WFH is dead and buried. Right to WFH bill is pointless

How very enlightened of you to disregard those particular examples as" blah blah blah "!

They are exactly the issues many workers have and reasons that wfh is a positive.

Javier was only offered an alternative role when he had the temerity to appeal the refusal first given by Cognizant and it sounds like that role was loaded ..

" In his evidence at the WRC hearing, Javier said that he was reluctant to move off the project on which he was working in case his employment was terminated when another project finished."

Also an issue within this particular company seems to be the case ..

"Javier’s request was refused along with those of 72 other Irish employees out of Cognizant’s Irish workforce of 380 people."

A lot more trips to WRC in the pipeline over this I reckon and good luck to them all .

There's probably a good bit more to the facts in Javier's case. It might be exactly what it was set out in the Tribunal. Or perhaps there were other things going on? Maybe the client had allowed certain workers to WFH in the past, despite the contractual stipulation that all Cognizant contractors work in their office, and maybe now that there was a glut of workers looking to WFH, they decided to shut that down? Maybe this offer of an alternative project was just a sham - why was he only offered it after he appealed? Maybe he knew that it was a project packed with contract workers who all knew there were out of a job in the short term, and Cognizant only offered it to him to look like they had offered an alternative, but knew that he would turn it down? Or if he did opt for the alternative project they could just lay him off in six months, getting rid of a troublesome employee. A win/win for Cognizant management.

I know this is a lot of ifs and maybes, but there's usually way more to these things then what is reported in the press. And if 25% of Cognizant staff are requesting the right to WFH there must be something going on in there.

If anyone is making one of those requests, they'd be much better focusing on requesting a hybrid arrangement of one or two days in the office rather than a full time WFH, and focusing on the nature of the job and how it can be better completed at home rather than in the office, rather than requesting it so that you can have a better work/life balance. It's much more difficult for a company to refuse a hybrid arrangement, as it takes away all their arguments that the job requires in-office collaboration. If it's like most kinds of office jobs (not like Javiers where he had to work at a client's office) its likely that 95% of it can be done from home. Do a year or two with the hybrid arrangement, and then submit another request for coming in once a month. Make sure you email your boss every Monday/Friday with what was done during the week and what is coming up. You could keep a record of what "collaboration" was done in the office the one day you were coming in, and prove that you don't have to be there that regularly. For instance - you might have to come in every Tuesday, because that's when your team manager comes in, but actually your job is mostly liaising with other departments/external firms, so you spend your day on teams calls anyway. That's where an appeal and a Tribunal hearing would be much more sympathetic.

Some very entitled thinking going on, and not a lot of common sense listening.

On the contrary.. a lot of common sense on both sides .

However there is a sense for me that not only are some here speaking from an IBEC or corporate business HR pov , but a little bit of sour grapes eg saying people requesting better working conditions or hybrid working are " entitled " .

That's archaic thinking , not common sense .

Takes a moment to look it up. They are an International company. Like many companies they have a RTO policy in place theirs has a bit of compromise in that it's hybrid. You can see this in their current vacancies..

There's always going to be some push back. But that's not what's going on here. It's an employee who doesn't want any days in the office on site or in the office. But that's the sole reason they were hired. They were never fully remote.

It's not because the company has changed anything. it's because the employee situation has changed and can no longer fulfill the contract.

The state already mandates a long list of rules onto companies why would this be any different? Look at the US if you want to see how companies would treat employees if they could - you could argue many of the existing employment laws are more onerous than a law mandating at least some wfh be allowed where suitable. Not suitable being really not suitable not made up wishy washy reasons that many employers are using).

That's not a straw man but an analogy.

The contract specified location and time. He wanted to do neither.

I've had contacts where when though it can be done remotely. For data protection or other technical reasons it had to be onsite. Same with shift work or working globally often you had to synch with other parts of the world.

You often can't simply renegotiate these things.

You can't work remotely simply because you want to. That not a mature mindset. You've also got nothing on law saying you are entitled to it. Nothing. It's at the discretion of the employer. That's the reality.

Same with the hours you work. Who gets to dictate their own hours to the employer. No one. It's a contract.

Your post suggests that he was out of his mind to ask, he was not

He was extremely unwise to bring it to the WRC and thus bringing his name and details into the public domain.

Now any future employer who does a cursory Google search on him will have all the info.

Cases like this give WFH a bad name - talk about choosing the nuclear option - the dogs in the street knew the legislation NEVER gave you an entitlement to WFH.

I don’t think this was the cleverest of career moves.

My post does not suggest that he was unreasonable to ask for an accommodation.

He was offered at least one accomodation and refused it. There was no compromise on his part. He wanted it all on his terms. That is what is unreasonable. Never made sense either.

Then he tried to use the legislation to force the issue when the legislation has no power to do that. That's either deluded or very poorly informed. You'd have to have done zero homework and living under a rock to be that misinformed.

If the argument is he did it to raise the issue, that's very weak considering it's been been well publicised in the media, unions etc.

I am not suggesting lower pay, companies that want people in the office will introduce allowances for the extra expenses of being in an office to create an incentive. It will work on many and those that don't will be left behind career wise.

You are presuming that this guy did not already do that ie talk to others in the workplace and his employer to see if there was a work around ?

Granted he was ill-advised mentioning child minding arrangements but many companies do take on board the realities of everyday life for their employees and still thrive. To be resolutely against such discussion smacks of gender inequality .

Anyway the take away for me in the whole mess is Cognizant is definitely not a company for anybody to work more than a short pit stop .

With 1 in 5 employees there roughly ( 5.2 if looking to be exact ) wanting to have wfh or some sort of hybrid working and probably more that would have requested if Javier's case had been successful , the company had doubled down on refusing to accommodate a significant number of employees . That is if course assuming their requests would be refused ?

Where that leaves them as a company in competing for the best employees one can only think they have done themselves no favours .

Didn't take long.…claiming discrimination for being asked to do your job/contract.