Refusing to work notice period

[quakerapple]

A member of my team has handed in her notice today. She is required to work a 4 week notice period.
She has 5 days annual leave left and has requested to take them before she leaves, meaning she wouldnt work the full notice period.
I have refused this as we need her in, we are incredibly shortstaffed.
She will be paid the 6 days annual leave in her final pay.
We are NHS. is this unreasonable ?

If you want to keep your job you probably don't want to fake sickness.
But if you're leaving anyway, what are they going to do?
It's not like they can prove you've faked it.
Anyway, OP - nobody is accusing you of lying saying she has refused.
Your OOP says she is refusing to work her notice period. She isn't. She's working all apart from 5 days.
So you misled us in the OP.

She isn't refusing to work notice. She has requested to take part of it as annual leave.

Yes yabu, you could find yourself in breach of policy. I would check what is written in policy and contracts

In the civil service the line manager can opt to pay someone for leave and require them to work their notice. I’ve done this before when short staffed and in the NHS if it leaves you unable to deliver care or the service it’s perfectly reasonable. (Check it’s within HR policy). It takes ages to recruit so I think it’s necessary to keep a service running.

Given the attitude of her manager on this thread no wonder she can’t wait to get out. The fact the NHS is short staffed isn’t the fault of the woman asking for annual leave, how the team copes isn’t her issue. The worrying part is a manager has felt the need to post this on a public forum.

That's a management problem. Not one for her to solve. Being understaffed suggests poor management.

It could also be down to benifits if she gets them. I would much rather take the holiday than get a bit extra pay as it can make a difference to her benifits claim.

She's only asked for 5 days which she is fully entitled to. Can you not get cover?
That's 3 weeks still working. Give the girl her holiday she is entitled to.

I mean ideally they would but their heart isn’t in it and they can go off sick so I think you just need to accept it.

It’s not “forcing her to work”. She signed a contract of employment in exchange for salary she is expected to abide by the Ts and Cs and staff handbook or policies.

I don’t know a single staff handbook that says employee can choose their own holiday dates. It’s always required to be agreed with management and usually there’s a defined notice period for requesting leave.

If the policy is that she can ask for a whole week off at short notice then Yes the Op is being unreasonable.

But otherwise the employee’s actions are not honourable - she should abide by the agreed terms of her employment, and if her employer determines that she is unable to approve the holiday request because she cannot plan shift cover at such short notice that’s just hard luck and bad planning by the employee.

Ex HR here, your team not coping because you run on skeleton staff has got fuck all to do with her or any other staff, it's a management issue.

If you are running on such low staff numbers that you can't cope with one person not there then you need more staff. If that's your remit then hire someone, if it's higher than you then escalate for them to worry about.

Stop expecting the stress to sit with general staff who are paid pittance, that may include you too, don't bear this stress if you don't have the authority to hire more.

People at the top of the chain are paid generously to deal with this stuff.

If someone took sick leave at end of job like this, we have a clause we enact which is to only pay SSP which is diddly squat not full salary!

She doesnt have to care about the extra work though. That’s your job and your line managers job.

Not her problem. She is leaving the job because she doesn’t want to work there anymore. If she is owed leave, she should be able to take it. It is not refusing to work her notice.

That.

Exactly.

When you're on leave you are working but on authorised absence.

Forcing her to work is what would have to happen in order for the department not to be short staffed prior to her departure, since she clearly doesn't want or intend to do it. Whether or not this is honourable is a different point.

She also appears to have leave outstanding, and as neither of us know what her contract states, it's possible she would need to take it before departure anyway, meaning the amount of hours not worked would be the same. Hence my advice to OP remains the same, which is that it's better to focus on what steps can be taken to cover the work.

If she only has one week leave left, your staff won’t be covering for ‘weeks’.

@CoralOP what kind of HR person are you? This employee will get her paid holiday - she can take it after she leaves the current employment. She is required to work her notice, if holiday can’t be approved for staffing reasons then it can’t.

It does not really matter if you are unreasonable or not the fact is shes handed in her notice and now feels she has no obligation to the company especially with time left to take via annual leave so either way I doubt she was going to work the notice period. Not morally right but she clearly does not care about the job anyway as she has left.

Do you not realise people phone in sick when they are not actually sick, they just want a day off.

Will she work the 4 weeks less the leave owed?

Agreed.

Yes they will because there will STILL be a gap before a new person can join ( have to advertise, interview, offer, onboard - all that can rarely be done inside a month). What the Op means is not only is there going to be a gap, she’s going to also have to tell the team the Leaver has jollied off on another week of holiday at very short notice (even though contractually and legally it did not have to be agreed to).

So that won’t play well , I’d be pissed off with my manager for being weak.

We had the exact opposite in my local government role job a few months back. Someone handed in their notice and being the lovely lady she was, she timed it so she wouldn't be gone until one of the other staff came back from a 3 week holiday as we have been desperately short staffed for months. Unfortunately she was told that she had to use it or lose it with her accrued leave as there was no money in the budget to pay any unused leave. As a part timer with a few days owed, that meant we had a 2 week gap between her last working day and the other person returning.

They have finally relaxed the recruitment ban, so at least we will get 1 person to fill the approximately 1.7 FTE hole we've had since the start of this year (and was 1.2 FTE for the 7 months before that) - out of a 4 FTE team at my level. Me, my boss and one of the remaining part timers have all had to get special permission to carry over extra leave into this financial year as there just wouldn't have been enough days between us to get even the basics of the job done.

You self certify for 7 calendar days. After that you need a fit note.

If you've got a convincing tale then it's likely a GP will give you a fit note.

Yes, I'm surprised anyone doesn't get that! An employer might decline to pay sick pay, that's all.

I think the arguement of her taking leave means a replacement won’t be in place before she goes is optimistic! By the time the jobs hits trac, goes lives interviews etc etc her notice period will almost be up and then you’ll have to wait for the new person so serve their notice period!