Bosses are ordering staff back to their desks, sometimes with a week’s notice. What your contract, the flexible working law and Acas actually say, and how to push back sensibly.
Reviewed, edited and approved by Editor-in-chief Daniel Sköld · Updated 25 October 2026
Contents
It usually arrives late on a Thursday afternoon. An all-staff email with a cheery subject line, something like Bringing us back together, and a paragraph in the middle saying that from the first of next month everyone will be in the office four days a week. Nobody asked you about it. The kitchen still has one working microwave. And the train you gave up in 2020 now costs more than your first car.
If you’re in your fifties, you’ve seen plenty of management fashions come and go: hot-desking, open-plan, the brief and baffling craze for beanbags. Return-to-office mandates feel different, because they land on your money, your time and whether you’re trusted. So the real question isn’t whether the office is good or bad. It’s who gets to decide where the work happens, and what the law says when you disagree.
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Can my employer force me back to the office?
The honest answer is that it depends what your contract says, so start there. Every employee is entitled to a written statement of employment particulars, and it has to name your place of work. If yours says Head Office, Leeds, and you’ve been working from home since lockdown on an informal nod from your manager, your employer is generally entitled to bring you back, as long as they give reasonable notice. The law doesn’t put a number on reasonable. A fortnight to rebuild your entire week is pushing it, while a few months with time to sort out childcare, caring duties or travel looks far more defensible.
Things change if home working has become part of your contract. That can happen in three ways: your contract was formally changed, you made a successful statutory flexible working request (which is a permanent change unless you agreed otherwise), or the arrangement has run so long and so consistently that it has arguably become an implied term. The last one is the hardest to prove and the one employment lawyers argue about most. If your contract really does say you work from home, your employer can’t just rewrite it by email. Changing it without agreement risks a breach of contract claim and, in the worst cases, constructive dismissal.
Look out for a mobility clause too, the line that lets an employer move you to another location. These clauses aren’t a blank cheque. Employers still have to use them reasonably, but they do tilt things towards the boss.
What are my rights to request flexible working?
Here the law has moved in your favour. Since 6 April 2024, thanks to the Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Act 2023 and the regulations that came with it, employees in England, Scotland and Wales can ask for flexible working from day one of a job. That covers where you work as well as when and how much. You can make two statutory requests in any 12-month period. Your employer has to deal with each one, appeal included, within two months, and must consult you before turning you down. You no longer have to explain how your request would affect the business, although it does no harm to show you’ve thought about it.
Your employer can still refuse, but only for one of eight business reasons set out in law. They include extra costs, an inability to reorganise work among other staff, a detrimental effect on quality or performance, and not enough work during the hours you propose. The Acas statutory Code of Practice, which employment tribunals take into account, expects employers to treat requests reasonably, meet to discuss them and consider alternatives rather than simply saying no. You’re also protected from being treated badly for asking.
Northern Ireland is the exception. Employment law there is devolved and the day-one right doesn’t apply. Employees generally still need 26 weeks’ service before making a statutory request, so check the NI rules if that’s where you work.
A mandate tells you where to sit. Only a conversation tells you why, and the law increasingly expects your employer to have one.
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Is the Employment Rights Bill going to change this?
The government’s employment rights reforms set out to make flexible working the default unless an employer can show that refusing is reasonable. In practice, a tribunal would be able to look at whether the business reason holds up, not only whether the employer ticked one of the eight boxes. The flexible working changes are on a slower timetable than some of the headline measures, and the government’s own roadmap points to 2027. Even then, it won’t give anyone an automatic right to stay at home. It raises the bar for saying no. Separate measures to restrict fire and rehire are aimed at employers who try to force contract changes by threatening dismissal.
The commute, the costs and the trust problem
The anger behind most of these rows isn’t really about desks. It’s about money and respect. Do your own sums. If your annual season ticket costs £5,000 and you go from two days a week to four, you might find you need a full season ticket again where carnets or day returns used to be enough. Add parking, a few more lunches and the dog walker, and a four-day mandate can cost the equivalent of a pay cut, before you count the ten hours a week spent staring at a delayed train. For a 55-year-old who also looks after an elderly parent, that time is just as precious as the cash.
Then there’s trust. The ONS’s work on hybrid working found that roughly a quarter of working adults now split their week between home and workplace, and they tend to be older, better paid and in professional jobs. In other words, they’re often exactly the experienced staff employers say they want to keep. When a mandate comes with no explanation, people read it as surveillance, or as a quiet way to cut headcount without paying redundancy. Sometimes they’re right. Sometimes the boss genuinely believes juniors are learning nothing over Teams, and has a point.
Unions have got involved. The civil service has required most staff to spend at least 60 per cent of their time in the office, a rule the PCS union has fought hard. In the private sector, where union membership is thinner, most of this gets settled one awkward meeting at a time.
How to push back without wrecking your career
Read your contract and any written agreement about home working before you say anything. If home working was never formalised, a statutory flexible working request is your best tool. Put it in writing, be specific (three days at home, Tuesdays and Thursdays in, for example), and deal with the employer’s likely objections before they raise them. If you have caring responsibilities, a disability or a health condition, say so, because the Equality Act may come into play and a blanket mandate can amount to indirect discrimination. Talk to colleagues and your union rep if you have one, since a collective response carries more weight than a lone grumble. And if it gets serious, Acas offers free advice, and early conciliation is compulsory before most tribunal claims.
Also ask what the office is actually for. If the answer is collaboration, mentoring and the odd decent conversation, propose days that deliver exactly that. Bosses who won’t negotiate on principle will sometimes negotiate on a sensible plan.
In short
If your contract names an office as your place of work and home working was never formalised, your employer can usually call you back, provided they give reasonable notice. If home working is in your contract or was agreed through a statutory request, they can’t change it without your agreement. In England, Scotland and Wales you can make a flexible working request from your first day, and your employer must consult you and can only refuse for one of eight business reasons. The real fight is over trust, so is your office worth the commute, or just a very expensive place to join Teams calls?
Andy Irwin writes about the way we live now for men 45 and over: work, relationships, mental health, getting older, and the trends and debates that land on men in the middle of life. With the facts, a dry sense of humour, and no lectures.
One of Midcent's writers. Spotted something? Write to andy@midcent.uk.
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