AIBU - employee always booking appointments during the work day

[Glitttter]

I am a small business owner with 3 members of staff. We've been working remotely like so many other people. 2 of them are brilliant, dedicated etc. the third woman just seems not to pull her weight, which might be the basis of why Im annoyed. However, recently, she keeps needing to start work late, disappear in the day, or leave early, for dentist/eye test/routine check up appointments.

My gripe is that she works part time, but always seems to arrange these routine appointments for days when she's working. AIBU to expect her to arrange appointments in her own time - at least mostly - instead of missing work to do so?

You’re being taken for a mug, but I’m afraid you’re behaving like a bit of a mug too. You need to tackle this now, not wait till December. Resentment will grow otherwise. And she could turn it round on you at her performance management and ask why this hasn’t been addressed before if it’s an issue. PMs should have no surprises.

Tell her straight that anything routine is in her own time or she makes the time up. You need to tackle her not pulling her weight too.

Knock it off her wages, OP.

Keep a note of the amount of time she was at these appointments and tell her she either does extra to make up the time or you knock it off her wages. Or she uses it as holiday.

I'd imagine your other members of staff will start feeling resentful towards her if they haven't already and therefore be annoyed with you as the employer for not sorting it.

We have a similar member of staff where we work and all the other staff resent them and the manager for letting them get away with it.

How long has she worked for you?
What is your company absence policy regarding appointments ?
Does she make up the time ?
Can you tell her to take it as holiday instead ?

Pull her to one side and tell her she needs to make up the hours or it’s being unpaid leave and her wages will reflect that.

You’ve given goodwill and now she’s taking the piss. If she was the type to put in extra and go above then that’s fine but take take take is not.

My dh is often late home, so if he needs to pop out for the gp/dentist/drop a child somewhere or pick one up they let him.

Is there a specific reason why she needs to work part-time? I can't help wondering whether she has caring responsibilities (a severely disabled family member for instance) when she's not at work, which makes it nigh-on impossible for her to have appointments on those days.

Perhaps it might be worth finding out whether there is a reason for the behaviour before going down the disciplinary route.

Are you paying her for these unworked hours? If you are, stop. Every company I've worked for In the past 30 odd years has always required that employees make up any time where they didn't do their full hours or they would deduct your pay accordingly.

And yes you can change the terms and conditions after they've started, but I'm assuming you didn't put in her contract that you would pay or Doctor and dentist appointments.

I hope you’re not paying her for these I worked hours!

Write a “appointments and short term time away from work” policy. Keep it short and simple. Email everyone a copy and ask them to sign to say they’ve read and accept it. Make it clear that appointments should be made for days off. Where that’s not possible, time off needs to be requested and authorised, and will be unpaid or flexi.

Don’t be a pushover, your other employees will come to resent it.

How long have they been with you? Can you get rid?

Employers have no legal requirement to give time off - paid or unpaid for routine medical or dental appointments. Tell her she can't and give her official warnings if she goes anyway and/or tell her that if she does, she will have pay deducted.

@MrsFin

Just how many doctor/dentist/etc does she have?

To be fair I have Dentist twice a year Haematology consultant every 3 months Dermatology every 2 months Plus probably 6 GP appointments a year Plus maybe 4 other hospital appointments Plus blood tests every 2 months

That's why I have no annual leave left
The telephone appointments have worked better as I just take the call which is maybe 15 mins and then go back to work rather than taking a day off

@honeybuns007

Employers have no legal requirement to give time off - paid or unpaid for routine medical or dental appointments. Tell her she can't and give her official warnings if she goes anyway and/or tell her that if she does, she will have pay deducted.

Depends. If she has a diagnosis of any number of conditions, other appointments may be part of protecting against complications and therefore penalising her for taking steps to deal with an existing disability or long term condition (in order to prevent long term illness, greater disability or death) could be legally problematic.

Take mine - EDS and Psoriatic Arthritis. Both can affect multiple systems and structures in the body, including eyes, skin, tendons, ligaments, joints, kidney function, gut, oral/dental, lungs, heart, circulatory - if there's a part of the body, it can be affected by one or both of them. Having one Autoimmune disease means you're higher risk for others, which needs regular monitoring. Then there's the consequences of medication - like increased risk of infection, bone density/osteoporosis/penia/malacia, liver failure, cancer, raised cholesterol and blood sugars, vulnerability to what can be minor things to somebody not on the same meds - like insect bites, cuts and grazes, injection sites - medication side effects, etc, etc, etc...Even a slip or trip could be exacerbated from an ice pack and evening on the sofa to a permanently debilitating injury with the diagnosis.

And, of course, at some point you can have the bog standard illnesses or long term age related changes such as glaucoma, cataracts, menopause, anaemia, heavy periods, ovarian cysts and anything that isn't connected in some way to the diagnosed condition.

