AIBU to dock this employees pay

[Fruitsaladjelly]

I have an employee who is employed 5 days per week but one of these days is spent at University studying for a professional qualification, the company also funds the course fees as this will be a benefit to us in the long term. This employee works in another office and therefore I don’t have direct daily contact. Today would normally be a university day but they are now on Easter holidays so I called to speak to her only to find she hadn’t come into work because Tuesdays are her uni day! Next week the same person has booked Wednesday, Thursday and Friday off as annual leave, no mention of Tuesday although she clearly is away for the entire week despite being paid to work Tuesdays. This is is more of a wwyd I suppose. I expect her in work if not pursuing the professional qualification, I expect extra study time to be completed in her own time as I personally feel being paid to study and having her course fees covered is perk enough so I don’t think calling the days ‘study days’ is good enough should that excuse be given. In any case I very much doubt she intends to take ‘study’ away on holiday despite it being a paid work day. It feels a bit CF

whatsthecomingoverthehill

Yes, that is exactly what they do. Usually when they start hiring people and realise that they need an employment contract for starters. Sure, some companies copy and paste someone else's employment contract but pretty soon any small business has to start taking HR very seriously when they start hiring - simply in order to protect themselves. Sometimes it will be a service offered by their accountant or accountancy company or whoever does their payroll.

It was all verbal.

What exactly was verbal?

If her employee hadn't been such a piss taker she wouldn't be in this position

Not sure why you are assuming the employee is an piss taker on the employer's say so - this being an employer who has publicly stated their HR policies are taken from randoms on the internet. That tells you how much they value their employees.

It takes precisely 30 seconds on that internet to at least get some authorised resources from the government, academic institutions and small business associations on the subject of in service training/education. Most courses assume a degree of study time built in as a requirement and in this case even the OP admits the training is of benefit to the company. But no, instead lets come whinging to MN instead and then blame a whole series of inconsistencies in the story on "trying to be anonymouse".

I get sick to the back teeth frankly of smaller and medium employers bleating about "red tape" which does nothing more than protect vulnerable employee's livelihoods from incompetent employers who think MN and internet forums are a substitute for adherence to good practice.

I used to run a large-ish company, I encouraged career development for my staff-so I did pay for degree type course for some of the staff that specifically requested it. I worked on the mentality that on the days Uni was closed, they would not be expected in, as coursework/research/revision still needs time. I operated on the basis of trust and my staff were fairly lovely. I did however lay out the terms of conditions in new contacts.
I always found that people enjoy autonomy over their roles, with a good built in support structure.
I appreciate it is a bit of a mind field managing staff but a bit of flexibility goes a long way, interms of loyalty.
Your staff member could genuinely be stressing of essays/exams after the Easter break.

HR would be light on work.

aka "I don't pay for insurance because it would be light on claims".

The clue is in the name - shared service HR.

But then if nobody ever leaves you have nothing to worry about do you? You stated up thread that the qualifications are of benefit to the company. So obviously the employee will never leave you you will have decades to recoup that benefit.

@Ghanagirl

I’m confused do you own the company or are you her line manager as surely it’s down to the owner or shareholders

I don't think the OP is quite sure either.

Sam, yes my initial though was it was to facilitate coursework and my first reaction was to give them the benefit of the doubt (although extra time for study was never part of the deal) but on discussing it with the line manager the holiday situation came out. That seems so obvious that they won’t be doing coursework mid way through a holiday. However they have very deliberately only booked leave on the normal work days when our system would make simply blocking off the entire period the obvious simplest thing to do. They have instead booked two separate periods of annual leave sandwiching a study day.

Haffiana, I'm sure lots of companies do as you say. But many don't. The company I work for doesn't. Neither do they have an IT department or use an external IT company - they do it themselves. If you're not very good at it then yes you should get somone who is.

C8H10N4O2, I would say HR departments are more about protecting employers than employees...

In reality we prob could afford an HR person but instead we use the money we pay our staff really well by industry standards

AKA “we cut corners in the important businessy stuff we think we can google for, in order to pay more than we need to on salary”

I ask again, did you do any business management training before you decided to start a business?

I would say HR departments are more about protecting employers than employees...

Good HRs do both as a good two way relationship benefits both sides. But either way, even more reason to have the services.

When the OP can decide if they are employer or employee or something else they can decide which advice to take from "randoms on the internet" in lieu of professional advice from qualified service provider. They are getting what they have previously paid for!

