When Louise Atkins needed to alter her working patterns at the communications company she worked for, she was hopeful that her request would sail through. Prior to the pandemic she had worked one day of her four days a week at home; during lockdown the company had successfully navigated remote working, and business had boomed. Now it was 2023, however, and the company was requiring people to come into the office full time.
Atkins, who had worked there for nearly a decade, had been fully in for more than a year. But a house move necessitated by her husband’s job had extended her commute, so she asked formally to work two days in the office and two days at home, citing family responsibilities. The request was rejected.
“The HR team told me that they’d carried out research that proved the company was more effective when everybody was in all the time, so their blanket policy was to refuse all flexible working requests.” She was taken aback, disappointed and angry. “I burst into tears in the meeting with HR when they told me.
I felt so unvalued by the place I’d given so much of my time and energy to for so long,” she says. She considered pursuing the matter, but eventually decided it would be too much trouble for little return – and so resigned. “I realised there was no way they were going to change their minds, and so the time, cost and stress just wasn’t worth it.
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