Dreaming of a White Christmas?
In reality, dreams of 'snow days' are often an HR Manager's nightmare, with serious travel and childcare disruption, and concerns over unauthorised absences. We set out the key considerations for employers facing a frozen flurry.
- Be flexible
Remember that there will be members of your staff who are more aversely affected by snow than others – for example those with childcare arrangements that may fall through, and disabled employees who may suffer more than most with disrupted travel. The prospect of disruption to this element of your employee's day is likely to be stressful and distracting, so being able to accommodate difficulties is likely to boost morale and good feeling amongst staff. Remember that, where an emergency childcare situation arises, parents have an absolute right to unpaid reasonable time off to care for their dependants.
- Be prepared
If snow is forecast, consider recirculating your adverse weather policy, or, if you don't have one, this may be a good time to put one in place. Consider circulating an email setting out the Company's requirements in relation to times during which adverse weather is affecting travel. If the company is prepared to agree to remote working, or requires line manager sign off before agreeing this, then specify the requirements. In particular, be clear on when an employee can work remotely, or will be authorised not to come to work, and what will happen to their pay in such circumstances.
- Be fair
You should treat employees fairly and reasonably in relation to such circumstances. Putting employees in a position where they take unnecessary risks in order to get to work, or treating employees unfairly when applying your policy in relation to absence could lead to unhappy employees with potential claims against the Company. In particular, keep in mind your employee's health and safety when making contingency plans. Employers should not treat employees to their detriment if they refuse to attend a place of work (or part of a place of work) which an employee reasonably believes to put them in serious or imminent danger, or where they have taken appropriate steps to protect themselves from what they reasonably believe to be serious and imminent danger.
- Be aware
As an employer, you are not obliged to pay employees who do not come to work, even if this is down to snow and travel disruption. Therefore you can treat 'snow days' in a number of ways:
- Ask the employee to take it from their holiday entitlement (and therefore they will receive pay);
- Explain to the employee that they will not be paid for this time (though it is a good idea to give any such employee the opportunity to work from home in such instances, and to have a policy/email as detailed above, which has explained the fact that they will not be paid for any such absence);
- Agree to pay the employee for this time on a discretionary basis (so as not to create a contractual obligation to pay in future); or
- In some circumstances, you could pay the employees for the absence, but require the hours to be made up on another occasion.
Keep records of 'snow days' taken, and how they are treated for the purposes of payment, and, if you think an employee is being disingenuous, or abusing the Company's policy on adverse weather related absence, you could consider disciplinary proceedings.
Hopefully poor weather will not put a dampener on the festive season for you, or your workforce!
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
