seeing a few issues as some of our staff live a fair bit away from the office, and it will be difficult for them to commute once per week. Which is fine, we are more than happy to come to a solution on a case by case basis. 

My question is, none of our contractual terms advise a 'work from home' clause, we have a hybrid policy that does indicate this can be altered at any time and our handbook is not contractual. Ideally we would like to work with the individual to make arrangements on an individual basis to suit the employee and the business, but at what point does this move from coming to a solution 'informally' to then submitting a formal flexible working request. 

My thoughts were if we are unable to come up with a solution both parties are happy with informally, that we can then advise the employee they can submit a formal request - but I want to sense check this as by making this change we aren't changing any 'contractual' terms, but I fully recognise that we have had this 'hybrid' arrangement (& policy) since COVID so we have set a pattern. 

Any advice appreciated