Snow is falling

With the festive season nearly upon us and the landscapes portraying the perfect white Christmas, bad weather is the talking point of the moment.
However, this can leave employers wondering how to tackle the chaos. With extreme weather warnings, school closures and commuter bedlam, bad weather creates a number of workplace issues.

Cost of bad weather
Bad weather at the start of 2010 forced many small businesses and local vendors to close early or for full days, due to lack of staffing. Productivity and turnover suffered as a result and the Federation of Small Businesses put the cost of that cold weather snap at £600 million per day. Most businesses have contingency plans in place for other aspects of their business but have not addressed plans for how to tackle bad weather. When looking at how much it can potentially cost businesses bad weather is snow joke!

Options
Many employers are tempted not to pay employees who do not make it into work. In theory employers are not obliged to pay employees who are unable to attend work due to bad weather. However, this could be risky and with the increase in flexible working many employees can argue that they can work from home. Along with this a little goodwill does go a long way and can be beneficial in the long term for businesses.
A few alternative options are:
 Pay employees but require them to make up the time later.
 Require employees to take ‘snow days’ as annual leave.
 Enable employees to work from home by providing appropriate technology.

Bad weather policy
Overall it comes down to common sense and what is best for your business. Bad weather should not be automatic permission to take a day off. But employers also need to communicate that employees should not risk their safety to get to work and be understanding if weather conditions worsen throughout the day. Even though it may sound extreme a well communicated ‘bad weather’ policy should be put in place linking with your already existing absence management, health and safety, and business continuity policies. This should enable you to plough through any weather-related issues.

Leave to remain

Holidays and discrimination?

Part time employees shouldn't be treated differently when it comes to holidays. They have the same entitlement as full time workers, albeit on a proportional basis.

Quite simply full time employees are entitled to 5.6 weeks / 28 days holiday,
and this is pro rata for part time employees. If the organisation gives more than
the statutory minimum, then the additional amount should pro rated for part time
employees.

Bank Allowance?

There is no statutory entitlement to having public holidays as leave.
If the organisation closes on the bank holiday, then this can be taken out of
the employee's allowance by the employer.

Indirect discrimination?

Employees have the right not to be discriminated against on grounds of sex, race, disability, sexual orientation, age, religion or belief or gender reassignment.

But employers also need to be aware, that if they award different levels of benefits to different groups of employees, they may create indirect discrimination. For example, giving more holidays based on hierarchy may favour men over women or awarding more holidays for length of service may indirectly discriminated against younger workers. A good policy and procedure would need to underpin decisions to award different levels of benefits, as employers may be called upon to prove there is a legitimate business reason for differences.