Dependant and sick leave..

[RaginaPhalange]

Posting here for traffic.

I got a call from my sons school to come pick him up as he vomited in the class room, left work and collected him.

My question is my work place have been taken over by another company and they have a lot stricter absence/sick policy. Can I be disciplined for taking time off for my sick child?

I'm asking this as they asked another staff member if having a sick child was going to be a problem.

Thanks

I don't disagree. I just don't like the "you must all work for crap employers" approach of that poster, who probably slams all the money being "wasted" on public sector pay and terms, but then thinks their own very generous terms are the norm. Like you I am in the public sector, and it is far, far less generous than many people assume. But then I also know private companies that are dreadful employers and begrudge even paid statutory holiday. Oddly, my experience is that there are far more private sector employers that I wouldn't touch with a bargepole than any other. Many of them huge names - and many of whom are reguarly caught not even paying the minimum wage, never mind giving people time to look after sick children, paid or unpaid.

When did this become about public and private sector?! Although I am shocked that the public sector don't get any paid dependants leave. Don't take it personally, it's not insulting to you if I say it's crap that companies /public or private sector/ don't offer this perk.

It's not always as easy as that though in smaller companies. If my senior manager needed to take 5 days off (we have a small company), it would potentially lose us almost £8,000 in fee income.

Realistically, however, in our company, the majority of our staff can WFH so will just do that instead, or in the event of not being able to work will normally offer to make the time up, or take it as leave otherwise.

Our contracts of employment and employee handbook says time off for dependents is otherwise unpaid, but I can't say I recall a time where we've actually not paid someone, due to them being able to catch up or WFH instead.

@RightTimeRightPlace I work for a small company (less than 40 employees) and they are very understanding and have an approach much like the big companies you work for. I guess the horrible companies can be either big or small. Company culture makes so much difference to the overall working experience - especially when you've got young children. It's a shame that people often don't feel they have much choice and have to put up with employers like this.

Smaller companies can't always be as 'generous' as larger ones. That's just a fact of life and often made up for in other areas. It would be very naive/inexperienced to think that made them 'crap' places to work.

Agreed. We are a small company that can't always offer as generous terms as bigger organisations. Where we make up for that is in terms of flexibility and the understanding that family is most important. The amount of times people have had to disappear for a family emergency in the middle of the day and can just go without fear of getting told off. I'm the boss and I even ended up finishing off our receptionist's work one day when she got a call that a family member had been involved in an accident.

The kindness we show our staff is returned by them in the efforts they put in - we all go above and beyond for each other.

As I said to the said receptionist the other week - family comes first. We're work family, but home family is most important.

Staff stay with us for years and years and very rarely have any disciplinary issues (and where we have they've very much been bad employees, not bad management), so we must be doing something right!

Not everybody can afford "perks". That doesn't make them "crap". I could point out that your nice big companies are probably not paying for your "perks" - we are. Because it's the huge profits they make that enable them to do it. Not did I say that tehre is no paid dependants leave. There is some. But we don't have the money to pay for the amounts you are suggesting you have. And I am pretty sure that if we did pay for it we'd soon hear whining about yet another "great perk" like our huge pensions (not true) and lengthy holidays (not true) on the taxpayer - despite the fact that the source of all employers money comes from the same source - me and you. Whether it's taxes or prices, all perks are paid for by us. Most of the public sector simply can't afford what you describe and that does not make them crap employers. They are not crap. They cannot afford it. All that dependant leave, in private sector terms, is a cost to profit. Where I work that is a child's future or a vulnerable adult housed. What do you think our "crap employer" should do - give us more paid dependant leave or look after an abused child? Because those are the real decisions that we make daily.

I used to take unpaid dependents leave when my DC's were sick. I think it's sort of limited to a couple of days at a time though.

Then unpaid parental leave for school holidays which left my annual leave for other child related time off or to have longer off when they were ill.