Employee Holiday/Sick Pay Questions

[Lektra]

I own a company which employs less than 5 people. A couple of new sick leave/holiday related issues have cropped up lately, so I'm wondering what other people would do in the following situations:

1) One employee has requested sick leave because he's getting a vasectomy. Since this is an operation that he's choosing to do rather than anything related to a medical condition would this generally be classed as sick leave or holiday?

2) The same employee calls in absent fairly frequently (1-2 days every 1-2 months) because his wife often gets common colds. He stays off work to look after her, however, we suspect this is more about the benefits of staying at home with the Playstation and/or sleeping off a hangover! I don't mind him taking time off as holiday if his wife really needs him to, but the frequent short-notice of absence is causing a few problems. Do I have any legal requirements regarding employees taking time off to look after dependants? And how would other people handle this if they suspect that the frequent illness is an excuse to take days off work at short notice?

3) We currently pay our full-time employees holiday time + bank holidays. We're now taking on a part time staff member who works 5 hours per day on Mondays and Wednesdays. If we pro-rata the bank holidays then I believe we owe her 3.2 bank holidays per year (we'd round this up to 4), however if we pay her for the holidays that fall on days which she otherwise would have worked we'd be paying her for up to 7 extra days per year. Is there a norm for how part-time entitlement is worked out?

 

[Employment Law Clinic]

Hi Lektra,

2) The same employee calls in absent fairly frequently (1-2 days every 1-2 months) because his wife often gets common colds.

3) We currently pay our full-time employees holiday time + bank holidays.

What assistance does your employee find it is necessary to provide when his wife gets a common cold?

How much "holiday time" do you give the full-time employees?

(For the rest of your questions, I'll get back to this thread shortly.)



Karl Limpert

 

[Lektra]

Hi Karl, thanks for the reply.

The full-time employees get 5.6 weeks annually. As for what assistance the wife needs, our employee says that he needs time off to take the kids to school or look after them all day outside of term time. Plus he says he has to 'look after' his wife, which as far as we gather requires him to make the occasional cup of tea or pass her a tissue.

While he began to call in absent when his wife was genuinely sick, now it seems that he's taking advantage somewhat and calling in when she has increasingly dubious illnesses. We feel like we need to put some set of rules in place to minimise this.

 

[Employment Law Clinic]

1) One employee has requested sick leave because he's getting a vasectomy. Since this is an operation that he's choosing to do rather than anything related to a medical condition would this generally be classed as sick leave or holiday?

I would suggest the time-off to attend the operation is holiday, but any subsequent time-off for recuperation would be sick leave. It's always controversial when this is self-inflicted, but the consideration is simply whether an employee is fit for work, not how they became unfit - through misfortune of being hit by a bus, or through expectation having hitting the bottle, it's still sick leave.

Do I have any legal requirements regarding employees taking time off to look after dependants? And how would other people handle this if they suspect that the frequent illness is an excuse to take days off work at short notice?

As for what assistance the wife needs, our employee says that he needs time off to take the kids to school or look after them all day outside of term time. Plus he says he has to 'look after' his wife, which as far as we gather requires him to make the occasional cup of tea or pass her a tissue.
We feel like we need to put some set of rules in place to minimise this.

The employee is entitled to time-off on as many occasions as is reasonably necessary, but if either the frequency or duration is excessive, you should tackle this. For things like taking care of the kids, he isn't entitled to a week off for this, only a reasonable amount of time (a day or two at most) to make alternative arrangements for their care. As for the care for his wife, I wouldn't say making tea or passing a tissue are "necessary" activities, so arguably the rights provided for under s. 57A of the Employment Rights Act wouldn't apply.

You could challenge the frequency of his absences, the actual need for them, and also address the performance impact of these, but I'd certainly want to look at the case properly before advising. Any rules you put in place will have to be very carefully written. An alternative option might be to introduce flexible working, allowing him to come in late when he has to drop the kids to school, as then there would be far less need for time off to pass the wife a tissue.

