To think that as I am furloughed, my employer shouldn’t be expecting me to be spending my time doing training courses?

[Anquin]

I’ve been furloughed for 8 weeks and am likely to remain on furlough for another few weeks. My boss wants me to pick online courses to do which will benefit the Company if or when I return to work.
At the same time, the senior management are sending weekly updates that are increasingly negative about the future of the Company.
I find it extremely difficult to self-learn, and I’m becoming more worried about the future as I think I might be made redundant. My immediate boss keeps asking how the training is going (we have meetings weekly to catch up) and I’m getting really upset and anxious about it.
AIBU to think that if I’m on furlough I should be able to spend my day at home doing gardening etc. without worrying about training?

Considering the position you are in, I would suggest that you fully embrace the training program which your employers not only are well within their rights to implement, but more importantly that is absolutely in your interest as an individual to learn new skills In life.

Think of it as being gifted an opportunity to spend weeks and weeks learning new skills, whether they be related to your current role, or even skills and abilities more in line with perhaps that alternative career you’ve always longed for, and being paid to do so !

You can do your gardening and sunbathing at the weekend.

Ignore the idle chatter and negativity from your colleagues ... Embrace the training course, make a list of all of the topics you grasp every week and bore the hell out of your boss with them during each weekly meeting !

Do this for yourself, not for your employer, and you’ll never look back.

Don’t forget that this period also presents an opportunity for employers to downscale their workforce. If as an employer you know that you had to lose people, where would you start looking ? ... Maybe at those who complained about being paid to learn new skills, or those who embraced the opportunity for both themselves and the future of your company ?

Personally I would be doing anything to make myself more employable to my company. There will be some redundancies and I don't want to be one of them.

Surely OP is a troll?

My work mentioned at the very beginning of lockdown that the training website was available and we could use it, but hasn't mentioned it since. I've been doing an hour or two per day because there is information about legalities which will be helpful to know if I eventually lose my job, and it reflects better on me when it comes to review time.

". You are right they cannot make you do them"

Of course the employer can make staff undertake training whilst on furlough. Perfectly reasonable management request.

ginfordinner that is largely true with my workplace also come to think of it.

I think you'd be seen as very lazy not to do the course. Why wouldn't you do something that will benefit you in the future?

@itswonkylampshade

They can’t ask you to work while you’re furloughed: it’s fraud. You’re furloughed because there is no role for you to fulfil at present.

You're wrong.

“Furloughed employees can engage in training, as long as in undertaking the training the employee does not provide services to, or generate revenue for, or on behalf of their organisation or a linked or associated organisation.”

The same advice goes on to state:
“Furloughed employees should be encouraged to undertake training.”

So you want to get paid at least 80% of your salary for doing absolutely nothing? It’s little wonder your company’s in trouble

Actually, GreenTeaMug it isn't all of them, but it is largely true of most of the staff. My department at work is very busy as we are supplying a lot of PPE to the NHS and other public bodies, and our HOD needs people that he can rely on, because all of our jobs rely on us being able to work quickly and efficiently. There is no room for dead wood.

@BananaSpanner

In my organisation, I’ve heard that “how did you spend your time during the pandemic/lockdown?” is going to be a regular interview question moving forward.

That’s interesting... and I bet the answers will be really telling!

vanillandhoney the key word in my post was 'because'. I appreciate many people are working alongside childcare. What if they literally can't and that is why they were furloighed?

Why wouldn't they be able to train at home, though? Training has the advantages being flexible and presumably it can be done remotely via e-courses or similar. I don't think saying "but I have children" is a good enough reason not to partake in training unless that training requires you to go outside of home.

Plenty of people are still working 100% of their hours at home while taking care of small children.

In my organisation, I’ve heard that “how did you spend your time during the pandemic/lockdown?” is going to be a regular interview question moving forward.

Is "trying to cope with my anxiety and depression" an acceptable answer?

Not good at self learning?

Sorry OP bit if training is allowed under furlough youd better get good at it pretty quickly. After all millions of school children have had to puck it up quickly so Imnsire you can to.

Good luck, its strange times we live in.

@TheGreatWave

What training are people expected to be doing, that is taking up full time hours every week? Surely there comes a point where it is training for the sake of it.

