Dd17 work won’t let her book some time off for her driving test

[Blueybingomum]

dd17 is currently doing an appearance in a nursery. She’s been there a year and absolutely loves it but the managers can’t be abit funny.

she passed her theory test last week straight away booked her driving test, now these are horrific to get atm and she luckily managed to get one in 11 weeks time.

she went to work yesterday and asked if she could book it off but manager has said it’s unlikely. She asked if she could just take the morning off as it’s at 11am but again, said unlikely. They told her she has to look at the staff rota and rebook her test. They have more staff than needed atm and are constantly sending staff home early.

Aibu to think it’s abit harsh.

Yes, everyone is entitled to it.

You’re not entitled to take it whenever you want no matter what issues that may present to the business.

It’s not about not being arsed, it’s about not wanting to breach safe adult to child ratios and risk a child’s safety or get themselves in trouble with Ofsted. I’m interested to know what you do for a living because it can’t be anything that is regulated or requires minimum staffing levels for health, safety and/or functional reasons.

They have 11 WEEKS to find cover.

It probably is just as simple as asking someone else to swap.

If you can't cover half a day with 11 weeks' notice you've got serious problems and are probably shit at your job. It probably also means that you don't have much goodwill among your existing staff. (I wonder why?)

Not term time no, they also work over Xmas.

If an apprentice being off for three hours is going to cause the business insurmountable problems despite knowing about it nearly three months in advance you shouldn't be running a business.

But, again, we don’t know what else is happening in the background. To a 17 year old it’ll seem oh so unfair, but the employer could know things she doesn’t. She’s an apprentice, so she won’t be entitled to know all the goings on of the business.

I've worked in retail for 20 years, across five different shops on the shop floor and in admin and I can promise you it's 100% normal and not a piss take. When you only have say four people in a particular team, you have to coordinate your annual leave or at best your colleagues would be in the shit or at worst the shop won't open. With ratios in a nursery I would imagine it's the same sort of thing

Tbh her annual leave is always denied. She tried booking it 10 months in advance and was told it was too soon because someone else might want it.

I agree with your posts on this. I work at a senior level in the NHS and we are as under resourced as they come. We will still try and support somebody with a driving test 11 weeks in advance.

All this means is that retail is a terrible industry to work in and people accept being treated like shit because they think it's normal.

If someone in your team makes an entirely reasonable request like this and you call all of the people who are not currently on the rota at that time and ask if they will swap and they all say, "no, get stuffed" instead of offering to help, that should tell you something about your management skills.

Has she actually been able to take her annual leave allowance at all?

And this post seems to suggest that she can only take annual leave at the last minute, provided no one else is off, because she's at the bottom of the food chain. That's not right. Her employer has a legal obligation to facilitate her taking her annual leave entitlement.

And the manager might avail themselves to be phoned while your daughter is making the appointment.

When we booked tests, the slots were released at 6 am on a Monday. I presume it’s still the case. Maybe the girl could suggest a Sunday night sleepover to her boss ;-)

It’s very short sighted though as a business. Presumably, they would like staff available to call in to work at short notice in an industry like childcare. Someone who can drive is going to be a lot more useful and responsive to the business than someone who has to catch public transport or wait for a relative to drive them.

In the long term a business like that will suffer from absenteeism and high staff turnover.

Frankly the way the tests are. It would be easier to find a new job than get another driving test, let alone one at a convenient time for work

Exactly, and the OP's daughter is much less likely to want to cover someone else's shift at the last minute after this. Goodwill is so important in the childcare industry for exactly this reason. You need people to call in sick as little as possible (i.e. only when they are actually sick and not because they have a driving test they didn't tell you about because you denied their request for annual leave the last time they booked one) and you also need people willing to come in on their day off if someone else has called in sick.

Me too, but I'd go off sick from the Monday. That might arouse less suspicion than just going off sick for the day of the test. After all, no-one should be at work in a childcare setting with a bad case of D&V, should they?

Where I work, they'd fall over backwards to let someone have leave to take a driving test, even in one of the LD homes where there's a minimum staffing requirement. They'd book a bank worker if no perm staff could swap.

Now this is a problem and worth challenging or raising with the college/apprenticeship provider.

Thank you all. I will show her this post.

So a couple of things could be happening here. Firstly the manager could just be an arse who is being deliberately difficult. Not unheard of and the apprentice is an easy target for a manager who likes to throw their weight around.
Or it could be that the date it is booked for there genuinely is other stuff in the nursery diary meaning they can't release her. There could be people booked on a training course, annual leave or maybe it's Christmas party day or the nativity play if the nursery do that kind of thing. Those ki d of days would be all hands on deck. In schools and nurseries these dates will be pencilled in up to 6 months in advance.
At 17 she will also be learning how work places work, how to ask for time off etc. How to negotiate stuff like this is a skill young people won't know.
I think the idea of logging in with her manager and showing her the appointments, or lack of, would be good if the manager will do that.

If they can't manage to sort a few hours cover in November (ie not peak holiday time), they're either appallingly inflexible or don't have enough staff to cover unexpected absence.

With the rota not being available less than 3 months before the date, I wonder how anyone there manages to book leave with that attitude from management.

I agree. If employers and managers are unreasonable, be unreasonable back. Driving tests are so hard to come by. She needs to be able to drive for her adult life.

I would tell your daughter to ask them how she is supposed to book a driving test if she can't guarantee a day off for it. And ask them to suggest a solution. She might not have the confidence to be forceful enough though.
If there is no other solution, I would tell her to phone in sick. The nursery are unlikely to be able to prove it unless she makes social media posts on the day. As for not having enough staff on the day - that's really their fault for not being reasonable, and they will just get a supply if necessary, which will cost them more.
Most employers would accommodate this, unless it's one specific day where no one is in.

No, it means that she can't have a day off when the rota doesn't allow - the OP says she was told to look at the rota for a suitable day to rebook her test.

If the staff are rota'd in based on the ratio of staff to children, she's been there a year so she should be aware of that and have checked before booking her test.

Not being able to get a single day/morning off with 11 weeks' notice is crazy, I agree. But she took a risk booking it blind. Hopefully someone will swap with her.

Sorry but it should be about staffing levels not the amount of notice
just because you ask well in advance doesn’t mean you can just demand off what ever you want
she needs to look at staffing levels for that week ,if there is enough to enable her to be off , then put a case together and take it to a grievance if need be

I'm not a manager, my manager is actually lovely, even though she recently turned down one of my holiday requests 😂