Furlough: how much notice to return

sbylouk

unholyangel said:

It's not wise to draw a direct comparison as it was a judgement with regards to rest breaks, but gallagher v alpha catering shows that time employees are on call/at the employers disposal but not physically working, is considered working time and not a rest break just because, retrospectively, no work came in during that period. 

But I'm sure it would be a convincing argument for why, if it doesn't constitute a rest break during a working day, it would not satisfy the requirement of furlough that you ceased all work. And that, likewise, it is not retrospectively a period of furlough just because no work came in that day. 

This had dawned on me today; I just couldn’t put it into words or find an example. Thanks for the post! I did think they they are sort of treating me like I’m ‘on call’ and by being ‘on call’ I’m essentially providing a service to the company? I’m obviously very happy for them to contact me during our usual office hours while I’m furloughed and feel I should either respond immediately or as close as I can. But then where do you draw the line when it becomes unfair to the tax payer because I’m essentially ‘on duty’. I actually spend a lot of time waiting for work when things are normal and I’m in the office. I’m allowed to sit and browse the internet until work comes in so already they’re on morally dodgy ground furloughing me in the first place.

sbylouk

phillw said:

I'd probably phone ACAS and ask for their advice, it seems they are turning you from a salaried employee to zero hours and then making the difference up with furlough but without a clear change of contract agreed. ACAS may have some guidance that you can pass on.

I’d considered this; it’s not a bad shout. But I’m becoming increasingly aware over the course of this thread that my employer is getting worth out of me while on furlough by treating me as being on call which is unfair to the tax payer. They’re actually used to having to pay me to do nothing while I wait for work while actually in the office, on the clock, on a regular basis pre COVID-19 but now they’ve realised they can claim from the job retention scheme instead.

sbylouk

Does the employer have to set out the working pattern before the 7 day period of flexible furlough? Should they be telling me on a Friday that I will be required to work 8 til 12 on Monday and Wednesday? In which case calling me on a Thursday lunchtime to work that afternoon wouldn’t be adhering to the rules? Or am I reaching too far.

All I want is an hour or two’s notice but maybe I am entitled to much more than that.

Gareth_Ainsworth

I've just returned from furlough. I was given 3 days notice. I've gone back full time as well so no easing back in. Still, I'd much rather be in a job of course.

Each day, while on furlough, I would turn on my work phone to check emails and make myself available etc incase there was a need to contact me. In the past month we have had weekly catchups. Most days I'd be out walking the dog for hours, shopping etc going about a normal day. If I missed a call (very rare I did get one), I'd call back and they understood I cant just sit by the phone waiting.

sbylouk

Gareth_Ainsworth said:

I've just returned from furlough. I was given 3 days notice. I've gone back full time as well so no easing back in. Still, I'd much rather be in a job of course.

Each day, while on furlough, I would turn on my work phone to check emails and make myself available etc incase there was a need to contact me. In the past month we have had weekly catchups. Most days I'd be out walking the dog for hours, shopping etc going about a normal day. If I missed a call (very rare I did get one), I'd call back and they understood I cant just sit by the phone waiting.

Sounds very reasonable of you and your employer. I have set up my work emails on my personal mobile so if they contact me and I’m holding or am near my phone I will know about it. Other people are only checking work emails once a day but they don’t receive work from the aforementioned project manager so have less to worry about.

I’d like to start working again; I actually like my job, even if my employer isn’t the greatest.

Grumpy_chap

sbylouk said:

Does the employer have to set out the working pattern before the 7 day period of flexible furlough? Should they be telling me on a Friday that I will be required to work 8 til 12 on Monday and Wednesday? In which case calling me on a Thursday lunchtime to work that afternoon wouldn’t be adhering to the rules? 

I think there was originally something said that each period of flexible furlough had to be agreed with the employee and set out on a weekly basis.  I cannot find that anywhere now, so maybe it has been dropped.  I think in practice, there are very few employers working to that basis and just taking the stance that the company needs to be responsive to the customer.

This brings me nicely on top your comment:
"one particular project manager will routinely ask my department at lunchtime to produce brand new work by 3pm. This is because he has an unreasonable customer and can’t say no to them."

