Cutting our hours to make us attend meetings.

[lowcarblifer]

I work 12 hours a week for a high street clothing retailer. It would be a lovely job, except our manageress is a bully. She organises monthly team meetings which are purely voluntary as they don’t form part of anybody’s contract - but she wants us all there and makes things unpleasant for people who don’t attend. (The meetings are a complete waste of time - also we’re never given an agenda and minutes are never taken - it amazes me that the company wants to waste money on something so pointless.) Of course with us all on 12 hour shifts, inevitably whenever the meeting is arranged some people end up having to come in on their day off, or come for the meeting, go home afterwards, then back later for a shift. Only one hour is paid for the meeting, no travel allowance. Not surprisingly, there’s never full attendance. This month she’s sent out an email saying our shop is short of hours and informing us that we’ve all had an hour taken off our working hours so that the meeting can happen - so we will effectively lose an hour’s pay if we don’t turn up to the meeting. I’m sure she and the assistant manager have taken this upon themselves, I can’t imagine HR would’ve approved it. Surely they can’t do this? Can they?

You could always forward the email to HR and ask?

What did HR say when you asked them about it?

I haven’t asked HR yet. There’s a meeting this week and I was hoping to find out the legalities of what they’ve done without involving HR at this stage.

They’ve really overstepped the mark this time at think, because the entire team is annoyed about it.

I’d contact HR. You can always call and ask as a general question without giving details?

Would it be possible for staff to dial into the meeting? That’s quite a normal thing to do in other industries.

Only one hour is paid for the meeting, no travel allowance. Not surprisingly, there’s never full attendance.

How long does it take you to get to the meeting? Is it at a different site?

I'd definitely take this up with HR to get the perspective based on your employer's policy on meeting attendance and whether travel time should be included from your working hours.

She could be completely oblivious to the policy and making things up as she goes along, so best to get the official independent line from HR.

This has been resolved - temporarily at least. One of my colleagues brought it up at the meeting, and asked what the company policy on split shifts was - which is how it ended up for two of the team, who came to the meeting, then went home, then had to come back again for their shift later on. The manageress didn’t have an answer. Everyone in the team said they were unhappy about coming to the meetings as a split shift or on their day off. We asked for video conference facilities, and the manageress said she would take our request to HR. Now, we’ve received advice from head office about Coronavirus, and one of the changes is that there should be no more team meetings for the foreseeable, to mitigate the chance of an entire team becoming infected! So - for the time being, no more meetings! Thanks everyone for your thoughts on this.

Glad it's sorted, and likely after weeks or months without those non-value add meetings, it may become clear that they aren't required in their previous format. Precedent is being set