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

Are you serious? 30 plus years in a university and oh yes, HR notice. I’ve taken hardly any sick days, but as a line manager I’m expected to monitor staff absences very closely.

If you’re arguing that HE is no longer strictly the public sector, I have a lot of friends in schools and management is very focused on absences there as well.

Perhaps the civil service is different? Not sure. But my relatives in the NHS tend to carry on working when they really shouldn’t, rather than merrily take the proverbial with sick leave.

It pisses me off how people do this. We're lucky to have these rights, don't piss all over them! Sure I've pulled a few sickies when younger but wouldn't now and definitely wouldn't plan on taking regular sick leave as holiday...

I have a funny feeling the people who abuse their employer’s sick leave policy also brag about how hard working they are and bitch about people on benefits…

No, I’ve never taken sick leave when I was not sick.

If your absence is related to your disability then it can't be used against you, it would be against the disability act.

No idea what "allotted" sick days are though, not something our company have. Just a ridiculously low Bradford score trigger.

If we take a sick day immediately before/after AL we won't get paid without a fit note. They also look into patterns such as Friday/Monday

I went from the office to the GP to the specialist to the ER to a room in the hospital once and a week later my boss called me and blamed me for everything that was going wrong in his life.
Then he fired me. While I was lying in a hospital bed.
Then he filed for bankruptcy.
Arsehole. He was a doctor, too.

Nope. Don't get paid sick leave and ssp doesn't kick in till day 4.

No, never. I think I have taken 2 days in the last 5 years. But then my manager doesn’t bat an eye or ask to me to take AL if I take a morning off kids’ sports day/school plays/concerts 1-2 times a term.

This used to a work culture thing in a lot of council's years ago but thankfully policies have tightened up and it's not a thing anymore, especially as over the last 20 years new people would have entered the work place for the first time and not been exposed to the skive culture.

No because I have shit loads of time off sick as it is without adding days off when I'm not sick!

I don’t do it, I’ve had 2 sick days in the last 3 years.

however I do work with a couple of people who use their Sick leave each year . It’s so bloody frustrating, they take it off due to “mental health” and nothing can be done about it

Do I defraud my employer? No.

Where are the people working that allow people to so blatantly rinse it? Is it public sector?

one company I worked for we had 10 days paid sick per year and people actually used to use it all to get 38 days holiday

Also don't know what each vote means here but sick leave should be used for sickness not holiday.

I have also had colleagues take extended period of leave up to 6 months, worked out over a rolling 18 month period so absence triggers do not kick in.

My SIL (NHS) does this - she knows to the exact date when she can next go off sick without triggering the system.

And she always makes a miraculous recovery and is able to return to work on the very day her 6 months full pay is up and is due to switch to half pay.

I've worked in the NHS for 25 years and have only ever taken the odd day here and there when I have had flu or covid and been too ill to function properly.

I just use it when I'm sick.

We used to have a woman who was always off more than most, she appeared one day in January to book her annual holidays and went off sick again!

I don’t do it, but I know of a couple who do. Funnily enough they absolutely rinsed time off during covid, as the employer didn’t count isolating when family members had it, against sick leave

I only get 5 paid sick days a year. I tend to go in when I’m sick or WFH and save the sick days for when my (very healthy) DC is unwell. In the end, I didn’t take a single sick day last year.

After working for twenty odd years and never really being recognized/appreciated for the hard work I put in, I'm starting to use my sick leave/parental allowance.

Everyone else does.

I would only use it if need to stay at home sick. Been in my current role 4 years and can only recall one day of sick, when I had been vomiting in the night. Managed to never test positive for Covid so assume never had it.

We used to have "5 weeks paid leave, 5 days self-certified sick days, [7] public holidays" (forget however public holidays).

Absolutely everyone saw that as 6 weeks paid leave. One of those weeks you just didn't travel. You'd take off a Friday during a quiet period or something.

Mind you, this was an industry where people regularly work 80-100hour weeks, and would have to cancel or delay holidays fairly regularly. If any boss had dared to question sick leave they would have been faced with a mass exodus.

Bloody hell, it’s awful that some people do this. I am currently signed off sick and have been since August. I have an amazing GP and an amazingly supportive manager at work, so I’m very lucky. I do feel like a total skiver though!

I’m not sure what the percentages are but I would have thought more people would get full company paid sick pay.
my company pays full pay for the first x weeks of sickness, where x is the number of years with the company. Or something like that