Work-at-home benefits taken away

[Ben26]

What is the name of your state? New York

I decided to work at Company far away from my home due to their flexibility for me to work at home 5 days a week. A year later, I was offered a new title but now limited to working at home 2 days a week. This month I received an email from my supervisor that I am now required to work 5 days a week at the office.

My issues:
- My supervisor cannot provide just reasons as to why my arrangements changed
- My job decription and title is unchanged
- I've never abused this benefit. Always answered emails and phone calls even after work hours. No complaints from others.
- Excellent performance review
- I only accepted this job due to the flexibility for me to work at home
- Negotiated my base salary lower due to the lack of commuting expenses and tax benefits working at home
- Co-worker living in same area as me still has the ability to work at home and has same job description.
- Was told it was a "new company policy", however I am singled out.

Do I have any legal rights as an employee? I feel I was hired under false pretenses and left a great job because of stated benefits of working at home.

Thanks in advance!

 

[cbg]

You have the right to find employment that is more to your liking. Unless you have a bona fide and enforceable contract that guarantees you the right to work from home, the supervisor has the right to require you to work from the office five days a week and is not required to provide any justification or reasons for it.

Don't think I'm unsympathetic. Due to a buy out I found myself working for a company that was now 60 miles from my home; I found other employment; they begged me to stay and promised I could work from home three days a week (later increased to four). I turned down the other employment which was only ten miles from home, stayed with my original employer for eighteen months working from home, and then a new manager changed the rules and required all employees to be at the office any time during work hours that they were not at a client's. Including me. So I've BTDT and got the tee-shirt.

But my being sympathetic to your situation does not change the fact that my only option was to either make the drive or change employers. Those are your only options as well.

 

[tranquility]

Unless you have a written contract giving you the right to work from home, I think you have no recourse.

 

[xylene]

I feel I was hired under false pretenses and left a great job because of stated benefits of working at home.

Without a contract, the employer is allowed to change just about anything about the job.

Work from home was super trendy 15 years ago. (look at back issues of Fortune magazine)

Companies are often phasing it out now. Why? It is didn't deliver what it promised.

You should consider one option. Work at home, for yourself.

Lots of good money to be made doing so.

 

[Ben26]

Unless you have a written contract giving you the right to work from home, I think you have no recourse.

Can you please expand? I was hired and my document stated ability to work from home 5 days in 2006. In 2007 an email agreement stating work from home 2 days. Now in Feb. 2008 and email stating to work 5 days a week in office.

 

[xylene]

Can you please expand? I was hired and my document stated ability to work from home 5 days in 2006. In 2007 an email agreement stating work from home 2 days. Now in Feb. 2008 and email stating to work 5 days a week in office.

Did you successfully sue them for breach of contract in 2007?

No?

Well then those documents are merely a statement of your scheduled time and place of work.

Employers in an at will state can legally change schedule and place of work of employees.

 

[cbg]

The documents you refer to are quite unlikely to be considered binding and enforceable contracts. You are free to show them to a local attorney to be certain, but I wouldn't hold my breath. It IS within the right of the employer to change the terms of employment. It is rare indeed that an offer letter binds the employer to exactly what is in it with no changes, and you don't want it to. That sword cuts in both directions; if the documents you received at hire was an enforceable contract, you would never be able to claim a raise in pay or an increase in vacation or other benefits. Even if other employees received them.

 

[You Are Guilty]

As much as it pains me to even suggest this, if you are being treated differently than a similarly situated co-worker and belong to a protected class*, then you can file a claim alleging employment discrimination against your employer.

To be 1000% clear, I (and probably everyone else here), do not think you have a particularly viable discrimination claim, but purely as a practical matter, doing so will likely give you more leverage in negotiating your severance than if there was no pending claim.

* i.e. over 40 years old, race, creed, color, national origin, sexual orientation, military status, sex, disability, predisposing genetic characteristics or marital status.

 

[cbg]

To add to YAG's post, you will need a valid and supportable reason to suppose that you are being singled out BECAUSE OF the hypothetical protected characteristic in order to have a viable claim.

 

[LeeHarveyBlotto]

...or an attorney who makes himself enough of a pain that the company will throw a few bucks at you to go away.