Work policy on 'snow days'

[davesgcr]

Well my wife (a community midwife walked to work and helped out in the hospital and when the roads had cleared a bit , walked out and did the critical home visits , my son who is an NHS referral worker for certain needs waited till 1000 and never having driven before on snow /icy and slushed roads made all his calls. All safely home.

In my BR days - we were always told to report to the local station and offer assistance , did some of my most enjoyable days getting stalled trains on the move in deep ice -including District line trains at Wimbledon , clearing points in the dark with one torch - longer days than average - and so cold it defied description , but so satisfying .....

 

[Sue]

Lazy fuckers had all day yesterday to dig the car out

"When I got up this morning all the snow had frozen".

The whole of Scotland laughs at us when we do this shit

A friend from Montreal who's lived in London for the last 25 years is particularly when it snows and everything grinds to a halt.

 

[StoneRoad]

When I worked in the centre of Newcastle (quite few years ago now) I got sent home one afternoon in case the roads became impassable, when our friends rang to say they had nearly 2 inches already. The following day the road was not cleared until mid-afternoon ...

gbww - drive out par StoneRoad2013, on Ipernity

The one boss got "stroppy" and made me take a leave day - until his partner turned up, and gave me TOIL hours instead. It seems that the same day as I went home early he had managed to roll a 4WD on a similar rural road to the one I normally travelled along.

Currently, and luckily, my home area is managing without lots of snow, although it is bitterly cold.

 

[kenny g]

Generally the piss takers try to take the piss and the grafters graft. Same as always.

 

[likesfish]

I wonder how you'd get on trying to make snow excuses if you were a snow plough driver

Unless you take the plough home how are you suppoused to get to the depot start work?

 

[Spymaster]

A friend from Montreal who's lived in London for the last 25 years is particularly when it snows and everything grinds to a halt.

The thing that people from cold climates don’t get about here is that we get this weather very occasionally, on and off, for a few weeks. Maybe. They get it for 4 or 5 months solid every year without fail so there has been massive investment in cold weather infrastructure in their countries that isn’t considered worthwhile for the odd cold snap here.

 

[mauvais]

I used to work in the countryside for somewhere where you couldn't work from home. I had studded ice tyres on my bike and winter tyres on the car. I don't think I ever failed to make it in. As someone else said, usually making it to work was a great idea because you'd be sent home again in fairly short order, whilst everyone else had to take leave.

Getting to/from work was immense fun because everyone else was fucked. In the car it was sometimes just me, in an Alfa, and the snow plough on the roads. On the bike it sounded like a halftrack and when you got sent away again you could just go and play in the forest instead.

 

[UnderOpenSky]

We're are expected to wade through snow drifts. Literally. I don't really do it for the company, but if I don't manage to do so, then other staff have to stay.

 

[moonsi til]

Annual leave is normal or TOIL in my experience. We had a fair few folk not at work this past 4 days & I expect a few to be in uproar re annual leave to be taken. We had a HR email reminding of this including those whom had to stay off due to schools being closed. Viewpoint is that there was time to prepare as weather was predicted.

 

[shakespearegirl]

sometimes they've just said don't bother coming in, at which point it's not a bother. that happened eight or nine years ago, when the buses stopped running, and i just went to the park and threw snowballs.

I remember this day. I insisted on working from home (no reason at all that I couldn't). My then boss got really shitty and made a huge drama about the fact that he and his wife were making their way in. They gave up half way into town and spent the day in the pub as she spent the afternoon drunkenly boasting about on Facebook. Whilst I spent the day at home being productive..

 

[StoneRoad]

Just discussed the situation (but now raining !) with current colleagues.
I'm glad it has warmed up a touch - I have been recently diagnosed with Trigeminal Neuralgia, and one of my triggers is cold drafts on the afflicted areas.

I think we'll end up with our own solution to the "Time off in bad weather" conundrum. One criteria - current image of your intended route !

 

[Gromit]

No they don't. Just thought it was a bit crap. My boss was quite annoyed I hadn't battled my way in like she did.

Annoyed? I'd be like...

Can I answer you a question?
If I battled in and died in the attempt because of the dangerous weather, would you feel any guilt? Would it haunt you or would you just brush it off as not your fault you guilted others into risking their own personal safety?

 

[RainbowTown]

Policy where I work is.... those who didn't make it in had a choice of either (a) a day's annual leave taken off their holiday entitlement or (b) unpaid for that day. Their reasoning (rightly or wrongly): if others made it in, then so should you. Or at least attempt too. They did allow certain exclusions for those who were based in the more rural areas, further away from the workplace and who simply had no chance to get in. And for those who were reliant on public transport. But for the rest, their attitude was simple: you can't expected to be paid for not coming in when others have made it in. Most accepted that point of view, I have to say.

 

[cybershot]

Policy where I work is.... those who didn't make it in had a choice of either (a) a day's annual leave taken off their holiday entitlement or (b) unpaid for that day. Their reasoning (rightly or wrongly): if others made it in, then so should you. Or at least attempt too. They did allow certain exclusions for those who were based in the more rural areas, further away from the workplace and who simply had no chance to get in. And for those who were reliant on public transport. But for the rest, their attitude was simple: you can't expected to be paid for not coming in when others have made it in. Most accepted that point of view, I have to say.

It's difficult to have a black and white policy, without blurred lines.

I think official weather warnings and public transport operations should be took into consideration regardless of where you live.

If the met office advise to not travel unless absolutely necessary, then as far as I'm concerned, work is not something I'm going to risk my life getting too, regardless of where I live.

