Paternity leave

[Iamzod]

Does the job absolutely 100% require four members of staff on site for the event?

If his wife isn't happy about this which I assume she isn't then all she needs to do is ring him after he sets off & say "I'm feeling iffy" and he is on his way home and there is nothing you can do about it.

It's risky sending him if so important.

If baby is due in 2 weeks then it will be appearing in the next 30 days so you have a 1 in 15 chance of him walking off the job in he is away 2 days.

 

[Semple]

If he was sick my business partner would have to cancel his holiday to cover it. He can only do that with warning as he's 6 hours away and the job itself is shorter than that (ie he couldn't do that if the call came on the day).

It sounds like this is your only viable option. Your business partner would have to delay his holiday and travel to site on the Sunday for work on the Monday.

As others are saying, if you do send the employee and early Monday morning he needs to up and leave anyway, then the team are 1 man down, and i presume means they couldn't finish the work in time, which results in you losing a client. As much as it might be an annoyance to your business partner, having him delay his holiday is surely much less of an issue + financial penalty than losing the client either because you had to cancel the job last minute, or risk not completing the job on time.

Someone above had a good idea about imagining if it was your employee who was the one giving birth rather than it being the husband/partner. You wouldn't be expected to send her 4 hours away if she was on the verge of giving birth.

 

[CHokKA]

To answer most of the above, all 3 people are working on the same job on Sunday, not different ones. I'm also pretty confident the job was booked in before they conceived! In hindsight the holiday shouldn't have been approved, but the best part of two weeks before seemed like a fair way off! To have someone sat around doing nothing of value for 4 weeks just in case they need to swap seems a bit excessive even with hindsight.

The job was booked before they conceived? Were you expecting them to ask for your permission before they planned to have a baby? Gosh, you sound like a lovely person to work for!

As the person in charge here, what would you do if your wife was having a baby in these circumstances? Would you be telling your wife that your job is more important than one of the single most life changing events that a person can have in their life i.e the birth of their child? I doubt you would. Child birth can't be planned. Do you know anything else about the specifics i.e whether they've had any issues throughout the pregnancy that might mean there's an emergency situation that might crop up? You just don't know any of this stuff.

The issue here is that you, or someone, has approved holiday for two other members of staff when something else that's bigger than a holiday was going to be happening for one of your staff members. That's on you or whoever approved the holiday, not on this person that you're relying on for the job to be done.

And also, work isn't life for this person. He has a right to be there when his child is born and if he's concerned that it might happen during a job that you've badly planned, that's not his fault and he can't be blamed if he ends up getting a call and has to get out of there asap. He's also right in being concerned that a four hour drive is between him and the potential birth of his child. As has rightly been said, if this was a pregnant woman, you'd not be sending her to a job four hours away from her home this close to the baby being born.

 

[robj20]

Wow would hate to work for that guy.
My bosses were extremely good when our boy was born early and poorly, in the end they just cancelled paternity and just told me to come back in once he was home and better. Overall I had about 10 weeks off with full pay.
To be arsey over someone having a baby seems incredibly cruel, your problem for the other people's holidays. Should have at least planned for the due date plus or minus 2 weeks.

 

[MrRockliffe]

Can 2 people carry the job out, worst case scenario?

If so, here's what I'd do:

Say to him, I want you to go to work, including the overnight stay. However, if something happens, you need to fund transport to his wife. The issue here is that it could all be over in less than 4 hours (even if unlikely). But you do need to give him the option to reason with you. At the end of the day, he'll likely be the best judge of whether he thinks something could happen.

Also, try and put yourself in their situation - what would you want your employer to do? In the grand scheme of 50 years+ of work, it's not much to ask to have a few days off for the birth of your child

If you do pin the job on the other two, I would then offer to pay for a weekend/night away in the UK for each of them, to thank them for their hard work. This will cost YOU peanuts, but mean a heck of a lot to them.

 

[RaohNS]

1) You need to get with the times and allow him his legal right while also being considerate that this is the birth of his child
2) This guy needs to get another job with a boss who isn't so rigid and has an air of understanding and code of morals

 

[Minstadave]

What about putting his mrs up in the same hotel? That way if she goes into labour then at least he will be close by. I'm assuming she has started mat leave already.

