Help regarding toilet breaks

InsideInsurance

aileth wrote: »

Where did I say it takes me five minutes? The toilet is right next to my office and it probably takes 1-2 at most.

Strangely enough I dont actually know the layout of your office.

I was basing your hourly needing the toilet with our office building where its about a 90 second walk to the loos and gave you 1-2 minutes actually in the loo to do your business, wash hands etc.

Presumably you arent saying that your need for the loo is in any way proportional to your distance from the toilet?

aileth

InsideInsurance wrote: »

Strangely enough I dont actually know the layout of your office.

I was basing your hourly needing the toilet with our office building where its about a 90 second walk to the loos and gave you 1-2 minutes actually in the loo to do your business, wash hands etc.

Presumably you arent saying that your need for the loo is in any way proportional to your distance from the toilet?

Well, you're the one who said it took me five minutes, I thought maybe you were spying on me

pimento

InsideInsurance wrote: »

People take the !!!! and so employers have to have rules in force to stop them. Particularly in jobs which are high volume, low skill and typically poor engagement.

Go into the toilets and you always hear people tapping away on their mobiles in the stalls. No employer/ manager is ever going to have an acceptable way of judging who goes to the loo 10 times a shift because they have undiagnosed bladder/bowel issues and whos going in there to try and get past the next level of Candy Crush.

I've never been in our loos at work and heard anyone playing with their phone but then, our employer treats us like adults so we tend to act like them.

InsideInsurance

pimento wrote: »

I've never been in our loos at work and heard anyone playing with their phone but then, our employer treats us like adults so we tend to act like them.

As does my client but you still hear people tapping away on mobiles. Of cause they could be reading/ sending work emails from the iPhones or Blackberrys but again no employer is going to have a reasonable way of really checking this

[Deleted User]

Least they know where the bathroom is.. can remember two of my lovely jobs didn't bother explaining : ( needless to say not much was drunk


Low expectations here

PHILANTHROPIST

feygan wrote: »

While it's an issue that has opinions all over all I am really concerned over is where my partner would stand from a rights perspective should she get issued with a disciplinary action. Could she argue that as she was simply going to the toilet then she has had a basic right violated or not? if argued would the onas be on her to prove she was actually only going to the toilet or can she argue it is the responsibility of the company to have in place systems to monitor employees whereabouts?

Issues over the moral aspect of this or if my partner should look for other work etc really have no bearing or offer any help to the problem, so all I am seeking is how she can oppose this policy and stay on the right side of things from an employment protection point of view.

Call ACAS on 08457 47 47 47. They may be able to help. Pl report back on what they say.

SunReader

Sad how these target obsessed team leaders think that the performance of a member of staff can be measured by their toilet breaks, seems rather a simple minded measure of employee performance.

bluffer

SunReader wrote: »

Sad how these target obsessed team leaders think that the performance of a member of staff can be measured by their toilet breaks, seems rather a simple minded measure of employee performance.

funnily enough, those who take the !!!!, take the !!!!. in every measurement.

strange that. :A

if you have a real medical condition, fair enough. in a 10 hour shift, there are enough breaks in a day and a week and a month to average things out. those who take the mick are usually those who dont care about the job and just dont care.

in my work place, only two people have a medical condition that would make them go to the toilet. strangely, they arent in the top ten of offenders!

bluffer

feygan wrote: »

She has no issue with this however she cannot simply say "I have finished that call and it is past my break time I am off for lunch". She must wait until informed by her team leader that it is time for that team to take their break,

hmmm. i call shannigans. there is no call centre i have worked in or heard of that says if you have worked passed your break you have to wait for the next one.

Dazedandconfused

bluffer wrote: »

funnily enough, those who take the !!!!, take the !!!!. in every measurement.

strange that. :A

if you have a real medical condition, fair enough. in a 10 hour shift, there are enough breaks in a day and a week and a month to average things out. those who take the mick are usually those who dont care about the job and just dont care.

in my work place, only two people have a medical condition that would make them go to the toilet. strangely, they arent in the top ten of offenders!

I have a bladder condition that comes and goes, this resulted in me being referred to the hospital last year having an ultra sound, cystoscopy and being prescribed 3 months of antibiotics and tablets to take at night which seems to have cleared up the worst of it. I found that when it was at its worst I was going to the loo every hour at least. Basically the bladder walls get irritated and inflamed and it causes pain as your bladder fills so you need the loo much sooner than you would normally as it causes chronic pain and if you ignore it you would wee yourself so when you've got to go you've got to go!! It's actually awful to have as you end up planning your life around where toilets are - so things like if I travelled to a different office I would have to sometimes take a different route that was more miles because I knew there was a toilet on that route in the right place for when I would need to go.

I had to log how many times I was going to the loo a day and at one stage it was between 14-17 times a day and would involve me getting up several times at night. At the moment I'm now only needing the loo about every 3-4 hours which I think is pretty normal.

So I found it quite embarrassing but I had a discussion about it with my manager and when it was particularly bad I offered to work over for 15+ mins a day to make up for loo time taken over and above the norm and claiming mileage for the shortest amount of miles even if I'd gone a longer route to go to the loo. If I had to go on a training event make sure HR informed the trainer in advance so they didn't just think I was skiving off training and making sure I had a seat at the back near the door so I didn't disturb other people going in and out. I'm not of the age really where you would naturally expect to have bladder issues so I think if I hadn't been willing to talk about it it probably would have made work think I was taking the mick.

I found work quite accommodating about it because I was willing to be reasonable about work hours. I would imagine that a call centre would be open more hours than her shift so would her work be able to accommodate her working an extra 10-15 mins to make up any time that she was over her allotted loo breaks? I know years ago when I worked at a call centre you had to put in a code for being logged off for lunch and then you had a different code for loo breaks and I think we had 15 mins a day allowance for that and a code for if you had to take a break because you had taken a distressing call. It was for complaints and we used to take a lot of really abusive calls and also loads of calls nuisance calls asking you what underwear you were wearing etc (the joys of a free phone number). If you went over your allotted amount of breaks it was flagged up with a supervisor and they would call you about it.

I think that you have to be reasonable really. I'm not sure whether my condition would now be classed as a disability - as I've had it for more than a year, and painful bladder syndrome is an ongoing condition but even so I feel that you have to be reasonable about it and work with your work to find solutions to enable you to do your allotted hours. Work pay you to work at the end of the day so I can see their point if you are spending large portions of the day not working. As someone stated earlier if it was an hour a day (but even at my worst it was nothing like this it only takes 2 mins to go to the loo at a time after all) that 5 hrs a week you've worked less than colleagues. But your work allowing no toilet time at all is unreasonable too it's finding a middle ground.