Extreme weather appears to be an increasingly common occurrence over the winter months. Adverse weather can affect the ability of employers continuing with business operations, especially where this affects transport links or causes disruption to services. Generally, the most important issue for employers is how they pay staff during periods of bad weather.
When the workplace is closed because of the weather, employees are entitled to receive full pay for the hours they would have worked, unless there is a contractual right to be put on unpaid lay off. Similarly, if your client decides to open late, or close early, because the weather is affecting customer numbers or transport links, then the employee is entitled to be paid for their normal hours of work.
Employees are expected to make all reasonable efforts to get in to work, unless told in advance that the workplace is closed. Therefore, if they can’t attend work, they are not entitled to be paid unless they have a contractual right to this. This may cause difficulties as the employees’ non-attendance is not due to their fault but may be for something outside their control, such as a fallen tree on the train line.
Your clients may be able to offer options to staff in these circumstances, such as using holiday leave to cover the period, using banked lieu hours or making the time up in the future. They may also be able to approve homeworking or remote working using mobile technology to keep the business running effectively throughout this period. This may, however, be affected if the bad weather causes disruption to services such as telephone lines or internet connections.
Your client may be able to continue running their business as normal, however, the bad weather could cause local schools or nurseries to close. In these situations, their employees are entitled to a reasonable amount of time off to deal with emergency situations involving their dependants. This will cover making necessary care arrangements for their children when schools or other care plans are disrupted by the weather. Time off for dependants is usually for a period of one or two days and will generally be unpaid, depending on the company policy in place.
