[quote name='Dave Sawyer' date='17 January 2010 - 09:38 PM' timestamp='1263764315' post='10579']
I sent an email to our HR officer and explained 4x4R to them. I pointed out that for small scale call outs during work time then it is clear that I can not respond. However, if there was a big incident such as the floods in Gloucestershire then there maybe more of a need to be away during work time. What, I wanted to know, was the companies policy on this. I have been met with silence with regard to this email, which is not untypical for her, or HR people in general.
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I checked with my Personnel Dept who said they are looking into the policy for volunteers. In the meantime, take any time off as holiday or flexitime. Last week I chose the days I knew would be quiet in work to register as available for responding. But usually if it's bad enough for us to be on call outs they will have sent us home anyway. On the first bad snow day, I went into work and was called out at 9am so took it as holiday. Hardly anyone else made it into work - I assume they didn't take it as holiday! As I work flexitime I can make it up at other times so not too much of an issue unless we had a long term situation - which was starting to happen with the snow - 10 days of call outs.
One thing I did though was to let them know if they needed help in getting staff home I would be available for that - and offered to bring one of the directors in to work! Hopefully that will go in my favour!
And it is good PR for the organisation if they support this sort of thing.
