This month’s topic focuses on situations where an employee cannot attend the workplace due to unusual circumstances such as extreme weather, transport strikes and civil unrest. This issue came into focus when ESB workers threatened strike action in December over the company’s pension scheme. This could have resulted in nationwide blackouts affecting many businesses.

This issue also raises questions whenever there is heavy snowfall and flooding and these adverse weather conditions are unfortunately becoming more common every year. With this in mind Linda has prepared a template policy on how organisations can handle unusual absence situations. The most important action for an employer to take is deciding what policy will apply in an unusual absence situation. The second important step