Prying Supervisors

Is a supervisor allowed to ask an employee why they need to take the day off? The employees at the child care center that I manage are required to complete a request form when needing to take off part of the day or the whole day, stating when they need off and why. The form is primarily used to track the need to arrange for substitute teachers to fill in for the absent employees, but it does ask that they state the reason for their request.

Once again, a nice legal disclaimer. I am not a lawyer. I do not pretend to be a lawyer and I do not give legal advice.

But, in all seriousness, why wouldn't a supervisor be allowed to ask an employee why they are taking a day off? I mean, talk about making a stilted workplace.

Now, would I advocate that supervisors should interrogate employees before granting time off? Absolutely not. In fact, I am more of an advocate of letting your employees be adults and letting them determine when they need to take a day off. I would even remove the question from the form. But, to ban supervisors from asking? Silliness.

In your setting, it's not practical to have employees be able to take off when ever they want--because you need substitutes. There are, perhaps, a limited number of substitutes available to cover classes. Let's say you have 20 regular teachers and 3 substitutes available. If 4 people ask for the day off, what are you going to do? (You can't work with fewer people without sending kids home--there are undoubtedly state mandated ratios of teachers/students. I know there are in the offspring's daycare.)

Well, the grown up thing to do is to say, "Hey, 4 people are asking for this Friday off. Is anyone willing to take next Friday instead?" Most likely someone will say, "It's my mother's birthday and we're driving to Cleveland, so I really need it off," and someone else will say, "I was just going to catch up on yard work, so I'll do next Friday instead." Ahh, problem solved.

But, if the problem can't be solved that way, the manager has to make a decision. I would hate to use reason for the request as the decision maker (it's too fraught for hurt feelings, and claims of discrimination). You can use time of request (first to ask gets it off), seniority, or something else.

If I were you, I'd let my employees know that you don't care why they need the day off--they can even leave that line blank on the form. (I presume you can't change the form, as it comes from your corporate office.) If you get in trouble from your bosses, then tell them to fill it out, but you'll ignore it. Then say, "If more than 3 people request the same day, I'll let all of you know and hopefully you can work it out. If not, time off will be granted on a first come, first serve basis, provided that you have the available time."

Now, there will be a time when 3 people have asked for a day off in advance and the 4th person then asks saying, "My husband is having surgery, so I have to take it off." What are you going to say, "Sorry, you're the fourth person, so he'll have to drive himself to the hospital"? See, reason rears its ugly head. Knowing the person's reason is going to make you much more likely to try to find a way to accommodate the request. If the reason is, "i want to go tanning before I go to the beach on the weekend," you're not going to bend over backwards and pull strings.

But, again, until your employees give you a reason to to trust you, trust them. Most will give you a reason anyway, in casual conversation. In all but the rarest circumstances, reason shouldn't matter in granting the request.