Employment Issue involving covering a colleague

[bretty1984]

Hi,

This is my very first post but I am really looking for some advice and some direction because I do feel lost with this whole thing which I will describe below!:

A colleague in my team, who is a grade above me has taken partial retirement. So he is off every friday.
I have noticed that the expectation has fallen on me to take on certain additional tasks that might come in when he is off despite nobody having a conversation with me about it. So there is an expectation and an assumption.

I raised the matter with my line manager who brought up an element of my job description which she believes covers this issue which then means that she and senior management believe I should provide the cover every Friday which is a possible 20% of a week. The quantity of work that could come in is unknown but it is still an expectation that I will cover. That element of my job description reads like this:

"Support the Facilities officer by providing phone cover and carrying out other facilities related tasks as required by the line manager" This accounts for 10% of my job.

So, I argued the fact that the word support is in there in relation to supporting my colleague who has taken partial retirement when he is here. In my opinion the word support and cover mean two different things. The cover relates to covering the phone. She then says that the 10% covers his partial retirement but I have argued the fact that the 10% of my job description only stands true if I am supporting him while he is in the office.

I am really banging my head against a brick wall here. Management seem to be trying to hold that element of my Job Description up as a way of covering this Friday when my colleague is off.
I would really appreciate any advice and help here from a legal perspective because I really do feel as though they are taking advantage of me but they are also disregarding anything that I say. For the first time in my working life I feel as though I have nowhere to turn and it is actually causing me some stress.

Many Thanks in Advance.

[jaguarsuk]

Re: Employment Issue involving covering a colleague

Sorry to hear you are having a stressful time and I am not one who can help, but [MENTION=51026]Ula[/MENTION] probably can.

[bretty1984]

Re: Employment Issue involving covering a colleague

Hi,

Thank you very much for this.

[ULA]

Re: Employment Issue involving covering a colleague

Firstly was the job description (JD) which contained this "Support the Facilities officer by providing phone cover and carrying out other facilities related tasks as required by the line manager" in your JD before I presume the Facilities Officer permanently reduced their hours to 4 days per week?

If on a permanent basis you are being asked to do this person's role one day a week then there should be some formal confirmation that the company has requested you to do that.

I suggest that if you have and HR department you go and have an informal chat with them to discuss the matter.

[bretty1984]

Re: Employment Issue involving covering a colleague

Firstly was the job description (JD) which contained this "Support the Facilities officer by providing phone cover and carrying out other facilities related tasks as required by the line manager" in your JD before I presume the Facilities Officer permanently reduced their hours to 4 days per week?

If on a permanent basis you are being asked to do this person's role one day a week then there should be some formal confirmation that the company has requested you to do that.

I suggest that if you have and HR department you go and have an informal chat with them to discuss the matter.

Hi,

Yes I can confirm that it has been in my JD since June 2015. My colleague has only been on partial retirement since the end of August of this year.

With regards to the formal confirmation, is it just a case of my employer telling me I have to do it in a formal way?

I see it like this:

My colleague is off every Friday on a permanent basis.

I am in on a Friday and expected to pick up any queries or issues that may come in that relate to a portion of his job. It is difficult to quantify this because we work in a department that essentially provides a service, so some Fridays there may be a lot of queries and others maybe nothing. However, I am there should anything arise.

The 10% that is in my Job Description, in my opinion (and I could be wrong) relates to supporting his role when he is in the office. So how can I be expected to just fall in and cover him regardless of what happens? What I find difficult to get my head around is the fact that I am just expected to cover it, despite it being the lower level work of a higher grade person.

I had a 2.5 hour meeting yesterday with my manager about this and all she kept reverting back to was the piece that is in my JD. I work for a Government Organisation, so I would expect everything to be done properly but I do not feel this is the case.

As far as I am concerned, it seems to me as though I am expected to cover certain aspects of a higher level role for the same money despite that being an additional responsibility.

If they are able to just drop new tasks on my lap whenever they feel like it, where do you draw the line?!

Thanks for you help by the way. I do appreciate it.

[bretty1984]

Re: Employment Issue involving covering a colleague

I also have to add, which is interesting is that 10% of a day supporting his role actually equates to 44 minutes and 25 seconds. He spent 2.5 hours in a meeting today where I provided cover. This is how silly this can get and I am not saying that I want it to go that way because it is silly but that just goes to show how much is expected of me on a Friday. I cover the phone alone from 9am -4pm on a Friday and that is clearly stated in my Job Description that is an expectation of mine. My role is predominently IT support but I am getting roped into this kind of rubbish and I do not like it one bit!

