Need your opinion on something at work.

[Jeepaholic]

Trust me, being the type of manager that only thinks of the job, and fails to consider how your decisions and policies impact your employee's lives outside of work is 100% surefire guaranteed to make sure your employees hate you, and you WILL see it in your turnover rates.

And YOU will fail.

agreed!

This is why I started this thread. At this point we are talking morals more than anything. Growing up my dad would have never called in that's what I saw and I have always held myself too. I am a very personal manager, I do care greatly for my employees, In fact I just recently loaned a few hundred dollars to a dept. manager that is going through a rough divorce until he can pay me back when he gets his tax refund.

I will agree that under these circumstances it would be unreasonable to coach them. I can not hold a person to a standard just because I hold my self to the same.

 

[kombat]

I can not hold a person to a standard just because I hold my self to the same.

Now hang on a second. You don't get to play the self-sacrificing hero card and imply that you drive a Jeep out of a sense of responsibility to your employer when you've already admitted that off-roading is one of your hobbies.

In your first post, you said:

I feel it is the same as a person not coming in because its raining and all they have is a motorcycle and don't want to get wet. I say drive whatever you want, but have a plan in place to take care of your responsibilities.

So you're comparing someone who skips work due to rain because all they drive is a motorcycle is the same as someone who skips work due to snow because all they drive is a (regular, non-Jeep, non-4WD) car. I don't think that's fair at all.

It just so happens that 4x4-ing is one of your passions. That has a fortuitous overlap with getting to work during particularly inclement winter weather. But that doesn't mean it's fair to expect EVERYONE to shell out the kind of money it takes to drive such a vehicle, just to ensure they can get to work the 1 or 2 days a year where you get an extremely heavy snowfall.

Summary: Don't claim you drive your vehicle out of some virtuous sense of "duty" to your employer, and call others less dedicated than you, when the truth is you drive your Jeep because you ENJOY it.

 

[Goofynewfie]

Really? Dude, it's a hardware store. It's not a matter of national security.

There is no way to set a policy on this. If they are taking advantage of a situation then if needs to be addressed. If they truly can't get to work without owning a 4 wheel drive behemoth then there is no action to be taken

Give it the reasonable test. Would a reasonable person think that they should have made it into work? ( In this case, a reasonable person does not own a Jeep and live for days like this)

+1
as far as sleeping at the store, are you supplying them with meals, place to take a shower, somewhere to sleep other than of floor, etc? what about if they need medications on a regular schedule eg. Insulin

 

[Jeepaholic]

When did i say i was a self sacrificing hero. I have already stated drive whatever you want, just have a plan to get to work. like I said earlier I would have been happy to of picked him up. one of the sayings that has helped me the most in life is.

A failure to plan is a plan to fail.

But I have already stated that I have changed my mind on this. I don't drive a jeep just to get to work. Back when i was In high school I never missed a day of work due to snow and that was in a Camaro.

 

[Jeepaholic]

I'm wondering why the attacks on me? I asked a simple question and had a poll in place. all you had to do is vote. Truth is I don't care what you guys think of me as I will never meet you. but still I don't understand when I came here specifically to help change my mind. if I had wanted reassurance I would have posted On a different fourm.

 

[Goofynewfie]

Mine is not meant as an attack, I am legitamitely curious, what do you have for the people who choose to spend the night as far as food and other things go. you asked me to come in, sleep on the floor and go hungry, no way.
reasonable place to sleep, a meal,I'm reasonably comfortable then we can discuss it

 

[Beernik]

I think it is funny to hear people talk about my big honking tires when I have said it is a bone stock jeep.

I've found most of the time it's not what you drive, it's how you drive. I've driven a Civic through a near white-out ground blizzard and been fine. I've also rolled a Wrangler because an unexpected patch of wind blown snow on the road.

4WD and snowtires are very nice to have. But they aren't everything.

Sure, sometimes my 30 minute commute turns into a 2 hour commute. But if I was too scared to drive in the snow, I wouldn't have left my neighborhood for half of January and most of February. If it wasn't falling from sky, the wind was blowing from the wheat fields onto the roads.

 

[TyTanium]

Move the store to Florida. Problem solved.

 

[Yellowirenut]

only once I have told the boss that I was not coming into work during a snow storm. I drive a company work van. He informed me because my occupation that I WAS coming to work. I repair commercial HVAC. I then called my clients i was to visit that day. All offices and businesses where closed. I then contacted my boss and told him that all my clients had closed and found no reason to end up in a ditch going somewhere that was closed. He finally agreed it was best to stay home. As all the other employees had also called in.

Guess I am saying I took it upon myself to ensure my clients would be ok in order to keep my own ass home. If i would had blindly followed his orders I most likely had ended up in the ditch.
Icing on the cake is that his (my boss) wife got stuck in there own driveway that day.

 

[SmokeNbrew]

Simply stated, it's a judgement call. I realize Im restating the obvious, but thats the very nature of management. A position which relies on intuition, and thats what separates one manager from the next and something that can't be taught through an employee handbook.

With my business (family), I realize in inclemate weather some employees just aren't going to show up. Im not typically one of 'em, but my interest in the company is different than theirs. These circumstances only happen a few times a year...I expect it and generally plan for it. It affects my operation, but so is entire area. Not just me. Not the end of the world, you just make the best of it.

Now if the school busses are running and that 'certain' employee (we all have one) is calling off due to weather, then it may be possible they're walking a line of dereliction. However, weather is the least of your problems with them.

my .02

 

[iversenbeer]

In my opinion It's just work, companies don't care enough about employees to justify putting my life at risk. If I don't think I can make it safely, I'm not coming in and I don't care how it makes any of my co-workers feel. My safety trumps their feelings. I wouldn't ask employees to sleep at the store, making an employee sleep at a store is pretty illegal unless you're paying them for their time. You can't dictate what nonexempt employees do in their off time without providing compensation. Getting a ride might not work if they live way outta the way. If it's obvious that some person is just being a ******* and abusing the system calling in every time there's a light dusting then I would reprimand that person, but I would trust my employees to know their limits.

 

[sloanfamilydsm]

If the manager in question has sick/vacation days available and chooses to use them instead of potentially risking his/her life then I would say they made a good decision. It is also possible the manager in question could make it in late or leave early on serious snow events with no ramifications. Or possibly rearrange their work schedule with another manager to minimize exposure to said snow event.

 

[gratus fermentatio]

Under the circumstances stated by the OP, I had to vote "unreasonable." Not everybody owns or can afford to own a 4x4. If a winter storm makes it difficult, or impossible for someone to get to work, there's likely not much anybody can do but try to notify their supervisor or fellow employees of the situation & do the best they can to do what needs to be done in order to get to work; but if that means risking life, limb & property, that's just foolish. If there's 3 inches of ice on the road, I'm staying home. I live on a mountain & the road is steep & twists about in places. Even with 4wd, you can still end up going off the road in winter & it's a long way down. Unless you're delivering a heart for transplant or you're repelling an invasion, work will just have to wait. Just my 2 cents worth.
Regards, GF.