I don't mind him taking time off as holiday if his wife really needs him to, but the frequent short-notice of absence is causing a few problems.

:| This would still involve short notice though! Do you pay him for this time-off?

3) We currently pay our full-time employees holiday time + bank holidays. We're now taking on a part time staff member who works 5 hours per day on Mondays and Wednesdays. If we pro-rata the bank holidays then I believe we owe her 3.2 bank holidays per year (we'd round this up to 4), however if we pay her for the holidays that fall on days which she otherwise would have worked we'd be paying her for up to 7 extra days per year. Is there a norm for how part-time entitlement is worked out?

Calculating the leave (including bank holiday entitlements) in hours is the most common practice for part-time staff. That 3.2 figure looks high, but whatever the correct figure is, they employee would use 5 hours of their allowance for each bank holiday that they would normally work. Based on a full-time equivalent of 40 hours per week, I think the employee would get about 72 hours off per annum - 14.4 of their equivalent working days - of which some will need to be used to cover their bank holidays.



Karl Limpert

 

hi Lektra i think employment law clinic has answered most of this but if i can be of help
1) One employee has requested sick leave because he's getting a vasectomy. Since this is an operation that he's choosing to do rather than anything related to a medical condition would this generally be classed as sick leave or holiday?

This would depend on whether it was elective or recommended by a GP. If it is solely elective then you can advise that he can take it out of his holiday entitlement or the time will be unpaid. If it is an operation that has been recommended by a GP and he can provide supporting evidence of this, i.e. a GP/Hospital letter then if he didn’t want to take the time as holiday and he was signed off by the GP for it then it would be considered to be sick leave
2) The same employee calls in absent fairly frequently (1-2 days every 1-2 months) because his wife often gets common colds. He stays off work to look after her, however, we suspect this is more about the benefits of staying at home with the Playstation and/or sleeping off a hangover! (This is unacceptable he doesn’t need to look after his wife with a cold! Unless she had a disability or other serious illness for which she needs care, for which dependency leave would apply and if so we would need to discuss this further, but for a cold this is unacceptable.) I don't mind him taking time off as holiday if his wife really needs him to, (unlikely she does in this circumstance) but the frequent short-notice of absence is causing a few problems. Do I have any legal requirements regarding employees taking time off to look after dependants? And how would other people handle this if they suspect that the frequent illness is an excuse to take days off work at short notice?

There is a statutory right to some dependency leave;
This right enables an employee, regardless of length of service, to take a reasonable amount of unpaid time off during working hours in order to take action necessary:
a. to help when a dependant falls ill, gives birth or is injured or assaulted (including mental illness or injury);
b. to make arrangements for the provision of care for a dependant who is ill or injured;
c. when a dependant dies;
d. to cope with the unexpected breakdown of arrangements for caring for a dependant; and
e. to deal with an incident involving a child of the employee which occurs unexpectedly during school hours or in circumstances where the school has responsibility for the child.
The right only applies if the employee, as soon as reasonably practicable, tells the employer why he or she is absent and (unless the employee is already back at work) for how long the absence is likely to last.
A dependant is defined as the employee's parent, wife, husband, civil partner or child, or someone who lives with the employee as part of the family (other than an employee of the family, attendant, lodger or boarder). The regulations also provide that the dependant can also be someone who relies on the employee in particular circumstances of an illness, injury or assault until resumption of normal care arrangements.
No pre-determined maximum is set out on the amount of time off which can be taken, however, in most cases, whatever the problem, one or two days will be the most that are needed to deal with the immediate issues and sort out longer term arrangements if necessary.
However, his wife having a cold would not count as dependency leave and when he calls and advises you he needs the time off for this reason he should be told that this is unacceptable and that he is expected to be in work.
In light of the issues re the high absence level, the short notice and reasons for time off I would advise you to call the employee into an informal investigatory meeting, there is no right to be accompanied at this informal meeting, and advise him that his absence level is significantly high and that you need to see an immediate improvement. Advise him that his reasons for absence, in particular the dependency leave is not acceptable, dependency leave is for the odd occasion if someone was seriously ill/children are ill and it is not to be used on a regular basis and whenever his wife has a cold and tell him that going forward this has to stop and if there is not an improvement in his attendance record then you will look to take formal disciplinary action. Follow up this meeting with an informal warning that will go on his file and then if there are future absences you should start the disciplinary process.

