I work in a call centre for a global company where I’m permanent full time, which means I work the standard 5 days a week. I’ve been here for 9 months so far.
Recently, we found out that people who’ve joined the company in the past 12 months need to do a two day “induction” training over a weekend in a few weeks that previously didn’t happen when we were initially hired due to covid. They’ve said it’s mandatory but they’re paying it as over time.
Normally when we work a weekend, there’s a rostered day off during the week but when the roster of this week of this training came out, there was no rostered days off. I reach out to my manager to ask were the rostered days off coming the week after.
I’m then told that there will be no rostered days off in lieu of working on the weekend as it’s overtime and it was their/the company’s understanding that I understood that it was overtime. I said it is but it’s not like I volunteered for it and is mandatory for this job.
I said that this means that I am going to be expected to work 12 days in a row with no break and I can’t handle that. They said if it helps, it’s just a powerpoint presentation at a fancy hotel for two days. I said no, work is still work and for my mental health and sanity, I can’t cope with working 12 days in a row.
They said there was nothing that can be done and that the best that they can offer is me swift swapping with someone for another weekend shift the weekend afterwards so I could have a rostered day off.
I don’t have an issue with doing the training, it is what it is, but it’s that it’s scheduled between two regular 38 hour working weeks. I just want two rostered days off to make up for working that weekend for my physical and mental health. Am I being unreasonable for thinking this?
They’re treating it like we’ve volunteered for this so we’ve volunteered to forfeit our weekend, but we haven’t. Am I crazy for thinking that if they want us to do this mandatory training that it should be adequately accommodated for in our roster in line with our regular duties, and for having an issue with this? Does anyone else see the issue I have?