This doesn’t work. She’ll be booked at her birth centre (hospital or whatever) who will have all her records and she’ll be known to. You can’t ask her to rock up to a random hospital to give birth for the sake of work.

 

[CHokKA]

I find it laughable that some suggestions in here are to inconvenience the soon-to-be parents. I can't believe that someone suggested putting his wife up in a hotel when she's close to giving birth. You cannot expect a heavily pregnant woman to go somewhere just to satisfy the company that her partner works for. What a load of rubbish. It's also four hours away. If she then was to give birth, her entire birth plan goes out the window from the start because she's in a place she doesn't know, possibly having to go to a hospital or maternity unit that she doesn't know, and things are already stressful enough as they are.

The focus that we as a society have these days is all wrong. All I keep seeing in here from the business owner is how much more important the money and the business is over a life being brought into this world. It's no wonder things are going the way that they are with attitudes like that...

 

[Flaevius]

I'm also cant fathom how you would enforce a policy of men picking their paternity leave start date at 15 weeks and then not be able to alter it without 28 days notice? This just isnt possible and I think you are misunderstanding how the rules around this work. Whilst you have to give 28 days notice if you want to change when you paternity starts you are not expected to give a specific date. For example, I would be able to say to you at week 15 "I want to take my paternity on the day of birth". If I then wanted to change this to "I want to take my paternity 1 week after the date of birth" then that would require 28 days notice. But there is no expectation for a new dad to decide at week 15 what date they will go on leave as giving birth simply doesn't work like that. If that were enforced its entirely possible that a mans paternity leave could start and finish before the child was even born. For reference this is backed up here;

https://www.gov.uk/paternity-pay-leave/leave

That's the gist of it for me too, also having fairly recently gone through the paternity leave process. It is, at best, a courtesy guideline to the employer as to how the employee wishes to take the paternity leave (immediately, after a certain period, in blocks etc) so they can help to plan around this. But a new dad cannot realistically say 'I will take leave on X date'. What if the birth is then early/overdue? Personally, my leave was set as the date of the birth with the knowledge that if labour fell on a working day I would leave immediately. Whatever I had planned work-wise on this date would not have mattered.

It is more difficult for yourself as it sounds like your employment is more specialised, but a reasonable employer couldn't expect an employee to be routed somewhere where they may not be able to return for the birth of their child - the most important event in the lives of most people. Even taking legality out of it, it's just human decency.

If the work is too specialised to employ a temporary hire, I would look to see if one of the two staff on holiday can be recalled as the first point of action. Paternity leave is disruptive, particularly for an employer that is involved in more specialist fields, but if the employee has done what is required of them in terms of informing you of the birth (I gave my employer 7 months notice as I wanted to request 2 months off, shared leave) then it falls on the employer to manage the staffing arrangements. It's not ideal if the employee has given you shorter notice that he doesn't want to work away around his due dates - however, it could equally be that he didn't feel comfortable broaching this with you. I'd also say that feeling is also obvious though. Even though there are a number of days between his work and the due date, it may also be the case that he's under pressure from his partner not to 'leave her'. If it's a first birth, she (and he too) are likely to be concerned about the entire process. Trying to force him to do the event could also have further ramifications for you; not just an unhappy employee etc, but if he gets the call when working the event, you are up **** creek more than trying to resolve the staffing problem while you can. That's probably already been covered as I'd only read the thread up to the end of the second page.

 

[samurl]

Your first mistake was asking the question here, as you just have several 'opinions' and maybe one or two links that can give you something factual to work with.

Do you not have a mat/pat leave policy drafted up within your company? In absolutely any event you ought to have something in place to define how this process will work in reality?

If you're trying to negotiate with him and have nothing in writing he actually needs to comply with, what do you expect to happen?

If I were in your shoes, I'd much rather try and delay the work, or negotiate with the other hires regarding their holiday (maybe one of them would be happy to cancel it and take extra pay for the inconvenience?) than force this guy on the job, get half way through it and down tools leaving you completely stranded... Then what happens? You 100% lose the customer.