 

3) We currently pay our full-time employees holiday time + bank holidays. We're now taking on a part time staff member who works 5 hours per day on Mondays and Wednesdays. If we pro-rata the bank holidays then I believe we owe her 3.2 bank holidays per year (we'd round this up to 4), however if we pay her for the holidays that fall on days which she otherwise would have worked we'd be paying her for up to 7 extra days per year. Is there a norm for how part-time entitlement is worked out?
If a full time person gets 5.6 weeks 28 days inclusive of bank holidays then a part timer gets a pro rata amount of this.
If someone works 2 days per week then the calculation is 2/5s of the full time equivalent:
28 days inc of bank hols /5 (5 days per week) = 5.6 days inc of bank holidays (this is what they would get if they worked 1 day per week.)
5.6 x 2 (days they will work) = 11.2 (round up to the nearest half day) 11.5
So the person is entitled to 11.5 days holiday per year inclusive of bank holidays, if a bank holiday falls on a normal working day i.e. a Monday/Wednesday then this has to be deducted form their holiday entitlement. They will be paid 5 hours holiday pay for these days as that is the hours that they work.
If however you have been paying in excess of what they should get, this becomes their terms and conditions of employment and so you would have to consult with them to get them to agree to a change in their terms and conditions of employment. This is something peninsula would be able to advise and assist you with.
The full-time employees get 5.6 weeks annually. As for what assistance the wife needs, our employee says that he needs time off to take the kids to school or look after them all day outside of term time. Plus he says he has to 'look after' his wife, which as far as we gather requires him to make the occasional cup of tea or pass her a tissue.

If his wife is genuinely ill then he may need to take the children to school and this is the kind of thing dependency leave should be used for, an unforeseen, occasional change in circumstances, so you should agree to this and perhaps be flexible with his working hours but advise him he is still expected in work once he has dropped them off and that he must either make up the time missed or the time missed will be unpaid, all dependency leave is unpaid.

While he began to call in absent when his wife was genuinely sick, now it seems that he's taking advantage somewhat and calling in when she has increasingly dubious illnesses. We feel like we need to put some set of rules in place to minimise this.

As stated you need to address this via an informal meeting and discussion as detailed above

 

[Lektra]

All great points to consider, thanks Karl.

This would still involve short notice though! Do you pay him for this time-off?

We pay him for the time off as holiday, yes. My main objective is to clarify with him what counts as 'reasonably necessary' and whether or not we legally have to allow him short-notice time off for care of dependants, regardless of the level of care required, as he appears to believe. From what you've said, this would not necessarily appear to be the case in these circumstances.

In general, the time off wouldn't be an issue if it was pre-booked, but since we only get a half-hour or less notice period each time he calls in, it means we have to cancel customer appointments and call in other staff (usually me) on their days off to cover for him.

We already operate a flexible working system and have quite a relaxed and informal workplace, which has worked well in the past, however we're concerned that this employee has started to abuse this system. I'm hoping that once we establish some guidelines about the 'reasonably necessary' position that he'll stop trying to push the boundaries and the number of short-notice absences will reduce.

 

[Lektra]

Great info, thanks EmployerLine.

Regarding the vasectomy it was entirely voluntary, so that's good info to know. Also, I wasn't aware that dependency leave could be unpaid, I think that might sort the short-notice issue out pretty fast!

