Custom and Practice

jezzebell

Hi, just a little advice needed regarding custom and practice.

It's not a really big problem more slightly annoying!

I have worked for my employer, part time, since August 2006 Since this time any additional time worked is counted as flexi time. As there were a lot of staff there when i first started, the part timers were informed we could take our flexi time any time during the year. the full timers have to take it in the month it was accrued and could only roll over 8 hours per month.

Holidays can be booked whenever, as long as there are no more than 4 members of staff off at any one time.

Management have now decided that all flexi has to be taken in that month, we're still aloud to roll over 8 hours to the following month and no single fri or mondays are to be taken off as holiday or flexi. They have also decided any bank holiday weeks where both mon and tues are classed as bank holidays, you are only allowed to have one of these weeks off, ie booking the weds thurs fri off. We havent been given notice of these changes just thats how it is.

Surely if we've been doing things one way for 18months they cant change it to another without agreement!

Sorry for the long post!

thanks

Zazen999

Hi

Firstly, what is in your contract?

And secondly, they can if it affects the business. I would suspect that there are reasons as to why these changes have been made [possibly people taking advantage to the detriment of others/the business]; these sorts of decisions aren't usually made just on a whim.

It is common practice for TOIL [Time off in Lieu] to have to be taken in the month in which it is worked, which is basically what you call flexi time. What they want is to give you the flexibility without paying for overtime - what they don't want is someone building up loads of time and disappearing off for a month without cover.

LittleVoice

Employers can say when you take your holiday so I'm afraid that the custom & practice idea may not hold. And in my view 18 months isn't long to establish it in any case.

I suspect someone else will come along and support the idea though!

dmg24

A possible reason why they have done this is to ensure equal rights for all workers, irrespective of hours worked (hence conforming with recent legislation).

I would agree that custom and practice is not really relevant here, as statutory rights will always override other provisions.

Savvy_Sue

I agree with all of the above, but perhaps most of all with dmg: it is not permissible to treat part-timers less favourably than full-timers, which is what has historically happened most often, but your employers probably want to avoid any claim from the full-timers.

However, as so much has changed it would be reasonable for you to ask for a written statement of your revised terms and conditions, particulart wrt TOIL / flexi and booking annual leave.

jezzebell

thats fair enough thank you all for the help. Just to say the building up of a lot of flexi and taking a month off for example is not something thats possible that i know off. I work for local government in HBCTB and Council Tax, not sure, to be honest, what my contract states other than amout of holidays but it is something i will look at.

Thanks again

aah

In local government many TOIL arrangements are locally agreed with local managers, there is probably no allowance for TOIL in the formal agreements.

It is unreasonable for managers to allow loads of TOIL to build up with their employees. It is also unreasonable for employees to bank loads of toil - what do you want? 3 months off?

It is in these cases that the big bosses will come in and write off all the accrued TOIL - you lose it; and you never get to take it back, thats also permissible.

So be reasonable, take the TOIL quickly after its accrued, don't accrue it without permission and don't abuse the arrangement - or you could lose it.

Managers should also be reasonable and do not substitute toil for inadequate staffing.

However, if there is a less fair arrangement for p/t workers compared to full timers, then that is discrimination....

And in local government - talk to your union, if you are not a member, you have no excuse.