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?

Completely out of order.

This is what I would suggest.

This!

Completely unreasonable. Unpaid leave (but why set a precedent?) or failed probation due to not following company absence procedures. Jobs are hard to come by these days so pretty sure you'll be able to replace them soon.

Look at our another way, if they requested the leave but hadn't booked anything would your answer be to try and accommodate them? Or would you say no?
Personally, as a manager I'd be saying no as they have not accrued that much leave, they are still in probation, and all leave needsto be approvedin advance. . I'd also be concerned about whether letting them get away with this unprofessional behaviour will mean more to come in the future.

I’m also an employer.
A definitely no for many of the reasons already stated.
Very unfair on your other employees and it would be madness for you to allow it,
hold the line.

This sounds cultural. A lot of employees in my work expected the same, to go to their home country and work remotely whilst visiting family/holidaying and then working nights/evenings. It very rarely works well. I wouldn’t approve it and would be prepared to replace. Lessons learned.

Plus she will be very difficult to mange going forward.

If you do want to keep them, and personally I wouldn’t unless they were the best worker I’d ever had, I would certainly be making them take the vast majority of it as holiday and extending their probation period

I wouldn't let them go but i'd tell them they aren't approved. Other employees will expect consistency with your time off policy.

This is nuts. My company has a policy whereby we can work remotely abroad. BUT…there are very strict guidelines due to the tax implications of working outside of our company’s country. There are strict rules re: the number of days and which countries are on the approved list. And even then it is not a guarantee—a formal application must be filled in and approved. I had ideas of spending the summer with my parents in the US and letting the DCs hang all summer. Nope—US is not on the list. Even though it is “home” for me. No way would I be allowed to book and present it as a fait accompli to my boss.

This would be my approach too, assuming they're good at the job & you want them to stay otherwise decline the annual leave & presumably they’ll hand in their notice.

Personally, if I could accommodate it I would. Especially if they’re a good worker. We’d be having a stern word about what I expect and not to do it again, but if it was possible and they seemed trust worthy I would see what I can do.

I’m not a hard arse though I’m soft.

OP you’ve already got lots of good advice here. It’s not feasible or desirable for you or the individual to allow them to work remotely so that’s definitely not an option.

I think your only options are to let them go, or they take it as unpaid leave. The latter however does set a precedent for other employees to do something similar which if you’re a small company and need to have coverage could put you in a difficult position in future.

I think ultimately you have to let them go, anything else is going to cause potential problems down the line. Assuming they’re not travelling for an exceptional circumstance (eg sick relative), if it’s just a holiday they haven’t been working long enough to even be able to have the leave allowance at this point.

i would be sympathetic if this employee had booked this leave before starting the role, but then they should have proactively mentioned it when offered the job at which point options could have been discussed and you’d be more likely to give them leeway. The way they have told you is rather sneaky and that would be part of my issue with it as well. If they booked the leave after starting that is unacceptable and they should not have booked anything before getting your agreement. Subject to an exceptional circumstance like a sick relative it’s poor form.

there is a slight risk that if they think you’re serious about termination they may actually decide the job is worth it and cancel the holiday, would you risk being stuck with an unhappy and resentful employee? Is this action of actually attempting to request this leave enough to terminate under your t&cs? I suppose if they’re in probation you can sack them either way but I’d just check employment terms and under what exactly you’d be terminating them for to protect your own liability and prevent them claiming something.

You can't book a holiday until the leave is approved- you don't have to give a rason why leave isn't approved in many cases.
My DP was a civil servant, which is famous for lenient T&C's , but we couldn't book a holiday until the leave was approved and signed off- so your probationer is completely out of order booking the trip before the leave is sined off- just say no, if the lose money that is their problem they shouldn't be such a presumptuous entitled prat.

I wouldn't consider authorising the leave unless they had a sick relative abroad.

They've tried to manipulate you and they haven't considered how to make their travel work for the business - just for them.

You can teach someone new skills during probation. You can't teach attitude.

Bear in mind how the other staff will feel if you authorise this.

What are your workplace policies on annual leave requests, working remotely / overseas and probation periods?

that is what should govern your response to this - not your personal opinion as to whether the request is reasonable or not.

and if you don’t have policies on these matters it’s time to get them into place pronto

If you let this person do it then all your employees will want to do it.

“Oh I’m going to Thailand for 2 weeks but instead of requesting annual leave I’ll just work remotely, that’s fine isn’t it?”

“I’m going to my holiday home in the Canaries for 6 months. Wait what’s that? I don’t have to quit? I can take my laptop and work from Tenerife? Great!”

You’d be absolutely crazy if you let this new employee take the sheer piss out of you and the company.

This.

In any company I've ever worked for, extended leave like that is only permissible after a certain number of years service and by special arrangement. I would say no and query this person's commitment to the role. Also, beware that if you say yes, you are setting a precedent for all other members of staff.

It won't be a month. If they are cheeky enough to do this now it will be the start of their general approach to their job.

YANBU. This would 100% annoy me in every way. Annoy being a massive understatement of course. I cannot deal with the sheer self-entitlement and underhandedness of this persons (obviously pre-planned) approach. If you can sack them / give them notice without them having grounds for any kind of come back, I would. No doubt. I cannot work with people like this - never mind mind employ them. I'm agitated for you!

A person would have to spectacularly oblivious/ narcissistic/ dense to imagine a month’s PAID leave could be envisaged when she’s barely in with door with you. She’d not be ‘losing thousands’ at all; do not think in such terms.
She’d be entitled to almost nothing even had she made a professional request for the month when she started. .
She made a plan to be absent from work, which is bad enough. Expecting to be paid is utter lunacy.
This one sounds like an utter nightmare, OP. This is her presumably on her best behaviour. Just you wait.

It depends what they briefly mentioned. If they said ‘I’d like to go away to x country for a month and work remotely from there’ and you didn’t reply with ‘that would be against company policy’ then I think you have implicitly agreed that is a thing that can happen.

I had a similar situation many years ago as a young manager. We needed someone to support our trainer who was overwhelmed with work when a business merger occurred. An internal candidate was recruited into the position which was a considerable promotion for them. Within a week of being told she had the job she requested a 3 week holiday with a friend to help said friend get over a bad break up. I got her manager to tell her no as the whole point of her role was to reduce pressure by picking up the role and being away for 3 weeks was not acceptable. I said that she could take 2 weeks leave as that didn’t require senior level approval.
Well she went ahead and booked the holiday and I had no option but to ask her to resign. My one regret was I should have had the conversation myself, but instead the direct line manager had it. I felt bad, of course I did, and some of the other managers thought I overreacted, but I still think I made the right call. Once you’re a wage earning adult, sometimes you have to make adult decisions and that involves not booking holidays on a whim.