Employees Stranded Overseas - To Pay or Not to Pay?

Do you have any workers who are still stuck overseas?

As you would expect there are a number of views on this topic. We have summarized a few below and provided some useful links for you to look at to help you make your decision on this.

There are a couple of options you may take as follows:

Pay them for all or part of their time of absence – By far the preferred option; it wasn’t their fault that the volcano erupted. It is likely that they are suffering enough personal costs in accommodation and associated costs and stress. Do you really need to make the situation worse, you do have a duty of care as an employer. Remember you want them to come back to work in a positive frame of mind. It is likely that this may be above and beyond your employer obligations therefore you may wish to put a cap on the number of days that you do pay them for.

You could ask them to take it out of their annual leave allowance – This isn’t as easy at it seems, you will have to get this agreed with employees in advance. Unless an employee's contract contains an express right for the employer to direct when the employee's holiday is taken, employers cannot force the employee to take holiday without their consent.

Invite the employee to make the time up – This can work for both parties so that when the employee returns they can catch up with work or swap shifts with colleagues.

If you are not willing to pay the employee for their absence you could offer them to take unpaid leave – Not ideal for the employee but as you read your employment contracts it is perhaps all that you are obliged to do.

A combination of the above that suits both you and the employee.

Lastly and most importantly remember to be consistent across your organisation in your approach to avoid discrimination claims. Don’t make rash decisions, you could discuss the options with the employee on his or her return.

Please see below some excerpts from Personnel Today

"Employers are under no legal obligation to pay staff who are stranded because of the travel chaos caused by the volcanic eruption in Iceland, lawyers have confirmed."

But Guy Lamb, partner at law firm DLA Piper, played down these fears. "It's implicit in the employment relationship that you turn up to work," he told Personnel Today. "It is helpful to have policies on this, but just because it's not written down, it doesn't mean you're in trouble."

Stephen Simpson, employment law editor at XpertHR, agreed. "As a general rule, employees who are absent from work are not automatically entitled to be paid" he said. "Having said this, if employees are unable to get to work through no fault of their own (for example, because of a natural disaster), employers may wish to show some leniency, not least because of the potential harm to staff morale."

Jim Lister, head of employment at law firm Pannone, added: "There is no case law on this, but unless the contract of employment provides for paid time off in the event of extreme unforeseen circumstance' (and in our experience that is extremely rare), the answer is probably not." Read more from Personnel Today