It's all a bit shit, really. But being able to access appointments and not being penalised financially or in terms of disciplinary action keeps me from getting worse and ending up on long term sick or on the dole. I really appreciate it in comparison to employers, like PPs here, who treated any appointment as something that was an attempt to swing the lead and refused permission for absence or threatened already low pay or continuing employment over.

Is she being paid for this time?

It does sound like she’s taking the piss.

However, it does seem unfair in a way to try to get part timers to have appointments on their days off, whereas full timers get to swan in late and announce that they’ll make the time up, which is probably not policed. I always got pissed off when people needed to take the car into the garage, never seemed to want to take annual leave for that one.

You definitely need to deal with this now rather than later. Also consider how you would deal with a full timer having this amount of appointments- would they be required to work the time back? One of the advantages of being part time is that you can do that, but then it isn’t actually fair if full timers aren’t expected to.

I worked three days a week until recently and had quite a bit of treatment which I would arrange for days off unless I was seeing the senior person who worked the same days as me. Likewise every three months I would have an appointment for contraception and the clinics only ran on the days I was at work. (As an aside, I can no longer obtain the contraception as my condition means I’m unable to drive the 40 mile round trip to the clinic. That annoys.) Working in education, I never specially worked my hours back but I worked more than my contracted hours anyway so it worked out.

But when she requests the time off, what do you say,.

Eg appointment for contact lenses at 11. No. Not unless you can make the time up late in the week

Don't know if OP is returning, but it's not as easy as some people make out to get dentist appointments on your day off! I have one day a week off work, but because of covid my dentists are now at half capacity and my named dentist's day off is the same as mine! Plus, they reserve the early and late appointments for private patients and I'm NHS. Added complication, they don't allow children on site so I couldn't go on my day off as I'd have my 2 year old and she would not be allowed in, and can't exactly leave her alone in the car. Oh and my dentist insists on check ups every 3 months due to certain medication, so not the once a year others seem to assume.

So what do I do? I book lunchtime appointments and use my lunch break to go there, because I don't take the piss. So if you are approaching your employee about their appointments, please do allow them or suggest to them to make some common sense changes to how they plan their diary rather than just a blanket ban on appointments.

Erm, @annabegins forgive me as I don't have the facility to do this but could you not just book annual leave for the scenario you give above if the lunchbreak didn't work? Then your childcare is covered and you aren't swapping days or extending hours at nursery.

Make it a policy that flexible routine appointments - where you can choose your own time eg dentist, optician - must be booked in her own time. Emergency dentist / allocated hospital appointments can be allowed (not sure if you can legally ask for proof but I’ve worked in schools where you must supply the appointment letter in order to be paid). If not, it needs to be considered as holiday. It’s an absolute piss take! If she deliberately books appointments during working days then she’s not working and shouldn’t be paid!

For many years I worked in local government where we had a set system of performance reviews. Where an issue emerged (especially with new appointments) I would take the person on one side and explain about the review long before the first performance review (3 months) and give them an informal warning and a pep talk. I would explain the implications of being marked down on the review and give them the opportunity to address the issue before it actually came up. This was also their chance to explain any difficulties they had in meeting their contractual obligations - for example health issues, poor transport, etc.

This may sound very bureaucratic. However staff who got an unsatisfactory first review could not complain that it was sprung upon them.

I think it’s perfectly fine to say you’ve had a lot of appts recently, I don’t understand why they all seem to fall into a work day. Unless you can fit them into your lunch or non working days, or make it so they are first thing or after work, you are going to have to book them as annual leave from now on.
That’s a perfectly reasonable employer request. I don’t have to do it but I’m regularly on 9pm calls etc so my boss is more likely to think I’m owed time in lieu than taking the piss.

@Malbecfan To the people saying how long optician and contact lens appointments take, I am raising my eyebrows. DD1 has a summer internship and because she is working remotely, her employer has offered her a free eye test and contribution to glasses if necessary. DD has worn glasses since she was 2. Our normal Specsavers wants 2 separate appointments, one for the eye test and another for contact lenses.

Raise your eyebrows as much as you want, but when you wear both rgp contact lenses and varifocals; have a complex prescription; have free eye tests; have a contribution made by the NHS towards the cost of your spectacles - you can't just walk into any optician's and be seen when you please and be finished within 30 minutes.

She’s taking the piss. Give her a warning - it’s not fair on the other two staff.

@motherofcatsandbears

She’s taking the piss. Give her a warning - it’s not fair on the other two staff.

OP can't give her a warning for something she's agreed to

I think it is taking advantage, and the issue needs to be addressed now, not wait. At some point there may be less working from home, and the government having moved to step four of the so-called roadmap gives an excuse for a new policy. My view is making the time up would be my choice for one.

It may not be an easy conversation given that this has seemingly not been challenged and gone on for a while. Be prepared for bleeding heart stories or it's unfair, or allegations of sexism or some other card being played.

You can implement a performance review at any time, you don’t need to wait till Christmas. Start now. I’ve a small business, this would be uncool.