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

Would love an update on the legal perspective.

You can deduct her pay if you want to, but it has to be the outcome of a disiplinary.

I would bring her into the office for a meeting, tell her that as she is paid for 5 days she is expected to work 5 days. She either needs to be in the office or at uni attending lectures, NOT studying. That can be done in her own time or when business is quiet as you are paying for the course and for her to attend it. I would then inform her that it it was to happen again you will be docking her pay (she has to agree to this for it to be enforceable).

I understand what you are saying, OP. It sounds like you expect more than just an employee who comes in and does the basics and leaves. You want someone who is committed to building the company. I'm not sure how realistic this is though. I mean, some people will get that, others won't. I understand the flexibility is good, but there will always be people who will take advantage, so it's probably better to have rules and structure, so everyone knows where they are and what's expected.

There are quite a lot of issues with your OP and you are breaking the law on several sapects -

she hasn’t had any reduction in her pay since we said she could do her course on one of those days, she knows this. - you cant dock people pay for day realease to college, nor can you demand they make up the time. Thats illegal.

I was never really going to dock pay no, you cant, that's illegal too.

It's called day release - they let you off work to go to university as required. If there's no university, you need to be at work, unless you have booked leave. - is this written into her contract? I doubt it seeing as you dont have an HR dept and your contracts will be bog standard. You've agreed a day off a week to persue further education - she can use that for personal study, because you have not said other wise.

Most small companies do take legal advice on HR matters, even if you employ someone part time or use a resource function and buy in services from a larger company

Black cat- what you are saying is the same battle that I have had in my own head for a long time. We currently hold onto employees and have a strong team who do meet the expectation helped by the fact they get a profit share based bonus. However there have always been give an inch situations which lead me to considering changing our way of operating to something far more defined. In many ways what we have works, really well, we just have to check the odd person now and then. I worry tightening up would lead to a breakdown of relationships but I hate when this sort of thing happens.

It must be clearly written down, if it simply says they don't work on Tuesdays then they don't need to come in, if it says not Tuesdays if attending university, or in term time that's different. I would suggest you speak to them directly, have a copy of the agreement about the study leave and offer the extra days taken as annual leave or unpaid, they can choose.

Which tower - I don’t get why you think I’m not listening to advice, I’m just trying to explain my thought process on the matter

The employee is wrong. It works the same as with an apprentice.

She is a full time employee. You allow her the time to go to university when that is on. If there is no course on, she should be at work.

See if she turns up for work and if not call to find out where she is. Explain that it is a working day and since there is no course she is expected to be at work. You may let the one day slide but in future she either takes it as unpaid leave or a day's annual leave.

Maybe I need more employees who do like to moan and dig into what others are doing or for her line manager to be more suspicious, he also thought she was genuinely attending her course.

I hope you’re joking here, @Fruitsaladjelly because that’s a sure fire way to demotivate people and cause conflict between colleagues.

This business sounds like your baby, which I understand, but not only are you taking all this very personally but you’re also using emotive language and making a lot of assumptions (employee lied, jetting off to the beach etc.). You’re still blaming the employee for not being psychic when by your own admission, your agreement was verbal and clearly you didn’t think to clarify what would happen when uni is in session.

Do you KNOW and have proof that this person lied? Do you KNOW that she’s “jetting off to the beach”? It doesn’t sound like it.

I suspect you’re angry with yourself for making a basic error but instead of thinking clearly and calmly about getting things clarified and writing a proper agreement so everyone knows where they stand, you’re thinking with your emotions and making assumptions. There’s nothing wrong with saying “I made a rookie error” and taking responsibility for your mistakes.

@Fruitsaladjelly you’ve come to MN for people’s advice, which they have given you.
But it doesn’t matter what any of us think.
It is all dependant on what is in the contract, but there isn’t one.

There are plenty of unfair contracts which benefits one side more than the other but it is laid out clearly so everyone understands their legal standing if there was ever a dispute.

You really need legal advice specific to your case. I’m very interested to hear the outcome. I wouldn’t be surprised which ever way it went to be honest as you both have an interesting argument.

If you do want to draw up a contract then your employee will have to agree to this. Be careful not to force her into anything.

I made rookie error, I thought I had said that or words to that effect up tread.

The employee is wrong. It works the same as with an apprentice.

An apprentice should either have it in their contract or have a signed a learning agreement which makes it clear either way. Especially a graduate apprentice who will be expected to do independent study.

You allow her the time to go to university when that is on. If there is no course on, she should be at work.

Depends on what they've agreed. If they've agreed she's at work when not actually in college, that's what should happen. If they've agreed she gets independent study time when college is closed, then that's what she gets. If they haven't said anything either way, then they need to sort something out.

perk

OP, When you stop thinking of studying as a "perk", and start thinking of it as part of your employee's working life, you will find it a lot easier to be clear about your expectations about where she is and when.

