The Work Thread 2 - Get back to work!

[Errkal]

Surely directly linking sickness with pay and performance is illegal? If not it strawberry floating should be.

Unfortunately I don't think it is illegal.

Baffling that in 2019 that kind of policy is in place.

It’s a horrible policy. Even worse is that we only became aware of it because somebody was out sick, came back and was then told they had gone into the red and that the rules had now changed. She had no idea (none of us did!) and so now will not get a pay rise next year.

They will succeed in reducing the number of sick days, but they will only increase the numbers of people sick.

Surely those changes must be brought forward into a contract change? She should get her union involved or present a grievance.

Contract will just abide by company policies and they can be changed.

[Moggy]

Surely directly linking sickness with pay and performance is illegal? If not it strawberry floating should be.

Unfortunately I don't think it is illegal.

Baffling that in 2019 that kind of policy is in place.

It’s a horrible policy. Even worse is that we only became aware of it because somebody was out sick, came back and was then told they had gone into the red and that the rules had now changed. She had no idea (none of us did!) and so now will not get a pay rise next year.

They will succeed in reducing the number of sick days, but they will only increase the numbers of people sick.

Surely those changes must be brought forward into a contract change? She should get her union involved or present a grievance.

Contract will just abide by company policies and they can be changed.

Yep.

We’re being bought out by an American company at the moment so I don’t see our terms improving. The Bradford change is to bring us in line with the new company’s policies.

[Gemini73]

We don't get sick pay. On top of that we're not allowed to work for 48hrs if it's D&V so lose two days pay.

[Jenuall]

Such a trailblazer Moggy, getting a feel for those good ol' USA working standards before they become norm in the post-Brexit adoption of Blighty as the 51st state.

[Green Gecko]

When did you last make a microsoft document?

Not sure what you mean by that. I use word on the regular so I'd like to keep using it.

No problem, I meant that practically like, I thought about it a few times over the years and I looked and saw the last time I actually made a word document or spreadsheet was months and months or even years ago, because I was using online documents or just text files, apps and other stuff to do my work instead.

So the first question of replacing something that you once had, is whether you really need it anymore.

I do still occasionally use word and excel, but nearly always to open old documents or stuff I've downloaded. So some ancient hard copy suffices. In which case you can find those on eBay for almost nothing or download license keys from legit sources. And it won't ever need renewing.

[Snowcannon]

Work have just announced that there are changes to the Bradford score system!

Now if you go into "amber" (a score of 50) even once during the year, you will no longer be eligible for a bonus or R&R awards for a year.

If you go into "red" (a score of 100) even once during the year, you will not be eligible for a pay rise the following April.

And if you are in "amber" you have to attend a disciplinary meeting for a verbal warning, going into "red" would turn that into a written warning.

Lovely. I look forward to catching everyone else's diseases as people force themselves into work and pass their sicknesses around.

Ob Bob will be delighted!

[Oblomov Boblomov]

Grind up the bodies of the infirm
???
Profit

[That's not a growth]

Got another interview in a few weeks with somewhere else. It's permanent, a bit more money than I'm on now, and more technical than the last place I tired at. gooseberry fool careers page though, it doesn't save any info so I can't look over my answers I gave. I'll have to write it down best I can remember and go over it prior.

[Wrathy]

I got pulled aside a few days ago with some positive news: basically, I joined my current company about two years ago as a business analyst looking at a lot of our operational data, communicating that with the finance team, doing internal and external reporting etc. They've seen that I'm a) really, really good at what I do and b) have the potential for "getting bored" with the role, so they want me to join a new team to keep doing what I do for my old team (because nobody else can do it, and people they've had in the past haven't been close to being as good as me at the job), but also moving into a business improvement role where I'm part of a small team which looks at our data and tries to put in long term improvements rather than just short term fixes. Eg if a machine breaks down, we need analysis on what the background causes are and if there's any way to stop breakdowns of that type or make them less common. Basically, more work, more responsibilities, more interesting things to do. Great news all round. They still need to go through a hiring process for the manager of this team and my understanding is that the timescale is towards starting in the new year once some other appointments are in place.

Obviously I accepted this, but it wasn't clear if this would be treated as a true promotion, if there would be more money for doing it, etc. I didn't raise this at the time because it felt like a weird time to do it; I didn't wanna seem purely self interested or come off badly. But what I wanna know is, how do I bring this up? We get annual inflation tied salary increases but frankly I'm still earning less than I did at my previous employer (27.2k vs 30.5) and I'd like a reasonably big shot in the arm for other reasons (credit card debt, wanting to do a mortgage, etc).

[Dual]

When is your next performance review? I would do it then.

[pjbetman]

Surely directly linking sickness with pay and performance is illegal? If not it strawberry floating should be.

Unfortunately I don't think it is illegal.

Baffling that in 2019 that kind of policy is in place.

It’s a horrible policy. Even worse is that we only became aware of it because somebody was out sick, came back and was then told they had gone into the red and that the rules had now changed. She had no idea (none of us did!) and so now will not get a pay rise next year.

They will succeed in reducing the number of sick days, but they will only increase the numbers of people sick.

Surely those changes must be brought forward into a contract change? She should get her union involved or present a grievance.

Our contracts don’t specify things like that.

It'll be in your employee handbook... and referenced in your contract. If not, then they cant enforce it.

