AIBU to think a junior probationer’s month abroad request is unreasonable?

[estrogone]

We have a junior in our office who’s only been with us about three months and is still on probation, where the expectation is mostly office-based work. They briefly mentioned in passing at one point that they might travel overseas, but there was never any proper discussion or approval before the trip was booked.

They’ve now come back and advised the trip is already booked and confirmed for nearly a month overseas, in a time zone 10 hours away. They proposed a range of adjusted working arrangements, including shortened hours and overnight work, so they can continue working remotely while away.

I haven’t approved the shortened hours or alternative arrangements and have asked them to demonstrate how they realistically intend to maintain service levels and cope with working nights while effectively on holiday overseas.

I am a lot WTAF to four weeks of leave for someone who has only been with the business a matter of months and is still in probation.

AIBU to think this is request is out of order?

This is priorly booked and she asked. Even so, a company would be within their rights to refuse prior booked leave but most do allow it if asked/told.

@estrogone Never been in a job where you did not need to get your holiday approved. If they have booked it already though I think you should say take all the holiday you have accrued and the rest as unpaid. Still a pain for the rest of you covering their tasks

Just say no. I just turned down a request from someone who wanted a 6 week career break. She's been with us 16 months which is less time than the 2 year requirement to be eligible for a career break in our policy and it's at our busiest time.

You really don't have to do anything at all to accommodate this and if you do you'll be setting a precedent for this person to take the piss plenty more times in the future.

So 17 days, 5 days annual leave accrued? I’d offer to let them bring forward a further 5 days of this years allowance and 7 days unpaid as it’s not compatible with wfh. But does depend on whether there’s any precedent of wfh overseas, if there is then I’d potentially be offering those 7 days as half days spread over 2 weeks

Also as others have said, they won’t have accrued that amount of leave yet and it may go against annual leave policy, it would ours.

This.

If they don't have the leave accrued then they can surely only take the days they have? I don't think you need to allow them to 'work' while on holiday in a different time zone and I don't think you need to give them unpaid leave.

25 isn't that young. One of my children is in a very responsible role indeed and is younger than 25... She has herself had to manage CF juniors (in one case older than her by a couple of years) and sought advice, but nothing as CF as this! Taking age into account has expired by 25 years old I think - supposedly neurological puberty is finally complete at 25!

On the other hand I've also lived and worked for decades abroad and encountered this attitude that employers essentially have to facilitate long visits to your country of origin (from people with all sorts of countries of origin including, but not limited to, all the big English speaking countries...). Unless it's been agreed formally, in writing, there is no such special entitlement (although exceptions for a very close family member such as a parent being at the end of life are obviously humane and not unreasonable).

I've heard and seen lots of raging about the unfairness of being turned down for long periods of extra paid leave/ wfh for visiting county of origin, and wonder if it stems a bit from the "ex pat contacts" which used to be more common and explicitly allowed a long period of leave every second year or similar and even paid for flights - those contacts were only ever for very special hard to fill roles of the type that couldn't be filled locally, and they're far rarer now than 20+ years ago. They'd never have accommodated the office junior on probation even in their hayday!

I suspect all the special wfh arrangements of the pandemic and the social media digital nomad "context creators" have fueled misunderstanding and unfounded expectations too!

25 is too old to just indulgently make allowances for being so naive though.

We have two offices and have to walk between the buildings for meetings. This person mentioned it in passing on a walk. I thought it was a pie in the sky idea given ME flight issues and brushed it off.

I do not think for a second that I gave the slightest hint it was approved. They must have taken my lack of response as some sort of go ahead.

I am leaning towards letting go. Nobody is irreplaceable. If I give the option of them cancelling there would only be bad feeling. If I keep them on, I have to piss about training a temp.

They are otherwise very promising, great with their allocated client. Balls, bugger, shit, fuck. Three months of training down the swannie. People suck.

The last company I worked for had the following rules which I felt were pretty fair
*Any leave above 2 weeks had to have special approval
*Any working from home that wasn't your home had to have approval from your line manager and you could demonstrate that you had equivalent facilities - desk, quiet space, reliable secure internet
*Any working from home had to be in done during normal office hours for work location and during the normal awake time in the time zone you were working in.
*Any working from home not in your home for longer than 3 days had to get special approval

They brought the rules in the office managers partner took a job abroad with a 6h time difference. They were trying to go out there but continue working. It was a bit of a nightmare as you couldn't reliably get hold of them during the morning and then they were rushed in the afternoons trying to fit a days work into the half a day where the time zones were compatible.

Sorry just seen your update.
That says that they know they are taking the piss and are too cowardly to ask face to face.
It's also left you with an issue in your time off.
I'd really be tempted to email with

1. the length of time is unreasonable
2. the notice given is unreasonable
3. you have not accrued sufficient leave
4. four weeks continuous leave would only be granted in either exceptional circumstances or to a time served employee Taking the above into account I'm declining your request.