Sorry, I wasn't too clear about the bank holidays- we pay the employees 5.6 weeks holiday plus an additional amount of bank holidays on top. Am I correct then in working out that if the part-time employee works 10 hours/2 days per week that the total annual entitlement for bank holidays is 2/5 of 72 hours= 28.8 hours/2.88 days?

 

ill have to work that out for you as the normal would be to include bank holidays but i think you are correct. let me get back to you on that shortly.

 

[Employment Law Clinic]

Great info, thanks EmployerLine.

I'd have to beg to differ!

If it is solely elective then you can advise that he can take it out of his holiday entitlement or the time will be unpaid. If it is an operation that has been recommended by a GP and he can provide supporting evidence of this, i.e. a GP/Hospital letter then if he didn’t want to take the time as holiday and he was signed off by the GP for it then it would be considered to be sick leave

After the operation - which should involve minimum time off - if he is then unfit to work, he is entitled to sick leave for this time. It doesn't matter how he became ill, only that he will be unfit for work, so he does not have to use his annual leave!

The time off for the operation should be covered by his own annual leave, but recuperation will be sick leave.

This is unacceptable he doesn’t need to look after his wife with a cold! Unless she had a disability or other serious illness for which she needs care, for which dependency leave would apply and if so we would need to discuss this further, but for a cold this is unacceptable.

Section 57A (1) of the ERA 1996, paraphrased, states that the employee is entitled to is a reasonable amount of time off to take action which is necessary to provide assistance when a dependant falls ill. There is no mention of disability or serious illness, so you can't judge the need based on the severity of the illness, only for what action it is necessary for him to take to provide assistance. It is open to interpretation, but I would suggest there is little or no action necessary for a common cold, but the wife does not have to have a serious illness for the right to time off to apply.

Furthermore, there will be an unexpected disruption of arrangements for the care of the kids, so he will be entitled to time off for this.

... the time missed will be unpaid, all dependency leave is unpaid.

Of course, we don't know what the contracts state, so it could actually be paid leave! There is no legal reason why it has to be paid leave, but as some employers do pay, it's wrong to suggest all dependency leave is unpaid. And as Lektra now states they have been paying for the time off up to now, that's what the contract will effectively require.

Lektra, I think you need to get this case looked at properly, receiving accurate advice based on your contracts & current practices, not simply what you've put on this forum. If you get this wrong, you could have a lot more problems.


Karl Limpert

 

[Employment Law Clinic]

Also, I wasn't aware that dependency leave could be unpaid, I think that might sort the short-notice issue out pretty fast!

I wouldn't make changes to fast Lektra: if you've always paid for this leave, that will be a custom & practice that's part of the employment contract. To change it pretty fast will leave you exposed to a claim for unauthorised deductions from wages pretty fast.

Ideally employers should never pay for time off for dependants, but once they have established that they do, you can't just change this on a whim.


Karl Limpert

 

sorry for the delay in answer int your question about holidays wednesdays are always busy

If they work 2 days then the calculation should be done in days and they would get 2/5s of the full time equivalent so, if a full time person gets
28 + 8 = 36 days

36/5 = 7.2
x 2 days she will be working = 14.4 so round to nearest half day.

14.5 days holiday inclusive of bank holidays and any bank holiday that falls on a normal working day should be deducted from their entitlement. A days holiday pay is 5 hours-their working day.

I hope this helps.

 

[Lektra]

Thanks to both of you, all your responses have helped greatly.

There's no mention in the statements of employment about dependancy leave because, to be honest, I wasn't even aware it existed before this. Of course, we never expected it to become a semi-regular event when we allowed the employee to take it as paid holiday the first time, otherwise we would have examined the issues more closely.

Co-incidentally, I got into work this afternoon to find that the employee in question had taken a few hours off this morning and allowed everyone else to assume that I'd authorised it. I think a performance review is about due!

 

[Outsourcer]

Just to add my grist to the mill;

Get some really good abscence policies written up and in place that cover the boundaries of leave entitlement and also a policy regarding sickness that covers notification policy, how much notice is required before shift, has to be notified in person via phonecall, notifcation of his likely return to work date etc etc.