In one of our policies, it says if a job changes by 30% then you have a right to apply for additional responsibility allowance.

[bretty1984]

Re: Employment Issue involving covering a colleague

Sorry for another message but this is really bugging me. How fixed are the percentages of a JD? If 10% of my job per week is helping to support his role and cover the phone, that actually equates to a total of 3 hours 42 minutes. What happens if I go over this, such as a Friday where I am the only one covering the phone? I am just trying to clear up the importance of the percentages and what kind of weight they carry.

I phoned ACAS earlier and they told me tough basically. I have to do it because the support and cover element is in my job description and it is tough. However, I felt that the woman on the phone was not really interested and was quite abrupt in a way.

- - - Updated - - -

Aaaaah I have so many questions going around my head - this is not just about the phone cover though, it is merely one portion of what is expected of me!

[ULA]

Re: Employment Issue involving covering a colleague

I can appreciate you are frustrated but please try to look at this as an overall "what extra are you being required to do" not just focus on specific tasks.

A provision in a JD requiring you to cover for someone whilst they are in the job full time is a normal part of "department team-work" its what is expected to keep things running smoothly however if you are going to be asked to do someone's job one day a week on a permanent basis I presume as well as doing your own job that needs to be formalised in some way.

Since you work in a government organisation then I expect there will be someone responsible for HR. Make an appointment to speak to them, find out what the long-term plans are for covering the duties of the Facilities Officer on a Fri if he is not there. Ask whether although you have been doing this for the last few weeks is this going to become a permanent part of your role, if that is going to be the case ask whether consideration will be given (even if after a period of time) to review your salary to reflect the extra work (presuming you will still be doing your own role that day) and the extra responsibility.

I think you first need to find out what the situation is going to be long term and then see where you take it from there. If you have not managed to get this from your manager then you should really speak to HR or a more senior manager in your team.

[bretty1984]

Re: Employment Issue involving covering a colleague

Thanks for your reply again.

I completely understand that there is a need for team work in a department and that is what happens on a Monday-Thursday. The difficulty with this is that I am unable to quantify the work. While I am there covering, there may not be any tasks that come in. I may have caused some confusion but I am not covering the whole of his job, just a certain area of it which consists of the lower end work because he is, after all, a grade above me.

When I had a chat with my manager about this, it was almost as if she was intimating that I may not be needed every Friday, depending on what requests come in. This is where the cover becomes an issue for me and the grey area exists (or not).

In terms of my job description, I already go above and beyond the 10% expected of me in terms of the cover but again, this cannot be quantified because when it says cover, it simply means I am there ready to go.

I am sorry if this is a little confusing but I am finding the whole situation very confusing!

[Peridot]

Re: Employment Issue involving covering a colleague

Hi,
Just a quick query, is the additional work involved in covering the Friday's actually preventing you from completing your own tasks and making you behind in your work? Not sure this would have a bearing I'm not an employment expert but be interesting to know. Has your work suffered at all, have manager's mentioned it ever to you?

[bretty1984]

Re: Employment Issue involving covering a colleague

Hi,
Just a quick query, is the additional work involved in covering the Friday's actually preventing you from completing your own tasks and making you behind in your work? Not sure this would have a bearing I'm not an employment expert but be interesting to know. Has your work suffered at all, have manager's mentioned it ever to you?

Well not yet because it it is still early doors but it comes down to priorities then. Should I stop what I am doing to deal with any issues come in? They have not made anything clear to me at all.

[ULA]

Re: Employment Issue involving covering a colleague

Can I ask do you have an HR department? If not is there a manager above your manager?

[bretty1984]

Re: Employment Issue involving covering a colleague

Can I ask do you have an HR department? If not is there a manager above your manager?

Yes we do have a HR department. There is a manager above my manager but my manager had already had a discussion with him before I met with her. So what she was telling me, effectively came from him!

[ULA]

Re: Employment Issue involving covering a colleague

I would suggest that you make an appointment with HR and discuss the situation with them. Let them know that you are still unclear as to how things are meant to operate particularly on a Fri and what to do if dealing with any tasks that should be for the Facilities officer on that day impact your work load. Ask them to try and assist in getting some clarity for you on the situation.