Dtyjlui

If it was the CEO's decision to take away the work from home policy then HR is simply doing what they have been directed to do. If there is anyone that needs to be convinced it is the CEO. You can try to approach the CEO and explain the situation with this specific employee and see if they can make an exception. The problem with that, though, is that it won't help all the other non-disabled employees who enjoyed this perk.

Unfortunately, it may be too late for your star employee. You stated that this employee is actively interviewing and if they are as good as you say it is only a matter of time before they receive an offer.

It sounds like your CEO has made a mandate and HR probably has their hands tied by it. The best way to deal with upper management's mandates is to make sure they fully understand the costs of them, and that they are consciously accepting those consequences.

In your position, I would lay out the facts to HR (and the CEO if possible):

• Since this decision, our productivity has dropped by a factor of X. (The more you can corroborate this, the better.)


• Morale has also plummeted. Again, provide evidence here, but this can be anecdotal.


• It is also going to cost us employees that are hard to replace, including our strongest performer.


• The job is now significantly less attractive as working from home saves employees time and money. You should really drive this point home if working from home is a common benefit offered by other companies in your field. There are people who flat out refuse to work for places that don't allow working remotely. (Added as an edit inspired by LVDV's comment)

If you expose the costs to them and they persist in the decision, then at least you know you've done everything you could to help. I don't think it's hopeless either, but you do need to do your best to be persuasive and substantive in your arguments.

Some people still think that working remotely damages productivity and just gives people an excuse to slack off.

HR is just the middle man, go straight to the CEO

You need to be able to quantify to the CEO that this is not the case, and that his changes are damaging productivity.

You need to approach him with cold hard facts and demonstrate a clear before and after breakdown of how productivity has been affected.

Do NOT single out your star performer as an example, or the CEO will likely just consider him to be trouble and ditch him.

Show the overall drop in team productivity instead. Again, be able to show numbers! Best of all, if you can break this down to how much it's costing the company, it should really get his attention.

Then he will either reverse himself or he won't.

I'm surprised no one is addressing the disability.

He left yesterday, citing lack of handicap-accessible doors.

There's no way for him to reliably get in and out of the bathroom without help at work, park his handicap van or open any doors easily.

The problem isn't losing a "perk". The problem is your company has failed to accommodate a disabled employee's needs. And not just through negligence:

HR refused to accommodate his work from home request and doctor's note, and forced him to take a medical leave

Your company has specifically refused to give the allowances this disabled employee requested (backed by signed medical advice).

IANAL, but this is the type of thing companies get sued for. And I mean millions.

Being the lowest on the totem pole right above the "problem" you are the easiest scape goat when the other shoe drops. (And they will definitely cite "performance issues", since you said yourself your productivity is suffering without this employee operating at 100%)

What you need to do is at least polish your resume and get ready for the storm. You may not want to leave your current company, so I would start CYA right now. Ask your employee to return contingent on proper handicap accommodations. Regardless of the employee's answer, start specifically asking HR for these handicap accommodations: ramps and elevators, handicap accessible doors and bathrooms, handicap parking, etc. Get all this in writing! Also, communicate your loss of productivity and new timelines given the loss of this employee. They will try to blame you if this employee sues. Don't give them an inch of reason to scapegoat or dismiss you.

You don't have to convince HR. That's not your job.

Your job is to report to your manager what your capabilities are given the policy. Explain that you can change timelines, scale down projects, or hire more talent. Your manager can then decide which direction they want to go.

This works precisely the same whether your manager is the CEO or not. If they're the CEO, they can easily take the option of changing the policy. If not, then they're in a better position to get the policy changed than you are.

HR is a bad place to go because they can't really evaluate the consequences of your timelines slipping or make decisions about how projects can be scaled down. So your direct superior is the way to go with this.

Be sure to be ready with a good, complete, and honest list of options. Don't say things like "we can't get anything done". Say things like, "Here are the seven things we wanted to get done by the end of next quarter. We can push these two out to the following quarter."

It's not entirely clear what your level in the organization is or how large the organization is. But generally speaking, someone in one department shouldn't be escalating request to another department without their manager's explicit buy in or they're a peer with the head of the other department. Imagine the mess if someone in HR goes to bat for you and gets the exception and the person you report to didn't want them to have it!

The way I read your question, it seemed you would have already tried many of the "get it through to them" approaches suggested in the other answers. So assuming that,
if its as bad as you say:

As a presumably excellent SecOps team leader, stuck in this position where it seems like your security team may not be able to "deliver on its targets" (keep the business secure),

Is this not the time to step back and, well, do the same as your employee?

Start looking for positions elsewhere?
As you said: "it's not easy to replace people in this field. This is Information Security, and we've been looking". The same goes equally for managers who can handle all that craziness. And the one thing I wouldn't want to be around for it that inevitable resultant security disaster that arises from falling behind. I'd say time to either wash your hands of it, or at least start to; perhaps in so doing, if they hear you are considering leaving, it might effect a change in perspective regarding the significance of the policy change.

I once found myself in a somewhat similar situation. I had been doing IT work from home on a semi-regular basis with my immediate manager's blessing, but (unknown to me) upper management was not aware of this arrangement. This arrangement had been in place for over a year when he happened to mention it to the CEO, who replied that all employees were required to work on-site at all times.

After a little negotiation, we were able to arrange for me to leave the company, but continue performing the same work as an independent consultant. Since I was then an outside supplier, rather than an employee of the company, this was sufficient for upper management to agree to allowing me to work remotely. Perhaps your CEO might be amenable to something similar.

If you're the manager you probably had a chance to protest this when it first happened in management meetings.

As a manager you now need to support the CEO's decision at least outwardly. Any dispensation you want made should be communicated directly to the CEO rather than HR or anyone else, since no one else has the authority to make a difference. If it's a general change you want then again, this is a subject for management meetings.

If you're team lead not management, take it up with your manager.

HR are only applying the rules. Upper management needs to know about the impact on the overall motivation of the team, that good people starts considering leaving and the difficulty of hiring a proper replacement in some field. If possible, go talk to the CEO directly, or your manager to make him escalate the issue.

We don't know how the CEO is going to react. I would start prepare for the worst : a simple no. Your team performance relies on only one person, which is a big risk that the manager should have tackled the moment he noticed it.

You have to present an inform explaining all of this to your manager and maybe HR and the CEO itself.

Be clear on how this new policy is BAD for the team and for the company itself. Be clear about how much you are losing and how cheap is to stop all that bleeding.
If they still don't care, well, there's nothing else you can do.

Your company/team loses it's best talent. The productivity of the remaining talent in your company/team has dropped. You disagree with the CEO. You disagree with HR. And finally, you strongly imply that you will under-deliver by a wide margin, and your only explanation is that it's the CEO's fault.

In summary, you are unhappy with the company, and your company is - or soon will be - unhappy with you. And fighting for WfH*, or for legal compliance with handicapped requirements, will not make the company like you more.

The only question that remains is this:

Are you part of the company's best talent? (see first sentence of this answer)

*The time to fight for something like WfH is before there is an executive decision against it, not after.