You have said that there are days when people take a long lunchbreak and other days when "something will kick off and no one’s feet touch the ground, you don’t even have a chance to look at your to do list until 4pm," I am guessing that what you really mean is that people don't just work hard, they stay late and miss lunch and work longer hours than they're paid for that day and they don't get paid overtime. So giving them a long lunch break is not doing them a favour or giving them a perk in return for working hard during the day. You are just using an informal way to make up for the extra hours worked.

You have a fantasy going on in your head about how your company is managed.

Thread even

I worked for 20 years until I retired in a friendly team, due to the nature of the business there was turnover. As the owners passed 60 they looked at a manager. He had been in a very rigid background and had to balance his experience against a much less formal setting. The business had to comply with a lot of regulations which was his forte. He hired an HR service for a monthly fee which kept him up to date but would give advice on individual situations. I think that works well for a small company as the HR are professionals at a distance.

I would write to your employee setting out the days she is entitled to as uni days, ask her to give you a schedule as clearly you were not intending to reduce her attendance to 4 days a week.

I would also look at her holiday entitlement and readjust it to the hours she works. The minimum statutory holiday pay was increased from 4 weeks to 5.6 weeks as employers didn't have to give bank holidays as well. For example your employee works 5 days a week for 52 weeks which is a statutory 28 days. But if she is only working 4 days then her holiday entitlement is 22.4 days based on the fact you are giving her one day a week. At the moment your employee has 36 days at uni then she is taking 16 days holiday in addition to her statutory 28 days iyswim.

The owners used to be horrified that the minute pay slips were produced staff would compare them. We used to base their holidays on an average of the hours they worked. I had a few arguments with the owners about this but it proved to be a fair way and was instrumental in covering overtime and goodwill.

Sorry if someone else has said this.

When you design courses, they come with a certain amount of face to face and a certain amount of declared independent study which is usually more than the face to face. Your employee needs this " day off" to study. She is in the right.

Imagine how you will feel if you paid, and then she fails!

I think unless you specifically told her she had to be in unless at uni you're being unreasonable.

My company pay for people to do masters etc, and we give them stuff time as well as attendance time.

My daughter also works for a large company and is doing her legal qualification at uni at weekends and her company give her study leave, and its several days in the lead up to exams.

Neither company says well you don't need it for your job and you might go elsewhere so it's grudging.

You're clearly not so generous and that's fine, but I would expect you to articulate your requirements of her and to be hands on in understanding her curriculum to avoid any miscommunication.

And I'd be pleased with an employee who is trying to better themselves and see what I can do to support them and better utilise them, as well as understand the pressures they are under.

I made rookie error, I thought I had said that or words to that effect up tread.

I must have missed that then, my apologies.

You still sound quite bitter and angry though when all that’s needed is clarification.

I think you need to clarify what is written in the contract before taking any pay away from them.

Sounds like you both need further clarification about what is expected, what is obvious to you may not be clear to her.

This needs discussion, preferably put down in writing/email so that there is no risk of mis-interpretation etc

You should've been clearer. Both of you have made an assumption about something that should really have been spelled out when you mutually decided to go for this arrangement.

Obviously don't dock pay, you haven't got a leg to stand on, but have a chat with her about it and agree a plan for the future, and think of this as a lesson well learned.

You should have been clear from the outset that during holidays she is expected to be in work on her uni day, whether that was formal in her contract or not. You weren't and thus, she thinks that any day that is usually a uni day is a day off to study. When booking annual leave under these conditions, I would have booked around my usual days too. She hasn't done anything wrong, she's not taking the piss, there's a distinct lack of communication here and unfortunately you've ended up short handed due to it.

You can't just dock her pay. Get that idea out of your head.

She could absolutely be doing assignments in the Easter holidays. I'm up to my neck with assignments which are due in in May/June.

I think you need to not dock her pay this time but talk to her. Tell her that you're disappointed she didn't realise that as a full time employee she's supposed to be working full time. That you've been generous to her and this is how she repays you. Not nastily, because she might not be being a cheeky fucker but a genuine misunderstanding.

Hopefully she will be mortified.

Woah one on my messages were deleted. Wasn’t rude or offensive. Wonder why MN deleted it. Can’t even remember what I said.
I think it was along the lines that you’re still blaming the employee.
WOW MN seriously?

What will you do, OP?

OP, why are your errors “mistakes” and her errors are “lies”? I think your previous bad experience with the stealing employee has made you jump to conclusions that time is being stolen from you.

It’s perfectly possible that the employee saw the Tuesday day release as continuing for the duration of the course. Since you never write anything down, why shouldn’t she?

You have a difference of opinion. Don’t paint her as the villain and you as the innocent. You both should have clarified the terms of the day release.

Clear the air and set the ground rules anew to avoid any future confusion. In case of further jiggery pokery written warning or telling off, after which the door is mentioned by inference.