[pjbetman]

Surely directly linking sickness with pay and performance is illegal? If not it strawberry floating should be.

Unfortunately I don't think it is illegal.

Baffling that in 2019 that kind of policy is in place.

It’s a horrible policy. Even worse is that we only became aware of it because somebody was out sick, came back and was then told they had gone into the red and that the rules had now changed. She had no idea (none of us did!) and so now will not get a pay rise next year.

They will succeed in reducing the number of sick days, but they will only increase the numbers of people sick.

Surely those changes must be brought forward into a contract change? She should get her union involved or present a grievance.

Contract will just abide by company policies and they can be changed.

Not sure what you mean by company policies (in the context that they are separate)? Your contract of employment must reference this/these documents for them to be legally binding.

Changing terms of contracts must also be in writing.

[pjbetman]

Such a trailblazer Moggy, getting a feel for those good ol' USA working standards before they become norm in the post-Brexit adoption of Blighty as the 51st state.

Bingo!

[Errkal]

Surely directly linking sickness with pay and performance is illegal? If not it strawberry floating should be.

Unfortunately I don't think it is illegal.

Baffling that in 2019 that kind of policy is in place.

It’s a horrible policy. Even worse is that we only became aware of it because somebody was out sick, came back and was then told they had gone into the red and that the rules had now changed. She had no idea (none of us did!) and so now will not get a pay rise next year.

They will succeed in reducing the number of sick days, but they will only increase the numbers of people sick.

Surely those changes must be brought forward into a contract change? She should get her union involved or present a grievance.

Contract will just abide by company policies and they can be changed.

Not sure what you mean by company policies (in the context that they are separate)? Your contract of employment must reference this/these documents for them to be legally binding.

Changing terms of contracts must also be in writing.

The contract will say something like "comply and abide by all company polices" rather than contain their contents. The polices can change whenever without a contract change.

[Moggy]

Surely directly linking sickness with pay and performance is illegal? If not it strawberry floating should be.

Unfortunately I don't think it is illegal.

Baffling that in 2019 that kind of policy is in place.

It’s a horrible policy. Even worse is that we only became aware of it because somebody was out sick, came back and was then told they had gone into the red and that the rules had now changed. She had no idea (none of us did!) and so now will not get a pay rise next year.

They will succeed in reducing the number of sick days, but they will only increase the numbers of people sick.

Surely those changes must be brought forward into a contract change? She should get her union involved or present a grievance.

Contract will just abide by company policies and they can be changed.

Not sure what you mean by company policies (in the context that they are separate)? Your contract of employment must reference this/these documents for them to be legally binding.

Changing terms of contracts must also be in writing.

The contract will say something like "comply and abide by all company polices" rather than contain their contents. The polices can change whenever without a contract change.

Yep.

I’ll double check the employee handbook but I’m pretty sure that’s just as vague.

[Qikz]

We don't get sick pay. On top of that we're not allowed to work for 48hrs if it's D&V so lose two days pay.

How the strawberry float is this legal.

strawberry float our government for allowing that gooseberry fool.

[Jenuall]

And this is how bad things are before they've really had the freedom to slash workers rights, if we leave the EU then so many more bad things are going to become the norm.

[Errkal]

We don't get sick pay. On top of that we're not allowed to work for 48hrs if it's D&V so lose two days pay.

How the strawberry float is this legal.

strawberry float our government for allowing that gooseberry fool.

It’s nothing new, if you aren’t salaried generally speaking you don’t get paid for sick days, you would statutory sick pay (unless self employed) for longer term sickness though.

[Wrathy]

When is your next performance review? I would do it then.

It’s in December, but the structure of the business is a little weird for me because my line manager is based in another office and fairly detached from what I do. Functionally I more or less report in to his boss, who is based at my office and had a separate conversation with me about the situation. I reported in to him until the start of this year, following a structure change. I was told by another of the Directors that this was happening, whereas my line manager doesn’t seem to know about it yet.

I’m sort of thinking that I should wait until they appoint the new manager role in a couple of weeks and bring it up with them at that point, since I think it’s enough of a role change to warrant my job description being changed to whatever they decide makes sense anyway. But it’s tough to know!

[pjbetman]

Surely directly linking sickness with pay and performance is illegal? If not it strawberry floating should be.

Unfortunately I don't think it is illegal.

Baffling that in 2019 that kind of policy is in place.

It’s a horrible policy. Even worse is that we only became aware of it because somebody was out sick, came back and was then told they had gone into the red and that the rules had now changed. She had no idea (none of us did!) and so now will not get a pay rise next year.

They will succeed in reducing the number of sick days, but they will only increase the numbers of people sick.

Surely those changes must be brought forward into a contract change? She should get her union involved or present a grievance.

Contract will just abide by company policies and they can be changed.

Not sure what you mean by company policies (in the context that they are separate)? Your contract of employment must reference this/these documents for them to be legally binding.

Changing terms of contracts must also be in writing.

The contract will say something like "comply and abide by all company polices" rather than contain their contents. The polices can change whenever without a contract change.

It's a bit of a grey area but handbook/policy changes if 'non-detrimental' or to keep them in line with changes in legislation, then they dont need the employee's agreement. I dont know what 'non-detrimental' means in this instance, but i'd imagine if it impacts an employees pay, holiday, working hours or sickness or other benefits, then that is 'detrimental'.