Meeting outside work hours

LilElvis

jonnygee2 wrote: »

I forgot to state - but felt it kind of implied - that I was assuming the car would be parked!!

Plenty of our sales guys dial into meetings from their cars, none yet from moving vehicles though.

If she's parked when she makes the call then how is she supposed to join them for the rest of the meeting? Why then call them from the car at all rather than the comfort of her sofa where a video conference would be a possibility.

jonnygee2

If she's parked when she makes the call then how is she supposed to join them for the rest of the meeting?

She isn't?

Why then call them from the car at all rather than the comfort of her sofa where a video conference would be a possibility.

She has to drop her son off at 8am was my understanding. Assuming she will be in a car at 8am after dropping off her kid. If she could be on a sofa then dialling in from there would work too.

JReacher1

8am meeting implies something major is happening e.g. people are losing their jobs. Probably worth trying to attend if at all possible.

Craig1981

pay the child minder and attend the meeting

if it was for tomorrow morning then yes, difficult to do, however seems like plenty of notice has been given to make certain arrangements regarding childcare, early attendance etc.

sounds like a one off, so why not do what she can to attend, as would be in her best interest to do so

prowla

Most companies allow remote access to meetings, via Skype, Zoom, GoToMeeting, etc.

TELLIT01

JReacher1 wrote: »

8am meeting implies something major is happening e.g. people are losing their jobs. Probably worth trying to attend if at all possible.

That was my immediate thought too.

clairec79

JReacher1 wrote: »

8am meeting implies something major is happening e.g. people are losing their jobs. Probably worth trying to attend if at all possible.

I agree this is what I thought, especially if they have never done this before

sangie595

P.Hill wrote: »

My wife has been asked to attend a meeting that falls outside of her normal hours
It happens at a time I will be working away from home for several days
The meeting starts at 8am and is a half hour drive from our house and we have a 5 year old son who attends a local school, however, he can not be dropped off till 8am

My wife has said it is not possible for her to attend the meeting unless she drops off our son at a childminders for which we will incur a cost.

As such she has asked work if they will reimburse the cost of a childminder to which they have told her no and the meeting is mandatory

Her contract states she does not start work till 8:30
I believe she has been reasonable and showed flexibility in offering to attend if they paid the childcare fees but as they have refused I believe my wife is under no obligation to attend outside of her contracted hours

Can somebody confirm if this is correct?.

Setting aside a lot of sensible alternatives and a couple of ridiculous ones, the question is " can anyone confirm if this is correct" and the answer is no, it isn't correct. Even on fixed hours, it is reasonable to expect some flexibility on an occasional basis. It might be different ( but not necessarily,) if it were regular, but a one off or occasional meeting outside hours wouldn't be. In the end, whatever else is the case, the real question should always be "are you willing to lose your job over this?" and possibly, if the answer is yes "will I stand a chance at Tribunal". I can bee relatively confident that even if your answer to the first one is yes, the answer to the second one is no. That then tells you what decision she must make. Whether they would dismiss or discipline her for not turning up is quite irrelevant - they might, and is that a risk she's willing to take?

DontBringBertie

This happened a lot in my previous job. One of the employees with a child decided she needed to do 7am - 3pm every day. Which meant every meeting which ended after 3pm, or required travel to another office (both were fairly regular occurrences) had to be covered by another one of our team. Even if they had weeks of notice.

Brynsam

If this is a one-off request, you seem to making a major meal of it. Pay for an hour's childcare and then your wife can find out what's so important about this meeting. Has she asked for details of what's on the agenda? The response to that might be quite instructive, especially if nobody will tell her.