 

[dl8860]

OP you haven't given much info on the type of work so this might be a no-go, but have you tried letting your client know about this issue and coming to an understanding that only 2 out of the 3 personnel from your company can attend the event?

 

[gandhi]

Whatever you choose to do do, you need to be very careful and I would suggest getting some professional advice. I would not want to be in a position as an employer where I had forced an employee to miss the birth of his child, it could get very expensive.

As to whether or not he can refuse the job, that's down to the terms of his contract of employment. Ours is very clear in that the people who work for us in the field, can refuse jobs that require an overnight stay but not anything within "reasonable" travel distance. I.E. not somewhere that would mean 6 hours travel, 8 hours work then 6 hours travel back!

 

[Syla5]

Wow so many people seem to be completely miss understanding the OP's question, concern, points...

OP - as an employee he cannot pick and choose where his job sends him, regardless of imminent due dates etc. He can ask you to make reasonable adjustments, but refusal to go somewhere as it is within X number of weeks of his wife giving birth isn't really acceptable. The due date while not an exact science is something to work towards.

In your given circumstances I would exhaust all possibilities to adjust other team members annual leave and if that is not possible to do then said employee has to accept to come to the job.

Assuming the employee comes to the job, if his wife does go in to labour, and he left (rightfully so) would you cope on the job? If the answer to this is no, then you need to make alternative arrangements from a staffing perspective to make sure the job is still achievable. If this is the case the only solution then there is no reason why you cannot extend this solution to cover the employee being able to not come on the job at all.

Regardless of the situation, I do not believe it is acceptable for the employee to say he isn't coming, just in case. As others have said in this thread, how long should you expect this behaviour to be acceptable for etc.

TL/DR
Try and change other staff holiday
Employee would be being unreasonable if they demand not to attend the job
If the employee did attend the job but had to leave due to labour, could you still do the job under staffed?
If the answer to the above is no then come up with a solution that fixes the staffing issue at the job, and supports the employee meaning he doesn't have to attend.

 

[D.P.]

Seems like such an odd situation. It's an event so it can't be rescheduled, and the "job" is a client that's worth up to £50,000 a year. Like I said we can't cover his time because 2 are off on holiday which was approved as there's almost 2 weeks to go until the due date.

He's basically saying he's not comfortable going as it's so far away, but we're really thin/empty on options! Surely you can't just not go to work in case?

You can cancel the 2 people that are scheduled to be on holiday, offer to cover any loss and pay a nice bonus.

Or you hire a a temp/contractor to cover this 1 job

Or you reschedule the job

or you cancel the job and apologize, potentially offer some kind of coupon against future work as an apology.


You are worrying to much about something which is just inevitable anyway. What if he wasn't expecting but simply got sick or in an accident. Nothing is guaranteed, that is the risk of doing business.
Your major error is you never planned redundancy around this event. Why did you let 2 people go off on vacation near the date a 3rd employee is expecting?

 

[gandhi]

TL/DR
Employee would be being unreasonable if they demand not to attend the job

Depends entirely on contract and terms of employment. Job is on a Sunday and requires an overnight stay away from prior to the job. If his terms of employment do not stipulate he needs to be available for work seven days a week and that overnight stays may be required as part of his role or words to that effect, then he is well within his rights to refuse the job.

 

[flea.rider]

I find this thread beyond belief ...op ..
tell him he's going on the job simples .if she starts in labour that's when he starts his leave . it's 4 hrs away .. 2 1/2 at top speed
my first I was doing an 11 hr shift .got to hospital waited 6 hrs for it to pop out ..home voddy sleep for 4 hrs back to work .. if I remember rightly I got 3 days off when she came out of hospital
other than being there theres not much he can do for the first 4-5 days anyway

 

[Syla5]

Depends entirely on contract and terms of employment. Job is on a Sunday and requires an overnight stay away from prior to the job. If his terms of employment do not stipulate he needs to be available for work seven days a week and that overnight stays may be required as part of his role or words to that effect, then he is well within his rights to refuse the job.

