We’re a small manufacturing company in a semi-rural location in Scotland, employing just under 50 people. Resources are tight, and we can’t afford to have too many people out of the office at one time. Due to our location, we often ‘enjoy’ a dumping of snow at this time of year. Many of our staff claim to be housebound at even the merest hint of adverse conditions. Short of using the managing director’s Land Rover to drive round to their homes and dragging them to work, how can we a) check they are actually stuck at home, and b) if they’re not, encourage them to come to work?
Having a clear adverse weather policy lets all staff know exactly what is expected of them. There is no specific legislation covering adverse weather and employment rights/obligations (although, clearly there are some basic health and safety issues to take into consideration). Normal employment law principles continue to apply.
Employees remain responsible for getting themselves to their place of work, and are expected to make every reasonable effort to attend. Unless there is express agreement otherwise, employees are not entitled to be paid for time they are scheduled to be at work, but do not attend.
Is your current practice to continue to pay staff on days they are ‘unable’ to attend work due to bad weather (‘Snow Days’)? If so, then confirming in a written policy that employees are not ‘entitled’ to be paid for Snow Days, and any payment made will be on a discretionary basis and subject to a maximum number of days a year, may have a dramatic impact on attendance levels. Alternatively, you could confirm that Snow Days will only be paid if an employee agrees to take them as part of their annual holiday entitlement.
Notwithstanding the issue of pay, employers are still expected to be fair and reasonable in their dealings with employees. Although roads near your site may be clear, conditions around the homes of employees who live some distance away may be very different. Employees are not required to risk their personal safety to attend work at any cost. To some extent this risk assessment can only be carried out on a subjective basis. Be cautious before taking disciplinary action against employees for non-attendance. You will need credible evidence to support an assertion that an employee is lying about their inability to attend work. Short of following through on your threat to make ‘home visits’ this may hard to come by.
Another issue to consider in relation to bad weather is school closures. Parents are legally entitled to take dependents’ leave in order to find alternative childcare arrangements. There is however no legal obligation to pay employees in respect of such leave.
A few members of our manufacturing team have come back to work in the New Year and have decided to quit smoking. This is great, not only for them and their lungs, but we benefit from not losing a significant number of our staff to smoking breaks four or five times a day. However, they don’t see it that way and are demanding to keep the 15-minute breaks they used to take for a cigarette. Despite our best efforts, an anarchistic ‘I’ll smoke when I like’ attitude has taken over. How do we please everyone – the smokers, new quitters and never-before-smokers?
When it comes to the contentious issue of smoking, there is no way to please everybody! Smoking in enclosed or substantially enclosed workplaces in England has been prohibited since July 2007 and there is no statutory obligation on employers to provide a designated outside area for smokers, or permit employees to take ‘smoking breaks’ during their normal working hours.
From what you say, you don’t appear to have expressly agreed to these self-regulated smoking breaks, but rather your prolonged tolerance of the practice has led to some employees treating them as an ‘entitlement’. If you want to gain control of the situation, you are going to have to tackle it head-on. Otherwise, you are in danger of some employees exploiting the situation whilst others may become resentful what they might, quite understandably view as preferential treatment of those ‘indulging’ in a vice.
If you don’t feel that realistically you will be able to enforce a total ban on employees taking cigarette breaks outside of normal scheduled rest/lunch times, you could consider softening the blow by offering a halfway house. This could involve allowing smokers, or those who wish to use an anti-smoking device, such as an e-cigarette, to take a maximum number of breaks (of a maximum duration) from their scheduled working hours each days. Employees would then be required to make back this time later. The taking of such breaks should be subject to express approval of an employee’s line manager, so that they can be monitored and work disruptions minimised.
A clear, written anti-smoking policy will help when it comes to enforcement. However, you should try, as far as possible, to involve your workforce in developing the policy. This could be via a working group including employee representatives and your health and safety officer(s). Clearly, there will be some employees who will stubbornly resist any change/reform, but hopefully their specific objections will be flushed out during the consultation process. Once your new policy is implemented, you will need to stand your ground and subject those who deliberately breach/abuse it to disciplinary action.
60-second guide: social media policy
Although social media is a highly valued marketing tool for most businesses, it also has the potential to cause significant HR headaches. This is partially due to the potential blurring of lines between personal and professional use of social media. Employers are responsible for creating a safe workplace for their employees. The definition of ‘workplace’ has expanded in recent years, and covers employees’ online activity carried out ‘in the course of their employment’. If such activity amounts to discrimination or harassment, then an employer can be held liable for this, unless it can show that it took all reasonable steps to prevent such discrimination or harassment from occurring.
The ‘when’ and ‘where’ of online harassment can be difficult to establish as much depends on the context. For example, even if an employee posts discriminatory comments about a colleague on their own personal Facebook page, outside of working hours, if the majority of the employee’s Facebook friends are also work colleagues, and/or the employee routinely uses their personal Facebook account to deal with work-related issues, then such comments could still be seen as having been made by the employee in ‘the course of their employment’.
In order to safeguard your organisation against these risks, you should ensure that you have a clear social media policy, which explicitly warns employees against online bullying and harassment and confirms that any such activity will be subject to disciplinary action in accordance with the company’s disciplinary policy. You should also ensure that your bullying and harassment policies, and any associated equalities training, address the issue of online harassment.
