We’ve had a recent spate of enquiries about dealing with an employee who keeps taking time off to look after their child.
Short term, no notice absenteeism is a really difficult issue for employers to cope with. It not only affects planned work, it affects other team members and it can also affect your customers. It can be very frustrating especially if it happens a lot.
Does your employee keep taking time off to look after their child? Call 01706 565332 and arrange your FREE call and find out how Metis HR can help.
It’s important to remember that your employee has a contract of employment with you. That contract of employment states how many hours a week that they are contracted to attend work.
There’s an obligation on both sides here. You as the employer need to provide the hours of paid work that you’ve contracted with your employee. Likewise, your employee needs to attend work for the hours that they’ve signed to do, unless they’ve agreed to take annual leave or in some other way agreed to a change. An employee who frequently fails to be available to carry out their contracted hours can be accused of “frustrating” their contract of employment.
The frustration of a contract may lead to employers wanting to terminate the employment relationship. Even so, it’s crucial to approach such decisions with utmost caution.
The Law
Parental Leave
Parental leave is used by parents wanting to spend more time with their young families. It’s not leave that’s designed for emergency use. Parental Leave is planned. Although it can only be used in blocks of one week at a time (unless the employee’s child has a disability). Parental Leave is unpaid and lasts a maximum of 18 weeks until the child turns 18. You cannot unreasonably refuse an employee parental leave.
We’ve seen Parental Leave applications where an employee’s child minder is away on holiday in the summer and the employee has no other child care. There’s more about Parental Leave here.
Emergency Leave
Emergency Leave is for just that, an emergency. However it’s not just restricted to emergencies involving children. It covers any dependent. Emergency Leave is unpaid, unless you as the employer choose to pay the employee. There’s no definition of an “emergency” or the time off that you deem it reasonable within which the employee deal with the emergency.
For example, being called away to collect your child from school who has fallen ill would likely be deemed an emergency at that time. You can give the employee the time off without pay for the rest of the day to deal with the emergency. If their child remains ill the following day, is it still an emergency? Possibly not.
However, you do have some flexibility in how you handle a request for Emergency Leave. Want to find out how?
Contact Alison for a FREE HR trouble shooting call. We can talk to you about any HR challenges you’re currently facing and let you know how Metis HR can support you. Call 01706 565332 or email info@metishr.co.uk
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