Advice needed please

[Miss Postal Officer]

Hello I am new to this site and I urgently need some advice. -I work on the counter at a Crown Office. Due to the snow today I was unable to get to work. the main roads were fine but I could not get to the main road due to the volume of snow in the surrounding lanes,

My manager contacted me and informed me that if I did not show up for work I would not be paid - told him that no busses were running and it was to dangerous to even try and get the car out and that in my 17 years of working in a Crown Office I had never heard of this - he replied that it was new company policy .

Anyone out there aware of this new company policy - interesting to see that yesterday the NBSC was out of action due to many of the staff being unable to attend.

Thanks - I would love to be able to tell him he is wrong.

[The BFO]

I was told the same thing by my Branch Manager.

[Miss Postal Officer]

Forgot to say that my husband was also stuck at home but his employer was ok about it.

[asdf1234]

Adverse Weather Policy

An employee has a responsibility to attend at their place of work and must take all reasonable steps to do so.

During adverse weather an employee in normal health can reasonably be expected to spend up to an hour walking both to and from their place of work. The distance this will represent will be determined by the age, physique and general fitness of the employees. Therefore for a fit employee 3 miles each way is not considered excessive.

If an employee cannot attend at his / her normal place of work he /she is requested to attend at an alternative Post Office Ltd establishment (distance - as above).

Alternative work locations should be considered in the following order:

1) Nearest Crown Office

2) Nearest POL Admin Unit

3) Work from home (for those people with this facility)

An employee who has taken all reasonable steps to attend for work may be excused duty without loss of pay.

For advice on people issues phone HRSC Contact Centre on: 0845 601 6260

[cashman]

I work for Supply Chain and we are being told to attend our nearest Mail Centre or Branch Office within a 3 mile
radius of our home address . If we can't do that then we can take Annual leave or Unpaid leave

[cashman]

Oops looks like someone beat me to it

[DGP1]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11886185" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
I couldn't get to work because of the snow. Can my boss dock my pay?

With the extent and duration of the adverse weather conditions, this is becoming a highly controversial issue.

Your employer's ability to dock your pay will depend on your specific circumstances.

Those who are employees have statutory protection against an unauthorised deduction from their wages.

In most instances, a deduction from pay will be unauthorised unless the contract of employment provides for a deduction in specified circumstances (unlikely in the case of adverse weather, albeit a possible exception is the construction industry), or the employee consents.

However, a counter argument has been put forward by some businesses and employment lawyers - that if an employee is unable to attend work, they have not performed their obligations pursuant to the employment contract, and therefore are not entitled to pay.

It is questionable whether an employment tribunal would accept this position and there is no case law on the issue.

Ultimately, if an employer deducted pay, it would need to consider the position of individual employees.

Had they made all appropriate efforts to attend work? Would it be possible for the individual to perform all or some of their duties from home? Has a consistent approach been adopted between different employees?

In any event, staff should be mindful that an employee who can be demonstrated not to have made reasonable efforts to attend work would run the risk of disciplinary action.

However, it would be important for an employer to demonstrate consistency of approach in the event of this situation arising.

[bigjames]

There was an e-mail circulated last week that detailed the adverse weather policy as described in the recent post, with the additional information that if you are unable to get to work, then the time not worked can either be paid back at a later date, or taken as annual leave. Any staff sent home because of office closure or early closing will not have to pay the time back.

This is always an emotive subject, as different people have different ideas about how hard they should have to try to get to work. In the cold spell earlier in the year one of our part-timers called in and asked if she had to come to work, and she lives 10 minutes walk away! When she did turn up she asked if she was going to get overtime! I kid you not.

What never ceases to amaze me is the mindless stupidity of some of our customers who can't get their heads around the fact that the postal network suffers in bad weather, and can't understand why we can't guarantee their letters will arrive the very next day! They don't seem to understand that the very reason why they can't get to work and have time on their hands to come and buy stamps for Christmas cards, actually means those cards will go nowhere for the time being! Go Figure!

[PO1]

It's always been the case ever since I started in the early eighties that if you can't make it into your normal place of work then you should, if safe to do so, try and make it to the nearest Crown office to your home.

Presumption being that if you are having difficulty getting to your normal branch, someone from the branch nearest to you might be having the same difficulty too.

Only problem now though is that Crowns are few and far between.

I couldn't agree more with the post from asdf1234