If public transport looks like it's going to stop running, then employers should let everyone leave asap, and even stump up taxi fares to get people home. If I wasn't given the option to work from home yesterday and Monday there was no way I was driving, so I would have been reliant on public transport operating.

So how do you justify who should and should not be paid based on where they live and what options they had?

But, each company will have their own rules, and we're all replaceable at the end of the day, so they don't care if we die on the way to or from work.

 

[RainbowTown]

It's difficult to have a black and white policy, without blurred lines.

I think official weather warnings and public transport operations should be took into consideration regardless of where you live.

If the met office advise to not travel unless absolutely necessary, then as far as I'm concerned, work is not something I'm going to risk my life getting too, regardless of where I live.

If public transport looks like it's going to stop running, then employers should let everyone leave asap, and even stump up taxi fares to get people home. If I wasn't given the option to work from home yesterday and Monday there was no way I was driving, so I would have been reliant on public transport operating.

So how do you justify who should and should not be paid based on where they live and what options they had?

But, each company will have their own rules, and we're all replaceable at the end of the day, so they don't care if we die on the way to or from work.

I see your point totally.

 

[mauvais]

But, each company will have their own rules, and we're all replaceable at the end of the day, so they don't care if we die on the way to or from work.

There is possibly some sort of corporate liability risk, in that if they demand you come into work in dangerous conditions, and you come to harm doing so, you could have a case against them. How feasible this is, I don't know, but certainly companies I've worked for have been careful to act reasonably in these circumstances, shutting down site early etc.

 

[The Boy]

We're allowed one day WFH as a blanket rule, and we're encouraged to use it as part of encouraging a healthy work/life balance or whatever, so if we can't get to work it's expected that we do that (ie the one day a week rule has leeway). Only problem I have is that I leave my laptop in the office cos working from home doesn't really work for me so I have to keep an eye on the weather at the minute.

Edit:. In fact, one of the us offices was basically told to WFH the other day. Then again American culture is a bit sue-happy so that might have played a part.

 

[cupid_stunt]

There is possibly some sort of corporate liability risk, in that if they demand you come into work in dangerous conditions, and you come to harm doing so, you could have a case against them. How feasible this is, I don't know, but certainly companies I've worked for have been careful to act reasonably in these circumstances, shutting down site early etc.

I am not sure about that, IME employers don't tend to demand you get in during bad weather, they'll just not pay you if you fail to turn-up, so it's up to you to decide if it's safe to get in or not.

I am sort playing devil's advocate here, but if you fail to turn-up to an event you are booked for, due to bad weather, you're unlikely to get a refund, the organisers can't be held responsible for the weather, so I am not sure if employers can be.

I'll tag in rubbershoes, not sure if this is your specific field, but perhaps you may have some input on this?

 

[mauvais]

I am not sure about that, IME employers don't tend to demand you get in during bad weather, they'll just not pay you if you fail to turn-up, so it's up to you to decide if it's safe to get in or not.

For salaried permanent employees at least, this can amount to something more complicated than no hours = no pay. As for the comparison with attending events, the difference can be bluntly summed up as 'employment law', but I don't know anything useful on this specific subject in terms of rights or liability.

 

[cupid_stunt]

For salaried permanent employees at least, this can amount to something more complicated than no hours = no pay. As for the comparison with attending events, the difference can be bluntly summed up as 'employment law', but I don't know anything useful on this specific subject in terms of rights or liability.

It's certainly an interesting one.

I am thinking, again from my experience, when employed I've been contracted to do 'x' number of hours per week normally during specified hours, so if I fail to meet my commitment I wouldn't expect to be paid, although I would hope for a reasonable approach from the employer. The contract of employment will always be specific about time off sick & what payments to expect, but I've never seen anything about bad weather.

Hopefully rubbershoes can chip in with a legal point of view, but I am not sure if employment law is his thing.

 

[Winot]

Some useful stuff here:

Travel disruption and work - GOV.UK

 

[cupid_stunt]

Some useful stuff here:

Travel disruption and work - GOV.UK

From that link -

Employees are not automatically entitled to pay if they’re unable to get to work because of bad weather. Guidance is available from the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (Acas) about winter weather - travel disruption.

As I expected TBH.

 

[Gromit]

The policy where I used to work was that if you couldn't make it in to your place of work but was within 2 miles of a government building you had to make your way to that building and offer your services. Which for me would have been the Tax office.

I don't think I ever heard of anyone actually ever doing that. If they had I'm sure they would have been looked at in bemusement and told clear off.

You ain't our staff, like I'm going to let you in and play with our tax computers.

Imagine they had. No more tax for me to pay I've switched myself to the illuminati lizard tax code.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Policy where I work is.... those who didn't make it in had a choice of either (a) a day's annual leave taken off their holiday entitlement or (b) unpaid for that day. Their reasoning (rightly or wrongly): if others made it in, then so should you.

Wrongly. People live in different places.

 

[equationgirl]

Lazy fuckers had all day yesterday to dig the car out

"When I got up this morning all the snow had frozen".

The whole of Scotland laughs at us when we do this shit

We do

I get a lift into work. When we arrived at work yesterday the whole car park was a sheet of ice. Our concession to it was parking a bit nearer to the front door of the building.

When we had a really bad winter in 2010 (months of snow and ice) it meant extra layers in the office and not walking anywhere you didn't have to. It's not been overly snowy on the West Coast of Scotland so far to be fair, just cold.