CORONAVIRUS - 23.08.2021

Can you insist on a full-time return to the office?

According to a recent, survey 33% of employers are expecting staff to return to the office full time. If your employees have been homeworking during the pandemic, can you require them to return to the office every day?

If the homeworking arrangement with your staff was only ever a temporary measure and you’ve not agreed with anyone that their permanent place of work is now their home (for example, as part of a flexible working request), you can require them to return to their contractual “normal place of work” at any time. It doesn’t matter that homeworking has gone on for longer than anyone originally anticipated. However, before you issue staff with an ultimatum to return to the office, there are some important considerations to bear in mind:

  • consultation - consult with your staff in advance about your proposals, and as a compromise do consider whether you can accommodate a hybrid working arrangement under which employees work partly from home and partly from the office, or whether a gradual return to the office is the way forward
  • risk assessment - complete a health and safety risk assessment that includes the risk from COVID-19, carefully follow the government’s guidance on working safely during coronavirus and again consult with your staff about the measures you’re implementing to minimise the COVID-19 risk
  • clinically extremely vulnerable employees - you have a legal duty to protect your employees and others from risks to their health and safety. Whilst clinically extremely vulnerable employees have no additional rights to work from home, you should discuss their individual needs with them, support them in taking any additional precautions advised by their clinicians and explain to them what measures you’re putting in place to keep them safe at work. Pregnant employees are also protected in law against risks to their health and safety, so individually consider them too.

Subject to the above, if an employee subsequently refuses to return to their contractual place of work simply on the ground that they want to permanently work from home, they’re committing a breach of contract and you could take disciplinary action for that breach and for their failure to comply with a reasonable management instruction.

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