Difficulties at work

[adamjneal]

I have been working as a manager at a large business for three years. My attendance etc has been exemplary. However over the last three months I have been absent on several occasions sometimes with little warning. Me and my wife have had a baby and the baby has a disability. My wife is also having some health problems and she is undergoing treatment herself. I have frequently had to take my son to attend doctor's appointments during working hours with little notice and on a few occasions have also had to take time off work to look after my son. I have asked my boss if I can take a week off work to look after my son whilst his wife recovers from a minor operation. My boss has informed me that if I miss another day of work in the next month he will have to let me go. I have also been told that he will be adjusting my pay to make up for the wages i've been paid on the days I have taken off.

I need some advice on how to work this situation out

[Inca]

Re: Difficulties at work

Hi and to LegalBeagles....I'm not able to help you but am sure one of the guys will pop by shortly

[Eloise01]

Re: Difficulties at work

Right. Your boss isn't playing this by the book - but neither are you. So you both need to sit down and work this out reasonably. However, he cannot simply "let you go" in the way your are suggesting he has said this - although you must be aware that dismissal may be a possibility if the business cannot sustain the level of time off that you are wanting or needing, and if there is no manner in which adjustments can be made to allow you to have the time off that you want. Such a dismissal may be fair, and a considerable factor in that decision would be the exact circumstances of each individual case.

The simple stuff first. There is no right at all to any paid time off for anything that you have described here (and precious little else either) so your employer is correct that they do not have to pay you. Adjusting your wage to account for time off you have taken and been paid for is therefore correct. And this is a consideration that you must reckon with in terms of the entire of the rest of your query - there is no right to time off with pay, so you will be without income for any time off you take, be that an hour, a day, or a week.

There is a right to reasonable time off to deal with an emergency involving a dependant. The definition of this is quite literally an emergency - not appointments at short notice or anything else which you have ntoice of. This is the "this cropped up in this second and I need to sort it out" type of leave. There is no definition of what "reasonable time off means" - it again depends on the circumstances, but it generally does not cater for caring for a dependant, and is more like arranging for someone to care for them. If your wife is unable to provide this care then it is possible that in an emergency this may stretch to a day or two - but this would be an exception and not the rule. To be clear - this right does not include taking time off to look after your son (or your wife). And nor does it strtech to taking time off for medical appointments unless the medical "appointment" itself is an emergency.

For other circumstances you are entitled to ask the employer for unpaid parental leave. However, parental leave must be taken in one week blocks, and up to a total of four weeks in any year. You must give at least 21 days notice of such leave and specify the start and end date of the leave. The employer cannot refuse unless they have a significant reason - in other words, the leave would disrupt their business. And parental leave is a statutory right so you cannot be dismissed for asking for or taking it.

It is not the case that the employer can simply dismiss you for having taken too much time off, just like that. It is highly unlikely that a tribunal would support a dismissal on these grounds in the first instance. The employer would need to show that you had been warned about taking too much time off, and proceed through the normal disciplinary procedure with lower level warnings about attendance. But no matter how large the employer (i.e. no matter how much resource or capacity they have to "carry" your absence), in the end, frequent absence will almost inevitably result in dismissal. If your employer is smaller, and/or your position "irreplaceable" (i.e. you are needed to be in work!) then that could progress very much quicker to dismissal. But in either circumstance, it would be fair.

One way in which many people cater for situations of this sort is to use annual leave. It may not be a "first choice" but it has the benefit of being paid and it means that the employer is not losing out on working time because leave would be taken at some time anyway.

[adamjneal]

Re: Difficulties at work

Great advice, thanks