An Invitation to do the Right Thing
A growing trend seems to be to allocate leave in small block of 4 to 7 days in a month. This allows the company to then fill the remaining days of the month with a full roster up to the productivity level without too much effort.
Essentially what would have been days off has been replaced by leave at no cost to the company.
I doubt the benefits of this not-so-subtle tactic have been missed by the company who must delight when they can apply it.
However it’s dishonest.
I would argue that this amounts to little more than theft of either leave or money.
In a 31 day month the productivity threshold is 92 hours, in a 30 day month 89 and so on. The formula being Productivity Threshold = 3 times Number of Days in the Month minus 1.
Surely then it follows that the logic of the formula is dependent on the number of days available to be worked in a month. If leave is awarded in that month then those days are not available to the company. They contractually belong to the employee. To be fair, and protect the employee from being exploited and overly fatigued, the Productivity threshold should be adjusted accordingly.
For example in a 31 day month where leave is allocated at 5 days, then the days available to be worked are 26. Productivity threshold should then be (26 x 3) – 1 = 77. Hours worked above 77 should attract Productivity Pay and if they do not then this money is effectively being denied.
Is this not entirely consistent and fair? In former days a similar protection and honest policy was in place. It could still be easily applied by allocating 3 hours per leave day towards productivity.
I invite the company to look at this approach or something similar. It would give us all renewed faith in the corporate moral compass and espoused high ethics when dealing with employees.
Simply put: It’s the right thing to do.