Under UK Law, I was just wondering what the ruling might be in the following situation.

Dept A has 6 staff as follows;
1-Qualified Accountant As Manager
2-Assistant Accountant who also does Payroll
3-Credit Controller with no accounting training
4,5,6-3 junior clerks

Person 2 leaves due to staff conflict/dispute with person 1
Dispute is two sided - no real facts/evidence

Person 1 is told by his boss to do payroll.
Person 1 has no interest in payroll, has not included payroll on their CV, and has only 'covered' the position once, whilst person 2 was on holiday.

The boss might expect payroll to fall under the umbrella of 'accounting and finance".

'Ad-hoc' duties is in the contract.

Alternatives to person 1 doing payroll are...
hire a temp for the payroll run
contract out to payroll bureau


So now the questions.....
Can person 1 be forced to undertake the job of processing payroll?

[Edited by bros2 - 7/2/2003 2:34:20 PM]

I think it would be fair to ask them to cover the role with the understanding that it is temporary.

If the company is in difficulties then they may choose to muck in to help out or stick to their guns and lose your respect.

I often think who benefits if you 'muck in' - if it is the management only, then I expect a deal...

D

Usually your job discription will have something like 'In addition to the duties and responsibilities outlined in this job description, all staff are expected to undertake any additional reasonable tasks or responsibilities as may be required of them by their line manager'. I know mine does :(

agree with what being said in respect asked to do it for a period while a more permanent solution is thought out / implemented. But as I'm sure that most of you are aware these, these temporary solution have a habit of becomming permanent. So needd to get the situation sorted as soon as possible, personlly like the Homer Simpson quote "if you don't like your job, dont quit but just do it really badly". If you have the nerve etc and can put the innocent face on / cover your track well then, I imagine that if the payroll got screwed up and for example your boss pay got messed up, then a more permanent solution would be though of a lot quicker.

Richard

Just went on a payroll training morning today, and the software we use seems very user freindly.

Even discovered some inefficiencies were we seem to be doing things "the long or complicated way".

Still like the idea of outsourcing though.
As you say, short term often becomes long term.

Unfortunately/fortunately my bosses (and my) pay is already 'outsourced'.