Has anyone's boss spoken to you about missing too many days due to kid's snow closings?

[Anonymous]

I work in a similar situation (small company without set policy, managing employees who need to take leave etc). I agree that you need to set a policy. We are an education-based organization so we go by MoCo admin office policy (if they're closed, we're closed, etc). Just use OPM - if not, they have to take leave.

I'm guessing based on your earlier posts she has a negative leave balance. Have you talked to her about it? Have you requested she spend additional time (nights, weekends) to catch up? If she being paid for the time off or taking the days beyond her allotted leave without pay?

[Anonymous]

How did we go from reprimand in your OP to "oh no I'm trying to help her" in your follow up

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:sounds like she should be reprimanded and told to find backup childcare

If she is taking her vacation (which she is entitled to do), then it is really not appropriate to reprimand her. I am a lead of a small team, and it is my job to build in these sort of things into the schedule I make and communicate to those higher than me. I would be a pretty crappy team lead if there was no buffer in case someone got sick or had to take a few days off for an emergency. Sound like the OP needs to do a better job of planning -- poor management if you ask me.

It is not unrealistic of OP to expect that someone will not have taken over 9 days of leave by Feb 19.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How did we go from reprimand in your OP to "oh no I'm trying to help her" in your follow up

I never said I would reprimand her. Other posters assumed it.

[Anonymous]

OP-- MYOB. You seem to know way too much about this woman's time-off and leave use. How about you concentrate on your own work? K?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP-- MYOB. You seem to know way too much about this woman's time-off and leave use. How about you concentrate on your own work? K?

This is my business. She works directly under me and is not doing her job.

[Anonymous]

I think it depends on how she is accounting for that time off. If she is taking vacation days then I don't see what the problem is. If she were to take a regular vacation then she wouldn't be expected to make up that work right? If she is just not showing up but expecting to be paid and not taking vacation time, then yes she should make up that work.

I also don't know ow people are suppose to find back-up care. It is one thing if yuo have family in the area or friends who are willing to watch your kids, but not everyone has that luxury.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP-- MYOB. You seem to know way too much about this woman's time-off and leave use. How about you concentrate on your own work? K?

This is my business. She works directly under me and is not doing her job.

Why are you relying on the response of DCUM for your job? OMG. Take it to your HR department or something for advice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP-- MYOB. You seem to know way too much about this woman's time-off and leave use. How about you concentrate on your own work? K?

This is my business. She works directly under me and is not doing her job.

Why are you relying on the response of DCUM for your job? OMG. Take it to your HR department or something for advice.

I was asking what other people's offices did.

Before I had kids, I worked at a company who fired a woman who took too many days off due to snow closings, sick kids, etc. She was not performing compared to the rest of her department due to taking too much time off.

[Anonymous]

Fortunately, my office is pretty flexible about letting me take unexpected time off due to sick kids and school closures, but if I were in your report's situation, I'd have no choice but to take leave (or LWOP as it might be), and then I'd work my butt off during the evening or weekend to make up the work. If your employee can't take her work home, that would totally stink.

[Anonymous]

OP your office needs a policy regarding this. It really helps

[Anonymous]

The bottom line is that she isn't doing her work. Everyone has issues with closings etc, but she needs to work on weekends / evenings etc to make up for the missed days, especially if she's being paid. You need to sit down with concrete examples of deadlines she's missing etc and explain that you're ok with her taking some unexpected time (if you are) but that the work still needs to be done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:sounds like she should be reprimanded and told to find backup childcare

If she is taking her vacation (which she is entitled to do), then it is really not appropriate to reprimand her. I am a lead of a small team, and it is my job to build in these sort of things into the schedule I make and communicate to those higher than me. I would be a pretty crappy team lead if there was no buffer in case someone got sick or had to take a few days off for an emergency. Sound like the OP needs to do a better job of planning -- poor management if you ask me.

It is not unrealistic of OP to expect that someone will not have taken over 9 days of leave by Feb 19.

Yea, but I doubt everyone on her team is taking 9 days off. She should have planned for things taking at least 1.5 times as long as they actually do, and then when it looked like her employee wasn't going to make a deadline, she should have reassigned the work to someone else or taken it on herself.
Due to the snowstorm last week, everyone on my team was out of the office for at least three days. Another person got sick on top of that and was out for another 2. What am I going to do, make that person work while sick? Reprimand them for taking their earned time off? Yea right. So I took on the work myself since as lead I am the one ultimately responsible for her work and asking someone else to take it on would have made us late for other deadlines. I had to work both days over the weekend, but since I had also adequately planned enough buffer time, it didn't really affect anyone else and it wasn't the end of the world. Poor performance of individual employees reflects badly on the whole team -- it is my job to try to prevent situations like that from happening/people higher up than me from noticing if an individual is missing deadlines for understandable reasons.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:5 back up plans for childcare? You REALLY don't want to be stuck with those kids, do you? Are you jealous of your employee because she's an actual mom?

I don't work full time so I am not sure what your point is. I just have a lot of friends and former teachers seem to like our family. We also pay well.

You're full of it. Probably bully the nanny into driving in unsafe conditions to get to you.

[Anonymous]

How is her work the rest of the year? Have you ever had a problem with her slacking before? Is she taking off full days for delayed school openings too?

You need to come up with a inclement weather policy.

You need to help her figure out how to catch up with her work immediately. Talk to her and see what's going on.

Talk to her about her plans for teacher work days. She needs to request time off for those in advance if she's going to take PTO.