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Over the past few days we have been receiving a high volume of calls from clients regarding employee attendance at work during adverse weather conditions. As there has been some misleading information broadcast on television and radio over the last few days, we thought it appropriate to advise you of the correct position.

Non-attending employees.

The correct position is that should an employee not attend for work, even if this is due to poor weather conditions, then the employer is not obliged to pay them for the hours of work missed.

An employer does have to be reasonable in such situations and therefore, we suggest that if employees are absent from work due to adverse weather conditions you should advise them that they have one of the following options;

Take unpaid leave.

Use your annual leave allowance.

Make up the lost time.

Alternatively, but only if appropriate, it makes sense to give the employee the opportunity to work from home and if the employee does work from home then they should be paid for the hours worked.

Attending employees.

The situation is different where an employee attends work but the employer is unable to offer work because the weather has made operations impossible, for example, on a building site or due to the closure of the office. In these circumstances the employer is obliged to pay the employee or, if there is an appropriate lay off clause in your staff contracts, you may be able to lay staff off paying Statutory Guarantee Payments only.

In order to avoid future confusion for employees, we would suggest that you introduce an Inclement Weather Policy which you can incorporate into your Employee Handbook. This will confirm the situation and avoid any confusion in the event of non-attendance due to inclement weather conditions and how these will be dealt with by the company.

Further assistance.

If you require any further assistance, please contact your Ellis Whittam adviser.