A mid-level analytics professional at a multinational company is facing difficulties in getting work-from-home approval due to a family emergency that involves police intervention. The employee said in a Reddit post that he has been with the company for over three years and says that while the company’s policies are generally generous, their specific team enforces stricter rules.
The team allows only 27 leaves a year including public holidays, requires three days in office every week, and mandates a minimum of 100 hours or 12 office days each month, despite the company-wide hybrid policy of two office days a week and 45 paid leaves plus 12 public holidays.
“Company allows 45 paid leaves + 12 public holidays. Hybrid work structure with 2 days in office. But my team (around 120 folks working for one client) has their own things set: only 27 leaves a year (including public holiday), wfo for 3 days a week. Mandating 100hrs or 12days in office each month,” the post read.
In the post, the employee described their dilemma, “Should I tell the reason? I think it’s personal. Given it came out of no where, how am I supposed to already compensate for the days I’m working from home?” They also noted that their on-site manager is supportive of remote work, but the manager responsible for approvals has resisted.
The Reddit thread drew a mix of advice.
One commenter suggested a formal approach, “Loop in your HR, add the official police report (you can redact black out anything that is personal), be exact for how long do you need to work from home, share the EXACT details which he wants, and then also add the policy of the company which states that you can work from home. Be straightforward, also share what you have accomplished while being in this team, and then if you can move internally do that.”
“I always prefer to have conversation in person or on call first,” a second user weighed in.
Another user cautioned against over-reliance on AI: “Yeah exactly, sending an email generated by Chat GPT is definitely not the way to go in this case. OP should talk to their manager.”
Yet another user wrote: “Your request is very formal and looks fresh out of ChatGPT. Though there is nothing wrong in it…the best practice is to ‘talk first, email later’ ( 60% of the time, it works every time).”
