A company needs to recognize that severe weather conditions will present a variety of problems that make travel unwise or unsafe, or that will cause disruption to road networks and public transport infrastructure for their employees.
Severe weather cannot be specifically defined, so it is so important for a company to draft and implement a policy or policies into their Employee Handbook to reflect this happening. By having a specific policy on this matter, it sets out how the Company approaches situations where employees are unable to get to their workplace due to severe weather, or where it may be unsafe to do so and what the employee needs to do in the event of this happening.
Within these policies, employers need to be clear and transparent on the different types of weather scenarios that can happen and the options available to employees to take given the circumstances that they find themselves in. Also if Working from Home is an option and how best to make up lost time due to all of these reasons.
When drafting the company policy, management need to also consider unusual / unexpected absences and how best to deal with them (e.g. medical appointment and personal reasons like pet being sick, boiler breaking down, etc.) if not already done so with the Employee Handbook.
Make sure that whatever reason you come up for making up lost time that it is universal across the company.
Also good to note that employees that could not attend work during severe will or will not lose their entitlement to the attendance bonus if your company as one in place.
If you need assistance in drafting up a Severe Weather Policy or an Unusual / Unexpected Absence Policy, please get in touch with Core Resource.
