With winter fastly approaching, no matter what industry or sector you operate in, it is important to be prepared for the winter weather and the potential impact it may have on your business and your team. Here, we look at Snow Days And HR Regulations: Keeping Employees Safe.
Employees must know their rights in challenging weather conditions
Many employees may not be pleased to hear the following comment, but an employer has no obligation to pay their employees if they fail to turn up for work. It is important to be aware that an employer cannot force employees to attend work in challenging weather conditions, but they don’t have to pay employees who don’t attend.
Even if the employee has been unable to attend work due to the weather or a lack of public transport, there is nothing which states that the employer is responsible for paying a wage for that day. The same line of thinking can be applied to employees who arrived late or had to leave early, missing out on expected hours.
This is a decision for individual firms to make, and it may be a decision based on goodwill and maintaining staff morale as opposed to be a reasoned business decision.
Childcare is always a factor when travel is compromised
There is an awful lot of excitement surrounding snow days but with schools and nurseries being closed, many employees are placed into a position where they need to arrange alternative childcare at short notice. This can be difficult and an employer that shows flexibility in this situation should find that their employees respect them for the decision. However, there are no statutory rights for employees to receive payment if they require an emergency day relating to childcare. Individual firms’ may have provisions in employee contracts, but this is for every firm to consider as opposed to being a universal situation.
There will be firms who make allowances for time to be made up or to arrange a holiday day at short notice, but there is no legal requirement for employees to cater for the childcare needs of their employees.
Some companies will have considered asking, or even forcing, employees to take a holiday day for the dates that they are unable to come into work. However, for this to be enforced, the employer must provide notice that is twice the length of time that the holiday will run for. The following examples outline what a company must follow in forcing employees to take a holiday:
-For one day holiday, two days’ notice must be given
-For two days holiday, four days’ notice must be given
-For five days holiday, ten days’ notice must be given
While the expectations surrounding forcing employees to take holiday leave are clearly defined, there is room for discussion on the required period of notice when an employee receives more than the statutory minimum holiday period, 28 days.
It is not always possible to be proactive when dealing with weather conditions
most companies adopted a “wait and see” approach to the conditions, reacting to snowfall as opposed to pre-empting the conditions. In this situation, not enough time would be available to enforce holiday periods on to employees.
We hope that you have found this post on Snow Days And HR Regulations: Keeping Employees Safe useful.
Any organisation looking to review their HR practices and conditions should consult a specialist. At Davenport Solicitors, we offer a range of solutions and services to help your company fully comply with regulations while providing a duty of care to employees. Contact us today to find out more.