Carry out 'return to work' interviews to discuss his absenteeism

Benchmark his absenteeism against the rest of the company.

Whilst he has certain rights at law as others have pointed out, you also have a rigght to run a business.

Get the above in place and there are other swords for him to fall on if needs be. For example, he may have a genuine illness but he can still be breaching your absenteeism policy but not informing you within the policy guidlines = Disciplinary action.

You can provide documented evidence of his absenteeism levels agains that company average and this will work as a wake up call.

You have a right to make a dismissal for ongoing absenteeism, even if the illness is genuine, HOWEVER, this route is fraught with danger and I would encourage you take good quality and specific advise before going down this route.

Here is a good bit of simple but effective web based software that manages absenteeism and holidays for you and is well worth it's weight in gold. Time is money and ansenteeism is a huge cost to businesses.

http://www.office-control.co.uk/

 

[yorkshirejames]

3) We currently pay our full-time employees holiday time + bank holidays. We're now taking on a part time staff member who works 5 hours per day on Mondays and Wednesdays. If we pro-rata the bank holidays then I believe we owe her 3.2 bank holidays per year (we'd round this up to 4), however if we pay her for the holidays that fall on days which she otherwise would have worked we'd be paying her for up to 7 extra days per year. Is there a norm for how part-time entitlement is worked out?
If a full time person gets 5.6 weeks 28 days inclusive of bank holidays then a part timer gets a pro rata amount of this.
If someone works 2 days per week then the calculation is 2/5s of the full time equivalent:
28 days inc of bank hols /5 (5 days per week) = 5.6 days inc of bank holidays (this is what they would get if they worked 1 day per week.)
5.6 x 2 (days they will work) = 11.2 (round up to the nearest half day) 11.5
So the person is entitled to 11.5 days holiday per year inclusive of bank holidays, if a bank holiday falls on a normal working day i.e. a Monday/Wednesday then this has to be deducted form their holiday entitlement. They will be paid 5 hours holiday pay for these days as that is the hours that they work.
If however you have been paying in excess of what they should get, this becomes their terms and conditions of employment and so you would have to consult with them to get them to agree to a change in their terms and conditions of employment. This is something peninsula would be able to advise and assist you with.
The full-time employees get 5.6 weeks annually. As for what assistance the wife needs, our employee says that he needs time off to take the kids to school or look after them all day outside of term time. Plus he says he has to 'look after' his wife, which as far as we gather requires him to make the occasional cup of tea or pass her a tissue.

If his wife is genuinely ill then he may need to take the children to school and this is the kind of thing dependency leave should be used for, an unforeseen, occasional change in circumstances, so you should agree to this and perhaps be flexible with his working hours but advise him he is still expected in work once he has dropped them off and that he must either make up the time missed or the time missed will be unpaid, all dependency leave is unpaid.

While he began to call in absent when his wife was genuinely sick, now it seems that he's taking advantage somewhat and calling in when she has increasingly dubious illnesses. We feel like we need to put some set of rules in place to minimise this.

As stated you need to address this via an informal meeting and discussion as detailed above

NO!!! Lektra do NOT follow the above! Employerline has given you advice which falls foul of the Part Time Employees (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations and will create a serious issue for you.

If employerline is a Peninsula marketing person, then please note that I also work as an introducer there (and also offering other solutions and services).

Re the elective surgery, the people at Workplace Law Network produced an excellent guide for this. PM me with your email and telephone details and I will forward a copy of it to you.

 

[yorkshirejames]

sorry for the delay in answer int your question about holidays wednesdays are always busy

If they work 2 days then the calculation should be done in days and they would get 2/5s of the full time equivalent so, if a full time person gets
28 + 8 = 36 days

36/5 = 7.2
x 2 days she will be working = 14.4 so round to nearest half day.

