Am i able to refuse weekend work in accordance with my JSAg?

MissRose

I've managed volume recruitment campaigns for numerous blue chip companies at both junior and senior levels. I've worked closely with JCP and welfare to work agencies, alongside my own resourcing team, agency side, and also from an internal perspective.

If the OP has a genuine reason to not work on a saturday - and in the interview there are questions designed around not just his 'hobbies' to establish this, then it would cost the company a lot more than would be realised to recruit, train and employ this person who would leave as soon as a job where saturday working is not required becomes available.

The JCP know this. The advisors i worked with know this. But they have to be seen to be promoting roles, even when they know the candidate is nowhere near suitable.

I have nothing but praise for the dwp staff, having gone through an illness and had to claim esa and dla. They were fab. But I had high opinions of them anyway. I have spent time in numerous JCP across scotland and being sick just made me think more of them.

At the end of the day, I wish they didn't have to open vacancies to clearly unsuitable candidates...and that doesn't just mean skill level, but the whole package

ceridwen

Some sound commonsense being talked by Miss Rose.

The thing is that people know when they leave education for the World of Work in the first place whether the type of work they have decided on involves antisocial hours or no. If they know they've chosen a type of job that is necessarily 24/7 (eg nursing) or normally 24/7 (eg shop assistant) then they know what the score is and arrange their own lives accordingly.

Many others though know they chose a type of work that is done in normal workhours and they arrange their lives accordingly. It is certainly not reasonable to expect someone who has been working weekdays for years and built up a life of their own (hobbies and the like that have to be done at specific days/times) to give all that up for the sake of a job - when it wasnt their choice or fault that they lost the last job they had in the first place. Realistically - as Miss Rose says - if they were forced into an antisocial hours job they will take the first chance they get of getting back to normal and resuming their life again and leave for another job. Meanwhile they might end up skiving off on all sorts of ostensible "sick leave" to fit in as much of their normal life/hobbies as they possibly can whilst they wait for another (more suitable) job to come up. What on earth employer wants to try and make an employee work - when that employee is resenting the heck out of them for having given them the job and "plotting their escape"? Far better to have a willing worker.

I would imagine that someone who has spent years working on workdays only and "built up a life for themselves" whilst doing so would be an absolute nightmare for an employer to employ - fair better for that employer to employ someone who had taken on a type of job they knew was 24/7 in the first place and were prepared to work their life around their job. There are, after all, many people who dont do time-specific things during their leisure time - as they only watch tv/do solitary type hobbies/etc anyway - and could do these things at any time (rather than having to have specific times/days for them). There are also many people who do a sort of joint childcare arrangement with their O.H. - involving them both working different hours to each other deliberately - so that one of them is always available to look after the children and therefore one of such couples is likely to be deliberately looking for jobs with antisocial hours.

Given all that - what is the point of trying to force someone who normally only works on weekdays to do weekend working? O.P. is a darn sight more flexible than many anyway - as he has said he is even prepared to work evenings - which is more than many would.

oldmotherreilly

Joe, when you come to your 13 week review what types of job are you going to state that you are looking for? Are these jobs mainly available Monday-Friday and as dookar keeps on saying, do you have reasonable prospects of securing these types of employment during the hours you state you are available? If you do have reasonable prospects (always worth taking along details of jobs you have applied for during the first 13 weeks of your claim providing proof that such jobs are available), then the advisor is likely to agree your JSAg and then the question you are asking will be answered.
However, I do take exception at you saying that you are not happy for someone in JCP to tell you what you can and can't do-JCP staff do not make up the rules-these are based on the Social Security Acts. If you are unhappy with these, you need to talk to your MP.

Joe_S

What happens if i agree to work sundays which i wouldnt mind doing but keeping my saturdays reserved for me?