I’m looking for a bit of advice regarding one of our employees. As you may have been aware last week we had some pretty heavy snow conditions and this resulted in some disruption.
One particular employee has been unable to make it into her place of work – a central office in the city centre – from her rural home. She attributes this to poor conditions and made little effort to return to work. When she did come back (after a week of absence) she did not make it in until 12.30 for the first 3 days when it appears that weather conditions were not hazardous enough to prevent safe road travel. She has a young child which was off school due to their school being closed – this seems far more likely to be the reason for the absence.
She claims that she has a road leading to her property that is impassable and she cannot get her car through – surely she should have found an alternative way of getting to work? The weather conditions wer bad, however, there was no disrupion to public transport!
Basically I am aware she has rights to timeoff for dependants, however, we feel she is abusing the company’s good nature. She has made no effort make up to work or put in extra hours since her return.
Where do we stand if we were to consider disciplinary action? How does the law view this – is it not the employee’s responsibility to make sure they can get to their place of work?
Kind thanks in advance.
David McLeod