And then I would leave it.

Is this your company @estrogone ?

So is it a holiday, or are they going home for some reason and could work from there? I think this needs further discussion.

You don’t need to do that. The person has tried to be cheeky, it hasn’t worked, don’t do them any favours by agreeing to “find a way for it to work”. You’ll end up taking on their extra work during those 4 weeks, and they’ll have learnt they can take the piss any way they want to. Don’t set that precedent.

Ok that is a little different as they will likely be in a private residence. Will they dp nights there so during the working day in the UK ?

If they are still in probation and would normally work in the office then I would refuse working remotely abroad purely on the basis that it is not how they would work if they were fully trained and compentent and they aren’t yet, they are still learning and in probation.

Location, data security, end-user security, continuity of internet service are all additional factors. It then comes down to whether you would be willing to approve unpaid leave as they don’t have the annual leave allowance to cover it and whether your business can absorb the loss of resource.

No not booked before starting with us, or at least thats the story.

The more I think about it the more I think this is more likely the case. They probably ly had it booked before starting and cant now cancel so taking a chance.

"The last company I worked for had the following rules which I felt were pretty fair
*Any leave above 2 weeks had to have special approval"

I was going to say the same. We didn't do WFH so the rest wasn't needed but definitely special permission needed for anything longer than 2 weeks leave.

I'm stunned at the amount of people saying agree to unpaid leave. That's still allowing it.

They knew exactly what they were doing and should face the consequences.

Given when they sent the email that's even worse
And all this is their best behaviour for their probation? I can't imagine what their normal or worst behaviour would be.

Emsil back along the lines of

as per company policy leave has to be applied for and granted - you have not done this. You have booked an extended holiday without getting your leave granted.

we cannot grant this leave at such short notice.

your choices therefore are to cancel the holiday and reapply for leave in the usual manner at a later date or leave our employment as you are not fulfilling your side of the contract.

REQUESTS for modified working hours will always be considered in line with our policy - you have not made a request but a demand . This is not how business works.

failure to turn up for work on 1st - 28th month you booked holiday without authorisation - will be a breach of your contact and you will automatically fail your probation and be terminated immediately.

etc etc etc

it is not your problem that they are 25 and going to lose a lot of money. At 25 you are plenty old enough to realise that you ask for leave and wait for it to be granted before booking.

frankly the loss of this employer doesn’t appear to be a bad thing. If this is the level of intelligence and entitlement they show in the workplace - they must be an absolute nightmare to manage.

when you are in probation period - you do everything in your power to abide by all the rules and procedures as you know your job is not guaranteed until you pass probation.

basically I think they have just utterly failed their probation period and I would not get into thoughts of what they will lose. That is their problem not yours.

actions have consequences and this means they will be looking for a new job if they carry on with their holiday,

For tax reasons, we're only allowed to work (from Europe) a max of 20 days a year. We have fixed office days and can flex one week a year where those can be from abroad. Say your office days are Mon/Tue, you could work abroad Wed-Fri of week 1 and Mon-Fri of week 2. You could also take Mon/Tue of week 3 annual leave and work abroad Wed-Fri week 3.

But the work abroad hours are to meet fixed "must be available" hours of 10am - 4pm UK time. And then you can make up your additional hours whenever that day.

Your employee sounds like they've booked a holiday and want to get paid whilst away. I'd turn that down no hesitation. They can take unpaid leave and have probation extended by a month.

Say yes, but unpaid, and probation extended by another month. Would it really be worth sacking/rehiring etc? Could make it clear it’s an absolute exception and if they take the piss again, the answer is no!

This shows a startling lack of awareness of how ‘working’ works. My workplace has a limit of 3 week’s leave at a time and when I went back to the states for a month once (have worked there 20 years and this was a specific post Covid thing as we hadn’t seen our parents for 3 years), I had loads of hoops to jump through to get permission to work one afternoon a week over my absence so I could keep up with anything urgent or HR related. Many hoops. We also can’t work in another country more than 2 week’s a year so there’s that.

I would have a serious chat with all the relevant policies in front of you and honestly would likely let go if that’s an option. If you refuse to let them go they’ll just be a bad employee afterwards anyway, and you really can’t support this sort of nonsense.

I am tempted to hard arse it, but they are 25 and would lose thousands.

Their own fault. They're an adult. They make their own choices.

Someone in my department did something similar. We simply said no - they lost a three week holiday. Not our problem.

Either they're a fool for booking a holiday without first having the annual leave approve (and you don't want someone that incompetent working for you - and if they booked before you hired them they should have told you at interview), or they did it on purpose to force your hand (and you don't want someone like that working for you).

I thought YANBU until you mentioned 'their country of origin'.

So they're basically going home for a month? That's very different to going to Bali from the UK if you're a Brit for example.

Yes it's not ideal. I would suggest make them take it as unpaid leave, but also, since they're going home it's not quite so outrageous as previous suggestions.