To clarify we have someone who supplies the employment contracts, we aren’t totally diy, I don’t call them ‘ HR ‘ though, we have very very minimal involvement with them. My point in this thread was to judge what others thought was normal practise. I wasn’t going to do anything rash based on what people said here, I didn’t know ACAS was a public service. It seems there are many who do actually study whilst working some would go in some wouldn’t. It also seems to vary between those who chose to study v those who are qualifying at the request of the business and those who are paid as apprentices v those who are fully fledged professionals. Our lady is on full money with or without this qualification, it’s a nice to have not a need to have for us.

Universities set coursework for students to complete during holidays, and it is also coming up to exam time. Even if she’s not physically at university, she has reading and assignments to do.

YABVU.

I think you may be being unreasonable. And also not. Helpful comment award.......there needs to be clarification and it clearly written that Tuesday's. When not at Uni are to be treated as a normal work day and that she should attend the office as planned. That any annual leave requests, should also contain the Tuesday, and will not be paid or accepted as AL otherwise. If you want to make a point, then tell her you expect her to attend work on Tuesday. If she is unable to, that will not be a paid 'day off' but that you will grant it on this occasion. From this point on, you need a copy of the timetable, and told in advance which Tuesday's she will be available to work her hours as expected. That all 'holidays' from Uni she will be expected to attend the full working week, unless otherwise discussed and agreed on in advance with you.

Absolutely make it clear you expect attendance on Tuesdays during holidays. I would be tempted to ask her if she forgot about booking that extra working day off rather than docking it.

To clarify we have someone who supplies the employment contracts, we aren’t totally diy, I don’t call them ‘ HR ‘ though, we have very very minimal involvement with them.

OK OP here is a suggestion.

Go away. work out what your story is, whether or not you are the actual employer, whether or not you have HR, whether or not its your responsibility. Then rather than come back for advice from "randoms on the internet" on a scenario which by your own admission is substantially tweaked for "anonymity just stick your hand in your pocket for some professional advice (assuming you consider your employees are worth it) or at least read the many free resources suggested on this thread.

Also work out the value of the qualification which has changed with your story from being valuable to the company to a "nice to have".

Nomorepies- very naive, I treat others as I would like to be treated and expect standards of behaviour based on my own conduct.

The stealing thing was horrid, that person had been with us for many many years, they got themselves into trouble by living beyond their means, funding a very expensive hobby. We couldn’t understand where the money was coming from. Everything came to a head in a short space of time and they ‘resigned’ aka we let them know we were onto them and they could leave or they would be dismissed. The stealing from us ran parallel with other schemes they got involved with and they have since been convicted and gone to prison but we didn’t bring the police into the mattered that they weren’t already investigating which were in comparison small fry.

I don’t think a company who does a few contracts is anything close to an HR department who from what I read on here seem to be the go to for every instance of employee grievance from ‘comments made’ to ‘ being asked to move desk’ or being ‘asked to contribute to charitable work collections’. So no change of story there. We have company who writes contracts as a one off thing. You seem quite over invested in wanting everyone to hire and HR person for some reason.

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I worked for a big blue chip type company, massive HR department. A colleague did a masters - course paid for, plus paid leave, revision leave, exam leave, dissertation leave etc etc. Day she got her degree she resigned. Nothing was in writing, no required working period afterwards. So it’s not just workplaces without HR that make this mistake.

The next person who got to go on a one day external training day pretty much had to put down two kidneys as collateral

OP is she actually away on holiday though? Is it possible she’s taken annual leave in order to revise / get work done?

I skipped from first to last page.

YABU. You cannot dock someone's wages in this way. Your employment contracts need to be clear, unambiguous and in writing. If you expected her to be at work on the uni days when uni is on holiday you should have made that a clear contract term.

I don’t think a company who does a few contracts is anything close to an HR department who from what I read on here seem to be the go to for every instance of employee grievance from ‘comments made’ to ‘ being asked to move desk’ or being ‘asked to contribute to charitable work collections’. So no change of story there. We have company who writes contracts as a one off thing. You seem quite over invested in wanting everyone to hire and HR person for some reason

That post along with a couple of your posts on the first page tells me you are in dire need of some training in employment law.

How do you know she’s not in Uni? Just because you called and lectures aren’t on during the Easter Holidays doesn’t mean she’s not there studying - it’s the norm to still go in and study even when lectures aren’t on. University libraries are often open 24/7 for this purpose!

I had the same arrangement with my boss, but it was expected that I spent the day studying when Uni wasn’t on.