Paternity leave

[matthab]

Of course the company can. Whether or not that is a good idea or not depends on the requirement, compensation, alternative options. I've had a holiday booked 4 months in advance canceled a week before due to the requirements of work. In my case my boss reimbursed the flight money and rebooked me in for a similar holiday a few weeks later in a much better hotel with a couple of K spending money.


IN the OP's case, it is quite clear that the 2 people on holiday should have their leave cancelled.


The UK in particular has very minimal employee rights. the company can dictate how and when you spend your annual leave, and can make changes to the dates they told you.

Its even in my contract if my employer cancels holiday after approval any costs to me will be reimbursed.

 

[Angilion]

Slip of finger? Not quite.
But if we don't have a response team on site quick enough, we're in serious trouble!

Basically, we look after water infrastructure in London, which includes the stuff winding through and all around Network Rail and the Underground. There are certain locations where a structural failure would result in most of the Tube being flooded very rapidly. This amount of water gushing out would also destabilise a lot of their tunnels and things, which usually have things like buildings and roads on top, as well.

TFL have staff working round the clock, and they estimated that such a failure would kill at least 2,000 of their people at any given time. Obviously the numbers would be far higher during rush hour, with all the passengers too, but that's where the 2k comes from.

Strangely, it's not the people killed that'd land us in so much trouble, but the bill for damage to TFL/NR assets. We're talking billions, which would bankrupt us many times over. So rather than risk the wrath of their legal department, we have a team who can deal with it, plus anther team, plus a back-up for each team, plus a back-up team to cover the two back-ups!!


Ha ha, I see what you did there...!
As long as we have a quarter of the staff available, I'm sure everything will be amazing.

That's actually reassuring. These days, I'm pleasantly surprised when it's not the case that costs have been cut to the extent that basic functionality is threatened even on critical systems. For something like that, there should be enough safety measures to cover even extremely unlikely scenarios. That's the difference between Fukushima Oniichi (no problem) and Fukushima Daiichi (disaster). Same nuclear power station, same circumstances, but Oniichi had enough safety measures and Daiichi cut costs.

 

[SpeedFreak]

Do you pay to top up paternity leave or is it statutory only?

 

[Participant]

Forget laws and regulations to some extent; if you like the guy and he's a good worker, accommodate his wishes in this situation as it's an extremely emotional situation to be in for a father.

You're not telling him to risk missing his dentist check up here.

Treat him poorly (from his point of view) and you could lose the loyalty and desire to work for you of a valued employee. He'll be bitter about it until he finds another job.

If you value the worker, you need to find another way, whether it's reschedule the project, train up someone else, do it yourself, cancel someone else's holiday, etc. If you don't value him, force him to work and never see him again after he goes on maximum paternity leave.

Personally I've had a recent situation where I've probably tested my employer's patience (through no fault of my own) and the understanding they showed me has resulted in me wanting to stay with them and do well, whereas it could easily have gone the other way if they'd played hardball.

 

[ttaskmaster]

That's actually reassuring. These days, I'm pleasantly surprised when it's not the case that costs have been cut to the extent that basic functionality is threatened even on critical systems.

Oh, we still do that elsewhere... Just not on the railway side. We're under the thumb of railway legislation and there are such severe penalties for stuffing up their stuff, that we couldn't afford liability for even one incident.

 

[Semple]

Treat him poorly (from his point of view) and you could lose the loyalty and desire to work for you of a valued employee. He'll be bitter about it until he finds another job.

Also not to mention the impression this leaves on your other employees. If any of those are young blokes who haven't yet started families, they may think twice about staying with a company if you're treated that ****** when it comes to the birth of your child.

 

[Irish_Tom]

What happened in the end @Russinating?

 

[Russinating]

We gave him the opportunity to take it as holiday in the end, he wasn't actually that fussed but his Mrs was so he took it. A bit of serendipity with the brief changing on the day made life easier for the two of us but we still lost money. Baby didn't come, naturally.

This thread has been quite funny though, I showed it to my business partner who doesn't internet much (in this sense at least) and he was pretty disgusted. So many people jumping down my throat with absolutely no idea of what we do, how we treat our employees, what benefits they get, what they think of us, etc.

There were a handful of useful replies so thank you to the sensible/not-so-internet few of you .

 

[Irish_Tom]

We gave him the opportunity to take it as holiday in the end, he wasn't actually that fussed but his Mrs was so he took it. A bit of serendipity with the brief changing on the day made life easier for the two of us but we still lost money. Baby didn't come, naturally.

This thread has been quite funny though, I showed it to my business partner who doesn't internet much (in this sense at least) and he was pretty disgusted. So many people jumping down my throat with absolutely no idea of what we do, how we treat our employees, what benefits they get, what they think of us, etc.

There were a handful of useful replies so thank you to the sensible/not-so-internet few of you .

Glad it worked out in the end.

You must have expected a typical amount of ‘GD’ to happen, but I think there were some posters who clearly hadn’t read all of your OP or subsequent replies and were jumping to some rather odd conclusions.

 

[wiiija]

This thread has been quite funny though, I showed it to my business partner who doesn't internet much (in this sense at least) and he was pretty disgusted. So many people jumping down my throat with absolutely no idea of what we do, how we treat our employees, what benefits they get, what they think of us, etc.

Yeah I thought exactly the same so I stayed way out of it, glad you sorted it in the end.

 

[Deleted member 651465]

My ex went in to labour as I left for work on morning. Naturally, I’d already informed the employer of an expected date but this was 2 weeks late and I was in work for all of 2hrs before leaving.

He’s within his right to not want to be 4hrs away from his expectant wife, but I can also appreciate your reluctance to lose the contract.

In an ideal world you’d have transferred his client/project to another member of the team and given him something local.

Question: if he’s on site with a client and gets a call, what would you expect their response would be? I imagine most reasonable people will be understanding if he had to dash off.

Edit: realise he’s had the baby, but the question remains.