Employment law SOS: Managing time off for bad weather
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<b>During a recent spell of bad weather, one of our managers called in to say she'd need a few days off because her son's nursery was closed. Can I insist she takes this time as paid holiday?</b>
Strictly speaking, you are only required to pay an employee when he or she is 'ready, willing and available for work'. In general, therefore, you are not legally obliged to pay employees who fail to turn up for work.
In this instance, the reason that the employee has been unable to come to work is that her child's nursery is closed. If she had no alternative childcare, she may have been able to exercise her right to a reasonable amount of time off work to deal with emergencies involving dependants.
To qualify for this right, she would need to have notified you of the reason for the absence as soon as possible and given you an idea of how long she would be off work. This would be unpaid unless you have a policy which provides otherwise.
Alternatively, you could encourage her to use some of her paid holiday to cover this period. In practice, she may be happy to do this because it would mean she would not suffer any loss in pay.
Or you could simply agree with this employee that she will make the time up at a later date.
If the general workforce is being paid if they cannot get to work because of bad weather, employees phoning in to exercise time off for dependents in similar circumstances should not be treated differently.
If you don't already have a written policy for dealing with adverse weather conditions, you may wish to think about introducing one.