OP states "His job is on-location" if his contract doesn't cover his requirement to be present at location then there are much bigger issues going on here.

As for the overnight stay, that is much more likely to be a guideline as apposed to a requirement, ie if the job is over 2.5 hours away then overnight stay is the suggested and is covered by the employer.

So to that end the employee can refuse to go to the overnight stay, but still cannot refuse to attend the job, so they are just going to have to do a 4 hour journey on the day of the job.

 

[ttaskmaster]

Firstly, have any of your other people there gone through parenthood at all? You said you haven't, but what about the company policy on pregnancy/paternity, and particularly whoever wrote it?
Not from an 'only a parent can know' sort of perspective, just wondering if you anyone had a working understanding/experience of how this might affect his working life and what problems to expect?

haven't asked him to set a pat leave date (which is supposed to be decided on the 15th week of pregnancy, with 28 days notice to alter it).

Ours requires that you disclose it the moment you know you're expecting! It's a bit much, IMO, but there it is.

But anyway - So the job is this weekend and has been booked for 2/3 months, but you've had the best part of 6 months (or more) to know he might not be there? What if the baby is premature or late? For the record, I was born 3½ weeks after my due date...!

Basically, if you make him go and he misses the birth, he'll ******* hate you forever and it could have some very nasty results in the end.
But even if he doesn't miss the birth or the wife doesn't go into labour during the job - Until it does happen, his mind will not be fully on the job anyway... and if the job is *so important* that it needs months of advance notice and staff emergencies have that much of an impact, would you want someone in that frame of mind on this mega-important job in the first place?

I'd say you just have to let him go do his thing, really. It's not like you weren't fully aware.
If you've been exceptionally flexible and nice, over and above your normal company policy, regarding the scans and all that, then you could argue he owes you one for that...

But his absence from the job because of the birth and however that might impact the company isn't something you can really lay on him, any more than you would blame him if he died in a car crash on the way home tonight - It's up to the company to have contingency plans, especially since (unlike with a car crash fatality) you've had 6-9 months notice that it's going to happen!

It's morbid, I know, but we have some seriously high risk programmes where a staffing failure could result in heavy fatalities... as in, an incident would kill a guaranteed minimum of 2,000 people. But even though these are low probability risks, they cannot be mitigated sufficiently to permit a failure to field enough staff, and so we have to have a minimum of five contingency teams available 24/7. It's obviously expensive, but far cheaper than the cost of failure.

 

[dl8860]

I find this thread beyond belief ...op ..
tell him he's going on the job simples .if she starts in labour that's when he starts his leave . it's 4 hrs away .. 2 1/2 at top speed
my first I was doing an 11 hr shift .got to hospital waited 6 hrs for it to pop out ..home voddy sleep for 4 hrs back to work .. if I remember rightly I got 3 days off when she came out of hospital
other than being there theres not much he can do for the first 4-5 days anyway

Suppose...

a)The dad to be has no signal where he job is, so doesn't see message that baby is coming for an hour

b)Instead of a 4 hour drive being 2.5 hours (literally impossible unless you have an empty motorway door to door and can drive 112mph down it) it takes 5.5 due to traffic

Could easily be 6.5 hours between water breaking (or start of contractions) and birth, I agree not the most likely, but easily plausible enough that it would make me not want to work this job in the guy's position.

Just because your wife had a long labour and you couldn't make yourself valuable for the first week of the baby's life doesn't mean the same applies for this guy.

 

[rhysduck]

I find this thread beyond belief ...op ..
tell him he's going on the job simples .if she starts in labour that's when he starts his leave . it's 4 hrs away .. 2 1/2 at top speed
my first I was doing an 11 hr shift .got to hospital waited 6 hrs for it to pop out ..home voddy sleep for 4 hrs back to work .. if I remember rightly I got 3 days off when she came out of hospital
other than being there theres not much he can do for the first 4-5 days anyway

@flea.rider
1. You choose when you start your Paternity Leave, not your employer and not when labour starts.
2. Please show us all how you turn a 4 hour journey into 2.5hours.
3. There's absolutely plenty to do in the first 4-5days. I pity your wife/girlfriend if that's the way you feel.