Help regarding toilet breaks

furthest

custardy wrote: »

Do you? You havent posted relating to the OP.
So its a little hard to fathom

My point is people should be allowed to use the bathroom as often as they want, unless they are taking literally taking the pee. What a brilliant work environment it must be where toilet breaks are monitored with a stopwatch. No wonder call centres are renowned for superb employee morale.

custardy

furthest wrote: »

My point is people should be allowed to use the bathroom as often as they want, unless they are taking literally taking the pee. What a brilliant work environment it must be where toilet breaks are monitored with a stopwatch. No wonder call centres are renowned for superb employee morale.

So how would you define that?
10 minutes an hour?
<10% of shift duration or what?

shortcrust

GwylimT wrote: »

But water doesn't lubricate the throat, saliva does, water will however wash away the mucus coating on our oesophagus which protects it from drying

...

The vocal folds are the issue. Damage to the folds that can arise from overuse (e.g. talking for hours on end) may be exacerbated if a person is not well hydrated. The mucus can become thick and sticky and folds can dry out all together. Water passing over the folds occasionally will actually help the mucus to do its job, and I imagine not everyone can rely in saliva after hours of constant talking. The advice to drink water is quite correct and if it came from a health professional I'd imagine the employer would be expected to make allowances.

Still, if you need to go to loo more that three times in an 11 hour period you could be drinking too much. Staying hydrated requires regular sips rather than regular gulps.

furthest

custardy wrote: »

So how would you define that?
10 minutes an hour?
<10% of shift duration or what?

As many times as needed as long as their work does not suffer. I find people are more productive and have a higher level of morale when they are treated like adults.

ladyweasel

It's catch 22, working in an an overly airconditioned call centre with endless phone conversations is the problem and the solution is keeping hydrated which is causing more of a problem! I genuinely feel for her having been a call centre temp at Very over Christmas and having every single minute on my computer and phone logged, it's frustrating.

They cannot deny her the right to use the toilet in her allowed unplanned break time, but if she is consistently going over, they are well within their rights to discipline her for doing so, but hopefully she will come to a suitable agreement before discipline happens.

She could request to sit closer to the toilets, a doctors note or perhaps rather than using "Break/Planned Break" for a toilet break that would exceed her daily allowance, she could log out of her phone completely and they could just minus the minutes off her wage? Vocal health on youtube is a great idea as well

Also, ask her to check the options for logging out; at Very we had "Ready/Break/Lunch/Meeting" etc, but there was a setting called "Work Ready" which basically means you are ready but doing a work related task i.e. filling out a form from the previous call and it doesn't affect your statistics for being offline!

custardy

furthest wrote: »

As many times as needed as long as their work does not suffer. I find people are more productive and have a higher level of morale when they are treated like adults.

So how would you not have work suffer in a call centre?
Seems like you have no answers much beyond, its not fair.

furthest

custardy wrote: »

So how would you not have work suffer in a call centre?
Seems like you have no answers much beyond, its not fair.

If they meet their targets, I would say their work isn't affected.

tomtontom

furthest wrote: »

If they meet their targets, I would say their work isn't affected.

She is over her target time for downtime - she is not meeting her targets.

furthest

tomtontom wrote: »

She is over her target time for downtime - she is not meeting her targets.

I was talking about targets relating to her work. Some people are more efficient than others.

tomtontom

furthest wrote: »

I was talking about targets relating to her work. Some people are more efficient than others.

That is a work related target. You have to be available for a specified amount of time to take calls. This lady is not.