Private life any business of an employer?

[Simon Lewis]

I'm not sure how anyone can prove noise exposure is just from one place of work and not anywhere else.

 

Quick answer? They can't, easily. However, the sensible employer would establish a baseline audiogram at the start of employment.

If a claim for noise induced hearing loss was filed, you can expect not only the existing hearing loss but also any known or suspected external factors to be raised as reasons why liability did not rest solely with the employer.

However, the Royal Opera House case has somewhat weakened that defence...

 

 

 

 

[ImagineerTom]

You seem to have made quite a leap there Paul; what you described at the start was an obligation to report and monitor; not anything that actually restricts or prevents him having other jobs/activities/interests.

[musht]

A few years back I knew a fairly high level manager with Sainsburys. He was not allowed to shop in Tesco.

 

That sounds particularly stupid- they should encourage staff to visit the competition (as well as their own stores) so that they can make a comparison and see where their own company can improve. The is a big difference between visiting a competitor and working for them.

 

Years ago, before apps like `My Supermarket` , mate worked for a big four supermarket as a grunt, not unusual for him and security to be tasked with asking someone to leave as they were believed to be from a competitor carrying out price surveying.

[paulears]

A leap, perhaps? However - it does concern me that because of the 'what ifs' this gives employers a chance to control what their staff do - by using existing legislation to justify it.

 

Ironically - my friend has been offered a job elsewhere where, they are not at all bothered what you do - and actually encourage outside additional activities, because it's actually positive - as in new experience different to in-house typical activities so beneficial. As long as he does his rostered hours appropriately, his private life is his own.

[Brian]

I'm not really into rights, but this is surely employee restrictive - the possibility of compensation and distribution of blame overpowering individual rights?

 

Absolutely. The employer offers the employee a job for which they agree to pay them some money in return for which the employee agrees to certain terms and conditions of employment. An individual's rights cannot have limits.

[ImagineerTom]

A leap, perhaps? However - it does concern me that because of the 'what ifs' this gives employers a chance to control what their staff do - by using existing legislation to justify it.

It's best not to play the game of imagining how evil a company /could/ be to its employees because there's no answer. Ironically though all these statutory limits on the amount of time someone can spend doing a hazardous job have been put in place precisely to ensure companies can't over-work or over-risk their employees health.

To flip this the other way though; if you feel companies cannot/should not ask their staff to report out of hours work/hobbies to them then what is to stop someone working as a pub singer 6 nights a week; ruining their hearing and pulling lots of late nights so that they are over-tired; then when their main day job puts them in a van to do a delivery (not knowing how over-worked and hearing compromised the person is because they're not allowed to ask) and that person doesn't hear the screams, is so sleepy they don't see another driver indicating and end up causing a massive traffic accident that kills and maims several people. Your first response might be about the individual being trusted to know their own tiredness and fitness to work but the fact is over 70% of people actively dislike or are ambivalent about their employment (source) so are highly unlikely to care about looking out for their employers or making wise choices to protect the company - indeed you only have to look at the number of people who turn at work drunk/tired/hungover/ill or who steal from the stationary cupboard and borrow the company van at weekends to see that self-regulation and trusting all staff to be aware of their own limitations isn't a wise choice all the time so what is the alternative?

[GridGirl]

an employee who works in a noisy environment where annual hearing checks are required. Now what happens if that employee also gigs as a sound engineer for a thrash metal band in his free time and is stupid enough not to wear hearing protection.

 

At his next annual check-up he's found to have hearing damage. Who is liable?

 

But he could just be a fan who's gone to an equivalent number of gigs as a punter, and probably sustained more damage if he's closer to the PA.

 

Or maybe he sits on the train every day with earbuds jammed in, playing at top volume.

 

I'm not sure how anyone can prove noise exposure is just from one place of work and not anywhere else.

 

We have discussed this at great length; many of our players do outside gigs and we are very concerned that they'll come back in five years with hearing damage and try to sue us for it, despite the fact that it may well have been only partly due to work with us and partly due to outside work. We brought it up in a meeting with player representatives that we would like to start a system where players told us about their outside work (note that we weren't saying they had to ask us for permission, just let us know so we can note it in their file) and it did NOT end well. In fact, it brought the meeting to a crashing halt when one of the player reps got so worked up that he stormed out of the room, effectively ending the discussion.

 

I had a job as an opera ASM for a couple of seasons many years ago and they did try to tell me that I couldn't do any work outside of working for them, but it wasn't in my contract, once we got into show mode it was 3-4 shows a week, nothing more, so I wasn't working 20 hours a day or anything stupid, and they certainly weren't paying me enough to guarantee I wouldn't do any other work. I just told them I wasn't agreeing to that and went on my way and it was never brought up again.

[David Lee]

Back to the original post, if it the company I think it is, I am led to believe it was a conflict of interest situation that prompted this.

 

The company is actually a very good employer (I do work with them quite frequently)

 

As to if companies have a right to look into your personal life, how many times have people been fired from jobs because of things said on social media in a personal capacity?

[paulears]

I get the bit about social media - especially if you tag your profile with "works for XYZ..." That doesn't worry me. I can't think of a conflict of interest situation? I don't doubt his employer is a good employer - I've never heard anything but good things, it's just the broad notion that having to tell your boss when you are doing things nothing to do with work that seems too much of a jump.

 

I've not had a boss for years, but when I did have one, I was always busy practically every evening and day off - they never asked what I was up to?

[David Lee]

Yep, I was surprised when I heard about it but from what I gather (And this is via gossip) normally the company provided a tech but in this case the customer went direct to the full timer and so the employers lost out on some profit.

 

I think it was more the way it happened rather than the loss of income though.