Camping in the bathroom

HR in CA

How would you handle this:

A male employee goes into the bathroom and reads a book for 30 minutes everyday. I understand the call of nature, but 30 minutes? This employee is reported AWOL more than others, and a fellow male employee mentioned casually, "Oh you can find him everyday from 2:45 - 3:15 reading his book."

No he does not use his breaks to cover this time. What would you do?

Don D

Had this same scenario recently. He was written up for being away from his work area without permission and abusing restroom privileges. He was told that if he had a condition requiring him to use the restroom for unusual and unreasonable periods of time, he must present a medical statement to that effect. This puts him at step one in our 5 step disciplinary procedure that can lead to termination.

deniseE

If you have a policy stating that ee's are to be working for a set number of hours per day...and he's failing to do that...it doesn't matter if he's in the bathroom or walking around the block.

Begin the disciplinary process...I have some supervisors that would probably request this person use leave to cover his absence!

HRinFL

So basically, you told him that you were tired of his crap and that if he did not straighten up, the sh** would hit the fan?

National Guard

Since when is going to the bathroom a privilege?

pork1

HR in CA: I would have a personal meeting with the supervisor to determine how much information and what information the supervisor has pertaining to this behavior!

My professional opinion is: you have a supervisor who is shirking his responsibility of supervision of this one employee at the detriment to his/her leadership ability to handle the issues of his/her assigned position of responsibility and accountability.

As HR, I always recommend to other HRs, "extract yourself from these situations as "an evaluator or decision maker". This is a employee/supervisor behavioral performance issue. It is not a HR issue dealing with benefits of a toilet as an educational or leadership development opportunity!

Your days in HR will be alot more enjoyable if you handle HR areas of interest and let the operators receive your professional guidance as to what you recommend he/she do about this bathroom issue!

Good luck with your "potty training for this supervisor"!

PORK

Rockie

I'd tend to do what Don stated. This comes under the section of stuff that you hate that you even have to address.

I had some employees come to me about a supervisor who carried her briefcase to the bathroom with her and they were speculating about what she had in there...liquor....drugs, etc. I asked them why they were so concerned with this and how they had time to monitor who took what to the bathroom with them? I also advised them that ladies often used their briefcase or a totebag in lieu of a purse. (They never thought of that!) A nasty rumor that could have gotten started over nothing!

Don D

She could also have had one of those disassembled rifles in an aluminum case with screw on silencer attachment and scope. You gotta be careful about female executives with briefcases. Men carry business papers; but, you never know about women.