14.5 days holiday inclusive of bank holidays and any bank holiday that falls on a normal working day should be deducted from their entitlement. A days holiday pay is 5 hours-their working day.

I hope this helps.

I thought you rounded UP to the nearest whole day.... so 14.4 is 15 days.

I disagree with your methodology though. This guy gives "28 days plus bank holidays" - note lektra that you are being generous here (but advice needed to change your offer).

Part time person is entitled to 28 pro-rata days (which I calculate as 11.2 days, rounded to 12) PLUS if they are due to work on a bank holiday (which in the holiday year Aug 2010 to July 2011 is three bank hol monday, one easter monday, and christmas monday (27th dec) total 12 days of their choice, plus five days when your office is closed.

BE VERY CAREFUL WITH THIS ISSUE. Karl is the person I would recommend you pay a couple of days of his time to review your contracts and policies, and recommend changes and the process.

 

[Employment Law Clinic]

Lektra,

I don't find there are many disagreements in this part of the forum, but your thread has certainly stirred things up! No bad thing, as legal practitioners argue in court every day, so there really should be more of it on here too.

To add to that further, I'm going to have to comment on the following (most of the rest of Outsource's thread I could only endorse):

Whilst he has certain rights at law as others have pointed out, you also have a rigght to run a business.

While this point is entirely accurate in as far as it goes, you can't consider the absences as reasonable or otherwise against your need to run a business - these absences need to be considered solely on the employee's need for the absence, with no regard for your own business needs.



Karl Limpert

 

Blimey I though I was in the SEO forum.:|

Earl

 

[Outsourcer]

Lektra,

I don't find there are many disagreements in this part of the forum, but your thread has certainly stirred things up! No bad thing, as legal practitioners argue in court every day, so there really should be more of it on here too.

To add to that further, I'm going to have to comment on the following (most of the rest of Outsource's thread I could only endorse):

While this point is entirely accurate in as far as it goes, you can't consider the absences as reasonable or otherwise against your need to run a business - these absences need to be considered solely on the employee's need for the absence, with no regard for your own business needs.



Karl Limpert

Just to add some clairty, I was referring to it being viewed as absenteeism as having a detrimental impact on a business and therefore absenteeism is something that businesses have a right to rein in. I wasn't offering it as a legal argument to use. So many businesses sadly put up with absenteeism as some sort of given right of the employee and never tackle it head on as they don't know thier rights and legal position as employers. The number of times i've heard " He's on the sick and therefore there is nothing I can do about it" and this is so totally wrong. They just don't know thier options or the vital need for robust policies around absenteeism.

 

[Employment Law Clinic]

The number of times i've heard " He's on the sick and therefore there is nothing I can do about it" and this is so totally wrong. They just don't know thier options or the vital need for robust policies around absenteeism.

Agreed. Forums are full of them, but even worse, more employers that should be getting the advice to deal with them don't check the forums, simply adopting this ridiculous attitude. Employees too, thinking they're safe from dismissal if they're sick, supported by spurious mention of the DDA.

Just to add some clairty, I was referring to it being viewed as absenteeism as having a detrimental impact on a business and therefore absenteeism is something that businesses have a right to rein in.

While absenteeism is a problem that should be dealt with, it is more delicate when it comes to absenteeism due to time off for dependants. There is no consideration in current law (s. 57A & 57 B of the ERA) for how reasonable this may be to the business - even one with only five employees. The employee has a right to reasonable time off (although whether the time off in this case is reasonable is open to debate), regardless of how it affects the business.


Karl Limpert

 

[Outsourcer]

While absenteeism is a problem that should be dealt with, it is more delicate when it comes to absenteeism due to time off for dependants. There is no consideration in current law (s. 57A & 57 B of the ERA) for how reasonable this may be to the business - even one with only five employees. The employee has a right to reasonable time off (although whether the time off in this case is reasonable is open to debate), regardless of how it affects the business.

