Issue At Work; How Would You Play This?

[Booldawg]

Please bear with me;is a bit long winded.

At work in my section we are on call on a rota basis. Its only me and one other who work in this section so we a 2 week on call pattern.

My colleague moved on early March so I have been on call 24/7 since then. We had someone new start in Sept. but they have to work there for 6 months until they can go on call.

I should be getting extra on call allowance to compensate for this and have been emailing my line manager requesting this but have been fobbed off with excuses and not received the money.

I have grounds for a greivance but think the reason why I've not been paid the extra is down to my manager not pushing it with HR. I want this sorted but a bit worried life will become difficult for me if I put a complaint in as it may become apparent my manager is at fault. What would you do?

[murraymints]

I'd ask for talk with manager and lay out your intentions to approach HR if the matter is not resolved by next pay day !

[mccfluff]

go straight to HR and ask them why you haven't been paid. You're entitled to the money, let them know. If still nothing then i would put the grievance in

[Captain Spod]

Perhaps you could ask your manager what you have to do as you have obviously missed filling the correct form etc., or should you go direct to HR?If you seek his/her help in getting what's rightfully yours it gives him/her an opportunity to put things right without admitting an error. Good luck!

[SlackAlice]

I'm not 'au fait' with employment law, but I feel its time for you to put pen to paper (not email or 'phone) and request a meeting with your HR dept. If you have to go via your Line manager then so be it.

You are losing out here and the inability of your line manager should be of little concern. He's probably bragging to the HR dept how much he's saved the company by not paying you.

[Prudie]

Well I wouldn't have waited this long to sort it out! First do you know the exact terms of being on call? Where I work it's an allowance that applies to specific dates and is actioned by the pay staff. Did you used to get it when you were sharing only in the 2 weeks when you were on or did you get it all the time? You really need to know the T&CS. Get to HR (or the Union if there is one). A grievance would be the last resort after you've clarified that you are indeed owed some money and your LM is not acting correctly. Good luck

[andy-hughes]

In all disputes, I think it is important to assess what you require as an end result - how you are going to achieve that end result, and whose co-operation do you need to achieve that end result.

If you apply that system here - you want your manager to get his finger out and sort your paperwork and get your overdue payments.

For this, you need your manager's co-operation, so it may not be wise to go over his head without giving him a chance to sort the issue first.

Make an appointment to see him, and have a polite conversation based around your need for the payments to be brought up to date, and ask him if there is any issue with getting this done.

Try and leave with an assurance that he is going to sort this issue, and a date when he epects your payments to be made up.

If the date passes - contact HR and ask them if there is a problem with your payments - but do not infer that your manager has been dilatory, or inefficient - nothing feeds back down the chain as fast as criticism.

If that fails, then you have reasonable recoruse to your Union for some action.

keep copies of all written communication between you and anyone else involved.

Make notes of any meetings and phone calls.

Good luck.

[Booldawg]

thanks all ! will move ahead with this on Monday.

[pixie373]

Good luck. I would refuse to be on-call until i was paid. I doubt they'd get very far arguing with that.

[beegeebee]

It's simply a person who is not doing that for which they are being paid. The person is a Manager and is therefore expected to manage and resolve problems, if there were never any problems there would be no need for managers!

[CokeTulip]

Andy H's approach sounds very sensible to me.

I know it depends but in my experience a company is very grateful if you cover when they are stuck and apart from getting paid abit more - it shouldn't go unnoticed.

Payroll/ other parties do get things wrong at times too.