Actually, not saying "no" to a demanding customer may be good business decision.  However, does this give you some flexibility in how you manage your day?  You could go out in the morning, be sure to be at home for lunch and do stuff in the house for a couple of hours in case you get a call.  There is always hoovering, laundry, ironing to do...  Then by 3ish you are a free agent again.  That does not seem unbearably harsh on yourself, while keeping the flexibility the employer wants.

In practice, the idea of you doing a couple of hours work in the middle of the day may not be that beneficial to the employer as I understand that you are either "on" or "off" furlough for a working day and it is not flexible down to the hour.  That said, the employer may tolerate that if they can break-even by servicing the customer and ensure they keep the customer for the long term.

sbylouk

Grumpy_chap said:

Actually, not saying "no" to a demanding customer may be good business decision.  However, does this give you some flexibility in how you manage your day?  You could go out in the morning, be sure to be at home for lunch and do stuff in the house for a couple of hours in case you get a call.  There is always hoovering, laundry, ironing to do...  Then by 3ish you are a free agent again.  That does not seem unbearably harsh on yourself, while keeping the flexibility the employer wants.

That doesn’t sound unbearably harsh at all and I would be prepared to enter into a dialogue with my employer to agree to something like this.

I emailed my boss earlier with my thoughts - I said that to be available for work immediately feels like being on call and would constitute providing a service to my employer. Being contacted first thing in the morning to start in the afternoon or later in the day to start the next morning feels much more reasonable. He agrees and that’s the argument he’s going to put forward on Monday.

phillw

adamp87 said:

To be honest to me calling you the day before during normal working hours say I think would be fair.

Calling you at 7am/8 am to come in for 9 am I think wouldn’t be. 

It would depend on how much good will there was between me and the employer, although it's likely that if they know at 7am then they knew the previous day.
But if they get work in at 10am that needs to be (and can be done that day) & I was able to do start immediately then I'd probably do it. If I had something on then it would depend on how nice they treated me.

sbylouk

phillw said:

It would depend on how much good will there was between me and the employer.
I worked somewhere that didn't trust anyone if they worked from home & would send messages and time how long it took to respond as evidence you weren't working. The reason they didn't trust anyone of course is because they didn't do any work at all when they worked from home.

My employer actually did this when we were working from home at the start of lockdown. My boss only got wind of it last week. Apparently a few people didn’t ‘pass’ the test and that’s why they’re now getting unfurloughed people back in the office ASAP even though we can all easily work from home. Kind of glad I was making sure I was replying to emails from the MD’s son as early as 7am and as late as 6pm even though I didn’t need to!

Grumpy_chap

sbylouk said:

I would be prepared to enter into a dialogue with my employer to agree to something like this.

You may be overthinking this.

The more you enter into a dialogue with the company, the more you risk looking as though you are work-shy (which I don't think is the case) and the more you set yourself up for them to just say "yes, we do mean to be available from 8 til 6 as that it what furlough requires" and then testing you.

Can you access work e-mail from your phone?  If so, you could go anywhere within reason and take the phone call and respond to an e-mail even if you get contacted while 'away from the desk'.  You would then have to return home sharpish to get the work done.  With the work that comes in at lunch time and has to be done by 3, if you lost half an hour because you'd popped to the shops, could you still meet the deadline?

Regarding the 'over-thinking', I had exactly the same problem when I worked somewhere with site-based mobile work and they brought in a rule about returning to the office if the time of leaving site would mean that they would get 30 minutes back at the office.  I disagreed as it was more disruptive to the office-based staff having site teams turn up for 30 minutes and not doing anything but then chatting to the office-based staff as they tried to complete whatever the task was for the day.  Anyway the rule came in, so I had to brief it out to my team.  We had some informal conversations about what that meant in practice and how we would know if they could caught in traffic etc...  That was fine until one of the team wrote to me, so I had to reply in line with the formal direction, so the individual then said I was unreasonable.  It all ended in tears when the same individual got found to have 'nicked' 15 minutes at the end of a Friday afternoon, which given the extra hours I knew he had put in was more than fair - anyway, I then had to talk to him about the 15 minutes and deduct 15 minutes pay.  All totally stupid and counter-productive, not the type of environment I wanted to be associated with so I moved somewhere more healthy.  If I had never had the written question, it is possible this could have all been avoided.