To ask if anyone deliberately plans/uses their sick leave as part of their entitlement?

5 days!? That’s appalling. Do you have private sick insurance at least?

I work from home and not had a sick day sInce that started, so 6 years or so now. If I went to the office I would have had a few as there is a big difference to an hour on the tube to a busy office than a day working at home when ill.

I know people who abuse sick days. PIsses me off but I guess I could do the same just choose not to be a dick.

Amazing.

Don't be so arrogant to think your employer doesn't know you're a slacker. I suspect your performance isn't up to scratch elsewhere too.

I have a friend that does this. Never genuinely ill just milks that they can take sick leave on full pay for up to 6 months. They've worked there for years and done this for many years it's always amazed me how they've gotten away with it.

I’ve never looked at sick leave like this. I use it when I’m ill or occasionally over the years when I’m exhausted and need to recuperate or I know I will be ill.

I’ve ‘chucked a sickie ’ in my younger days when I was much more reckless or in jobs with little responsibility (although not for many years), but I’ve never pre-planned using up sick leave as annual leave.

This thread is quite illuminating in terms of the low productivity of this country.

The only thing not right is it should be socially acceptable to have mental health recovery days rather than having to lie about it

Definitely not public sector - from the replies sounds like it’s very much the private sector, and driven by employers specifying the number of days employees can have off sick - making them regard that as a target number.

I’m public sector and people don’t go off sick unless they need to be off sick.

I use sick leave for interviews for a new role 🤣
And 3-4 days a year when I just cannot be bothered to work.
On a flio side, I am never really ill so there are noother sick days from me.

I'd get up to forty days paid sick leave per year but that doesn't mean I'm taking 8 weeks off per year because I'm entitled to it. Nor are any of my colleagues. Because it's for when you're actually ill. They're not a different version of Bank Holidays!

When I was teaching we knew when the caravan sites had opened for the Summer by the frequency of Mondays and/or Fridays that a couple of women phoned in sick!

Where are people working that there are people taking months of sick leave on a regular basis? Why aren't they being managed out?

This is such a bizarre idea to me. Unless I'm properly sick, why would I take a sick day when I'd just have to do all the work the next day?

If I haven’t been sick for let’s say 6 months I will take a sick day and uses it as a mental health day. I don’t take the piss and I genuinely do it to get back on top of life/emotions etc

I’m all fairness my boss let my do a different role when I was at work ill.
If she hadn’t then I probably would have taken sick leave as I could not do my regular job.

I've never been aware of this happening in the UK, but my friend who has lived and worked in Australia for 20+ years says it's pretty common there. They only have a statutory entitlement to 10 days paid sick leave and whilst they can carry it over into subsequent years, she says most of her colleague will plan to use it up and then sometimes have to take holiday leave to cover actual sickness!

I don't deliberately use it I don't feel ill at all, but if I need to be off, I've started making sure I use the next day to be 100% right before going back.

I used to rush back and struggle on, only for 'short periods' people were taking to be considered not real if you were fine for work the next day, and people running into far more issues and questions if they needed 3 X 1 day in a rolling 12 month period than 2 x 3-4 days in the same.

Everybody is ultimately a loser when people abuse the system in this way.

It means that genuine illness is assumed to be fake and leads to policies whereby you have a sick leave 'allowance', which, as PP said, completely defeats the object of the nature of genuine sickness: that it's unpredictable, not able to be planned in advance and affects you for as long as it affects you, rather than for a standard 'allowed' period of time.

You get ridiculous circumstances whereby ungrateful people who have been lucky enough not to get sick at all for ages, and feel aggrieved because of this, take time off 'because they haven't used their allowance' whilst people who are genuinely sick for an extended period/regular occasions and should still be at home in bed have no choice but to come in anyway, because they've 'used up' their sick-leave allowance. Madness; and terribly unfair.

I wonder if the former people ever look enviously at disabled folk using blue-badge spaces - with all the associated challenges and pains in being able to get in and out of their cars - feeling unfairly done-by when they have to use a smaller, further away standard space when jumping in and out of the car and racing around the supermarket?

Birthdaymom would you feel the same about all employees using their ’entitlement?’
So it's ok for your child’s teacher to go off sick for a month. Or your dentist to cancel your appointment because they are off sick. Or trains to be cancelled due to staff sickness.

Of course it is but Mumsnet seems to have a good few people with little or no moral compass. It would serve them right if they were genuinely ill having taken the piss.

I don't get sick leave. I'm baffled at so many people being sick multiple times a year and not having any sort of welfare checks or sickness management. Its very bad form and atrocious work ethic, and their Bradford Factors must be pretty high.
Doesn't sound like some employers give a shit about the welfare of their staff either.

I've had two days off since December 2023 (the whole family had norovirus). Before that I had covid in July 2022 and worked from home after having two (unpaid) sick days.

In US people get an allocation of PTO (paid time off) that covers holiday and sick leave.
This isn't legal in UK because we're allowed to keep our jobs if we go long term sick. Anyone who treats sick leave as additional holiday in the UK deserves dismissal imo.

Never
I'd only get statutory sick pay ..I can't afford to live off that !!

DH gets 3 fully paid "sick days" a year, if he doesn't use them then he loses them. He usually keeps them and uses them when the kids are off school Ill or on holiday and we're stuck for childcare.
If it's in your entitlement then why wouldn't you use it?

No I tend to struggle on.
If I’m off ill then I am seriously ill.
I do get paid sick pay, but the company has extremely tight triggers. My colleague was genuinely ill and was off for 3 weeks. She is part time so that equates to 9 days. This alone triggered stage 1. Any more time off within the next 12 months and she would be on stage 2. This is on my mind so I tend not to ring in sick.
Personally speaking, I would not employ anyone who had had either:

1. long periods off sick
2. frequent time off sick.