Letter confirming consent to vary place of work

Where an employee agrees to change their contractual place of work to their home address through permanent homeworking, use our letter to confirm that change and to send them a revised employment contract.

Confirming consent

Once an employee has consented to change their place of work to their home address following our Letter Seeking Consent to Vary Place of Work, follow this up with written confirmation of their new place of work using our Letter Confirming Consent to Vary Place of Work. Our letter sets out details of the change to the place of work clause in the employee’s employment contract, and its effective date, and then encloses two copies of an amended employment contract, one for the employee to retain for their own records and the other for them to sign, date and return to formally signify their written acceptance of the change. This is also sufficient to ensure compliance with the Employment Rights Act 1996; as place of work is part of the mandatory content of the written statement of employment particulars, where it changes you must provide either an updated written statement of employment particulars or a written statement of change to the employee at the earliest opportunity and, in any event, not later than one month after the change in question.

Additional considerations

If an employee is to work permanently from home, you’ll also need to:

• arrange for them to collect any personal belongings that are still in the workplace – if they’re currently working under a hybrid arrangement, they can do this in their last week of office-based working
• consider what additional IT and office equipment or facilities they may need to work at home on a permanent basis – there’s no general legal obligation on you to provide an employee with the equipment and facilities necessary for homeworking, but most employers at least provide IT equipment for security and confidentiality reasons. Plus, you’re under a duty of care to ensure homeworkers’ health and safety, and disabled employees may be entitled to specialist equipment or auxiliary aids (provided at your expense) as a reasonable adjustment under the Equality Act 2010, so providing essential office equipment can help you demonstrate you’re acting in line with your duty of care and complying with your duty to make reasonable adjustments
• arrange to transport any such work equipment to the employee’s home address, and then keep a detailed record of what equipment you’ve provided.

Our letter covers some suggested wording for this, but you can amend it as appropriate. Also, review your business insurance policy to ensure that your work equipment used in the employee’s home is covered. If it’s not, ask the employee to check it’s covered under the terms of their own home insurance policy.