Employees affected by travel chaos
April 19, 2010
It’s only the middle of April, and already British businesses have been affected by a second natural occurrence that has stopped countless employees from being able to work. As with the chaos caused by the heavy snow storms in February, many people are unable to get to work as they are stranded across the globe following the volcanic eruption in Iceland.
So what should employers do in terms of pay if they have employees that cannot return to work after their holidays? Legal advice is that an employee has a responsibility to get to work, and if they cannot, for whatever reason, then they will have to take annual leave out of their entitlement, or unpaid leave. This may seem quite harsh but considering many companies will have to pay overtime or will have another kind of financial penalty from the loss of staff attending work, it is reasonable to take this line and to do differently could set a precedent that could be difficult to go back on in the future.
Some employees may be able to claim for the losses to their pay through their travel insurance, but there seems to be a grey area at the moment over whether the ‘act of God’ clause will lead to many insurers not paying out for stranded travellers’ additional hotel costs, never mind loss of earnings.
Alternative actions could be to see whether employees can have access to work networks whilst stuck abroad (unlikely but possible in some cases) in order for them to be able to work, or if they could make the time up at weekends or evenings when they are back, to avoid losing pay or holidays.
Things to consider:Luxury Hotels in Leeds
Riads in Marrakech
Vente de matériel de ski pas cher, head ski , matériel de snowboard, textile.
Comments
One Response to “Employees affected by travel chaos”
Got something to say?
I had to face a disciplinary because I couldn’t get back from my holiday it cost me over £1000 to get back from portugal but as I was in my first 6 months at a PLC and had had 2 illnesses in the past 4 months this was a 3rd strike! I decided to leave shortly after as I didn’t want to work for a company that was so inconsiderate about things that are beyond our control.