Category: General News

Annual Leave Buy & Sell Scheme

We are pleased to confirm that employees are now able to submit a request under the Annual Leave Buy & Sell Scheme for the 2024/2025 leave year.

Employees who wish to make a request must familiarise themselves with the Museum’s Buying & Selling Annual Leave Scheme and complete a Buying & Selling Annual Leave Form which can be found within the document. Requests under the scheme will require approval from the employee’s line manager and the People & Culture team.

Please note the maximum amount of annual leave an employee may buy or sell is the equivalent of one contractual week, however, the total holiday entitlement inclusive of any carry over or purchase of holiday cannot exceed 38 days for full time employees or the equivalent for part time employees.

If the request to buy or sell annual leave is approved, employees will be notified of the resulting change in their monthly salary. Adjustments in pay as a result of the scheme will commence from April, for a period of 12 months.

Requests must be received by the People & Culture team by no later than Friday 8 March 2024.

Requests to Carry Over Annual Leave

As a reminder, ordinarily untaken leave cannot be carried forward into the next leave year and will be lost. However, in exceptional circumstances a maximum of one contractual week may be carried over from one holiday year to the next. Please note that the total holiday entitlement inclusive of carry over (if approved) cannot exceed 38 days for full time employees or the equivalent for part time employees.

Approval must be sought from an employee’s line manager and the People & Culture team if an employee wishes to carry forward any annual leave into the next leave year. Employees should complete a Carry Over of Annual Leave Request Form.

All requests for carry over of annual leave need to be submitted 4 weeks prior to the end of the leave year.

If a request to carry over annual leave is approved, employees will be notified of this through the return of the Carry Over of Annual Leave Request Form with signed acceptance.

Please refer to the Museum’s Annual Leave Policy for further information.

Annual Leave Entitlement on Systems

As a reminder, annual leave entitlement for the 2024/2025 leave year will be 33 days (or equivalent pro rata for part time employees). Annual leave entitlements will be updated on Myhrtoolkit and Planday in April once all requests for the above have been received and processed.

If you have any queries in relation to the above please contact the People & Culture team ([email protected]).

As part of our continual programme of ensuring engagement and communication across the Museum’s operational and strategic activity, we will be holding briefings to update all colleagues on the Museum’s progress and the plans for the remainder of 2024, a critical year for the opening of the Industrial Quarter.

These briefings will take place on:

• Friday 1 March 2024 – Hall 2
• Saturday 2 March 2024 – Brook Entrance
• Tuesday 5 March 2024 – Hall 2

All the briefings will commence at 9.00, finishing at 9.30.

• Many of you will already be scheduled by your line managers to attend one of these sessions. If you have not yet been scheduled, please contact your line manager.
• All contracted colleagues are mandated to attend these sessions. We would also strongly urge colleagues from both our volunteer and casual community to all attend.
• You only need to attend one of the briefing sessions.

Can you please sign up using the following link: All Colleague Briefings 

If you have any trouble signing up for the briefing because you do not have a BCLM email address, please speak to your line manager who will be able to add your name for you.

The building directory has now been updated to include more useful information, such as the year the building is set in, as well as the building type (replica, translocation, recreation, etc.)

We have a more comprehensive directory in the works, which we will be sharing with you all in due course.

Download the updated building directory.

Our visitors at this year’s Red by Night will have an extra-special night to remember, as we open the 1940s-1960s Industrial Quarter at Red on Night on Friday 15 and Saturday 16 March.

Visitors will uncover the history of 1950s manufacturing at J.H. Lavender Aluminium Foundry, discover stories of powerful women brickmakers at Cricket Field Brickworks, and find out how tools were made at Joe H. Smith & Sons (Oldbury Ltd.).

Story Notes will be available soon.

Dudley Bus Station will be temporarily closed from 14 January 2024. For information on the location of temporary bus stops, please visit tfwm.org.uk/dudley

Key information:

• Bus users may need to travel to a new bus stop so plan ahead and allow extra time for your journey
• There are bus route diversions in place and traffic may be busier in certain areas of Dudley town centre so plan ahead to keep moving
• During the redevelopment there will be a one-way traffic system in place to allow traffic to flow around Dudley town centre
• Construction for the Metro extension will continue while the redevelopment works of bus station take place

More information is available on Transport for West Midlands’ informational leaflet.

The Discover Dudley employee discount card provides offers and incentives across visitor attractions and venues in the Dudley borough. It is valid until 31 December 2024.

It has been developed to assist frontline staff in learning more about the visitor attractions and tourism businesses within the borough and to cross-promote the visitor attractions to the visiting public at our venues.

If you would like to apply for a Discover Dudley employee discount card 2024, please complete the application form – it will need to be signed by your line manager.