Dear Mr Cotgrove

BT Consumer: Annual Leave and the new Attendance Patterns

I am writing to clarify the BT approach to the attendance pattern process for those individuals that had previously booked Annual Leave or whom have evidence of pre booked events on days that would have fallen on the rota days off of their previous attendance.

If individuals affected, notify their line manager at the time of part A or Part B of the attendance process which dates they have already booked as annual leave or any dates that they have made commitments on, for example odd days that would have been an RDO on their previous attendance pattern, BT will honour these days and apply leave overrides if necessary.

Our approach is to ensure that individuals are not disadvantaged by having their attendances/RDO’s changed and we will adopt the following process for individuals that are affected.

Full Weeks

Where people have full weeks booked we will honour the preceding weekend or post weekend to be booked. The individual will need to book the leave required, however in the event the individual does not have any leave available we will accommodate by using the following order;

Cancelling of any future leave that may now not be required

Use duty swap

Annual leave swap

Duty payback

RDOs

Single days where an advisor may have an event booked based on their old pattern and would have been off on a particular day, but is now scheduled due to the new attendance pattern, we will also honour those days if the advisor has advised theirLine Manager and have documented the dates in part A or part B of the Attendance Process. The individual will need to book the leave required, however in the event the individual does not have any leave available we will aim to accommodate in the following order;

  • Cancelling of any future leave that may now not be required
  • Use duty swap
  • Annual leave swap
  • As a last resort we will move the RDO

If there are exceptional reasons why the individual has not notified BT of their pre booked leave, pre booked events or RDO’s we will review on a case by case basis. Similarly BT will review any cases where a Manager has not raised this issue with the advisor and/or failed to record the details as part of the one to one process.

Leave and New Rotas Start Week

We are aware that there have been problems with booking leave as advisors have not been properly briefed about how the new pattern would be introduced. Advisors have assumed that their rotas will start at week one. However, this is not necessarily the case.

BT will issue the Schedules 5 weeks prior to the go live date and the advisor should at this point take note of the week at which their new attendance pattern will start. Advisors should therefore book leave based on the knowledge that the rota may start at any point. If necessary BT will apply leave over rides to allow this to happen, and if necessary this will also allow staff to book more leave than they are entitled to. This is the understanding that once that once the pattern is clear advisors will cancel any unneeded leave.

BT is reviewing the attendance preference documentation and individual letters to ensure that this point is made absolutely clear. However, where there are cases related to this which cannot be resolved locally these should be escalated via the CWU National Team.

I can confirm that the terms of this letter will be briefed to all relevant Managers.

Yours sincerely

Gareth Smith