I agree that it makes sense to take advantage of a free course (if usually costly) but if all the remaining training is vital for the role why hasn't it been offered before?

That depends on the role. Contractually I have to do about 15 hours of training a year. However it is very beneficial to both me and my employer to do enough to apply for professional affiliation, to maintain that, to learn new programming languages, even to study to masters/PhD level.

I could easily come up with a training plan that filled my time (if I wasn't already WFH, homeschooling and working on my PhD)

How are you replying to your manager when they ask how training is going? If you're struggling then say so, a good manager should understand and make allowances. So tell them that you find it much harder to learn by this method so each section of the course is taking longer than expected. You can say that you find that anything you study after the 5th hour isn't retained and you are needing to study at weekends and bank holidays to try to keep up. If you are not set up with a proper office at home than that will limit the hours that you can spend online studying. There are lots of people who are WFH for the first time who are getting back ache, neck strain and RSI in their mouse wrist because they're trying to work with a laptop on their kitchen table.

Please stop repeating untrue information.

Well, there's 90% of Mumsnet traffic gone...

@slashlover

In my organisation, I’ve heard that “how did you spend your time during the pandemic/lockdown?” is going to be a regular interview question moving forward.

Is "trying to cope with my anxiety and depression" an acceptable answer?

It’s no different a type of question than ‘what have you done in your latest role’, is it (given many people suffer anxiety, depression and stress at work)?

If I wanted a job to go back to , I’d do the training . Any training is a good thing In the current economic climate .

@BlackAmericanoNoSugar

Noooo ...

A good Manager maximises the companies revenue whilst minimising overheads. That’s what they’re paid to do, not to jump through hoops for people with special needs, they’re trying to run a profitable business for goodness sake.

[quote Realistica11y]@BlackAmericanoNoSugar

Noooo ...

A good Manager maximises the companies revenue whilst minimising overheads. That’s what they’re paid to do, not to jump through hoops for people with special needs, they’re trying to run a profitable business for goodness sake.[/quote]
Depends on the company I guess. Some companies expect their employees to be as lazy as they can be and so use nag and over manage them to make sure they get their money's worth. It's fairly self-fulfilling IME as self-motivating, hard workers will be stifled by it and will change job fairly quickly so they will be left with the ones who are so lackadaisical that they take ages to even look for a better job.

I've been over-hearing a lot of my DH's work meetings and they are working in the opposite way to how you suggest they should. There is no suggestion that anyone would shirk their duties if not closely monitored, they assume that everyone wants to work and do their best. They have been asking their employees to talk to them about any issues and trying to set up mutual support systems. For instance, they have a few people doing the same course so that they can learn together and support each other. They have also sent someone into the office to collect things to make the employees' lives a bit easier, like office chairs and monitors, and had them delivered to homes. One of the employees is in a small room in a shared house and is finding it very cramped and depressing, they are suggesting that this person (if they want to) could go back to their home country once it's safe to travel and work remotely from there as they would have much more space and emotional support in their family home.

[quote Realistica11y]@slashlover

If someone “suffered” from anxiety, depression and stress at work, I certainly wouldn’t want them on my payroll, and would hope they’d crack on questioning their rights and digging their own grave in terms of employment longevity.[/quote]
Lovely.... I suppose that, at least, if you make your feelings clear, people can avoid you/your company (regardless of whether they have or ot MH issues....)

[quote Realistica11y]@BlackAmericanoNoSugar

Noooo ...

A good Manager maximises the companies revenue whilst minimising overheads. That’s what they’re paid to do, not to jump through hoops for people with special needs, they’re trying to run a profitable business for goodness sake.[/quote]
I think you need to take some course in people management and business.
That way of doing business is outdated and has been shown to NOT work. It will be even less the case with the 'revolution' (in the way we work) hat covid has brought.

I'm on furlough and it's never even crossed my mind to not do the online training modules on our hub - it's not exactly "working", it's half an hour of training every week to keep me in the loop about changes at work so that when I can finally go back, I'm not like a little girl lost, but even if it was daily training they expected, I still wouldn't consider it wrong of them.
Furlough isn't an extended holiday - it's a job retention scheme because they don't have either the safety aspects and/or work for you (in my case it's safety aspects)