I agree and it is that nebulous word hated by all in our profession ' Reasonable' . We tend to be quiet bullish in this respect and our version of reasonable tends to push the boundaries but our track record in Tribunals has been pretty damn good to date in this area. fortunately, 2 of my advocacy team sit on Tribunals so we get a good handle on how the panels actually view what is reasonable and what is not.

For readers of this thread, I (and i'm sure Karl would agree) I would suggest you ALWAYS seek good legal advice in this area before acting as it is not an easy subject to ajudicate on.

 

just to be clear the advice that i gave firstly regarding holidays was given based on bank holidays being inclusive in the 28 days as is done in most cases. upon realising that Bank holidays are infact being given extra which is very generous i then posted the second amount of advice.

which is the working out with bank holidays as extra on a pro-rata basis as for anything else regardign the comments made by myself everyone is welcome to their own opinion, and as Karl has said quite rightly no matter how much advice is given on a forum it can never be taken as complete as the people giving it have not seen the wording of documents such as contracts of employment and statment of main terms. and as such only a generalised peace of advice can really be given as a guideline.

Im sure everyone would agree that, it would always be wise to speak with someone face to face to face and most companies offer free advice visits some you have to let them run through their range of services and have a quote but you dont have to act on that quote

all advice given here should only be used to get an idea on where you stand only advice given after looking at documents in place would really be acurate

 

[Employment Law Clinic]

they work 2 days then the calculation should be done in days and they would get 2/5s of the full time equivalent so, if a full time person gets
28 + 8 = 36 days
36/5 = 7.2
x 2 days she will be working = 14.4 so round to nearest half day.
14.5 days holiday inclusive of bank holidays and any bank holiday that falls on a normal working day should be deducted from their entitlement. A days holiday pay is 5 hours-their working day.

I thought you rounded UP to the nearest whole day.... so 14.4 is 15 days.

There is actually no obligation on employers to round-up the leave, it's entirely at the discretion of the employer... even if it might be reasonable to do so: if an employee had 14.9 days of leave, they could still be required to attend work for 0.1 days, no matter how unreasonable that may seem!



Karl Limpert

 

[yorkshirejames]

There is actually no obligation on employers to round-up the leave, it's entirely at the discretion of the employer... even if it might be reasonable to do so: if an employee had 14.9 days of leave, they could still be required to attend work for 0.1 days, no matter how unreasonable that may seem!



Karl Limpert

Thank you Karl. As was evident from my post I wasn't 100% sure. I bow to your superior knowledge.

 

[Employment Law Clinic]

Thank you Karl. As was evident from my post I wasn't 100% sure. I bow to your superior knowledge.

:redface::redface:

 

[Employment Law Clinic]

Thank you Karl. As was evident from my post I wasn't 100% sure. I bow to your superior knowledge.

I actually think this has the potential to be a contentious issue: if you round up the leave, you give the part-time staff proportionately more leave, which seems unfair to others. If you don't, you have this ridiculous position of having to give staff .xx of a day, and if this is a high percentage, the staff would have to work for a few minutes in a day only - unless they take unpaid leave, which opens up a new can of worms.

The Working Time Regs are just a mess at the moment, and until they're totally overhauled (no indication of that any time soon), most of it will be guess work until case law decides we're all wrong.


Karl Limpert

 

[yorkshirejames]

I actually think this has the potential to be a contentious issue: if you round up the leave, you give the part-time staff proportionately more leave, which seems unfair to others. If you don't, you have this ridiculous position of having to give staff .xx of a day, and if this is a high percentage, the staff would have to work for a few minutes in a day only - unless they take unpaid leave, which opens up a new can of worms.

The Working Time Regs are just a mess at the moment, and until they're totally overhauled (no indication of that any time soon), most of it will be guess work until case law decides we're all wrong.


Karl Limpert

I don't think it is that ridiculous. Taking 0.1 of a day is maybe leaving three quarters of an hour early one day - which may well suit some people.