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

I have no idea what my companies allowance is, I think it’s quite generous but like PPs I work in a job where the work won’t be picked up by someone else so throwing a sickie would just result in needing to make up the time elsewhere so I only ever call in sick if I’m genuinely too ill to work. We did have a colleague who absolutely took the piss, sick days constantly and usually after a day he’d been pulled up for a mistake or poor performance, HR did pick up on his frequency of sick days but just gave him a warning.

It's not teachers in any school I've worked in. You have to be on your death bed to stay at home, it's too much hassle to set work and pressure on colleagues.

I gave up working for an employer after that job and I went self employed.

Did you go to another job? Did it affect your references?

I’m assuming those people saying they are using their “entitlement” are referring to how many days they are allowed off sick with no reduction in pay. Taking time off and certifying yourself as sick when you aren’t is fraud!!
We have so many people taking advantage of the sick pay that we now use Bradford factor and HR monitor patterns, school holiday/inset day “sicknesses” etc. They know who abuse the system and are now issuing warnings as a prelude to misconduct. However, a colleague has needed various spells off work due to cancer treatment. Similar to an earlier poster, because this employee was known to not abuse the sick pay system, the company made discretionary payments so she received full pay throughout. Those posters fiddling their employers and committing fraud may want to consider that if their salary is key to cover household finances. One day you might be in the same position and you’ll probably start a thread about how mean employers are at paying long term sick pay!

I don't..... because I work in HR and know it would get flagged on our absence reports (!) but people definitely do. There are plenty of people that are only ever ill on a Friday, or are always sick the week after a holiday, or always ill on the first Monday of a month, or signed off sick but actually living it up on holiday etc.

However, after almost burning out before by working from home and battling on if I felt ill I do now take a sick day if I genuinely feel unwell and would feel too ill to go to the office. I don't see the point in martyring myself. But I would never be able to take a day of sick and go out for the day or act as if I was on annual leave. I'd be terrified someone from work would spot me for one thing!

I suppose I did when I knew I was going to leave. I’d been suffering with awful anxiety and depression due to my job so I took my six months full pay and six months half pay before I handed my notice in.

No, I've only ever used it when I've been genuinely sick, but I have et people who talk about 'pulling a sickie" when they've got something coming up. I think it's morally reprehensible!

I think people who take the piss know the rules so will have one long period of absence then back for a year then another long absence. Multiple absences trigger disciplinary action. A single absence even a long one doesn’t seem to?

To be fair most people aren’t able to take a nap during the day if they are working

I don’t plan like this and rarely take sick leave, have only had 1 day off in the last 2 years but I get 3 months full sick pay every 12 months. I have thought about taking a day off when I’m worn out but not unwell as most years I don’t have any time off, have occasionally needed the odd day or two, but I always think what if the year I decide to take a week off is the year I get genuinely seriously ill and need every day of my allowed sickness leave. Sick leave is on a rolling 12 month basis so if I used it all I would have to wait a year to get it back and I just wouldn’t risk it.

I’ve done it once in an awful job with a horrible boss because I was done by that point and planning to leave. Never done it since or before (in jobs that have been ok/where I’ve had a boss I respect).

This is me too. No one knows what is around the corner for us. We may genuinely need that sick leave. Also it just doesn’t feel right morally just to take time off unless you really are unwell and not up to working

No. I use it when it is needed, and even then I feel awful phoning in sick. I actually get nervous when calling in sick, and that has nothing to do with our HR department - they have been nothing but compassionate when I've been sick. I don't know why I get nervous?

Don't these people have absence policies in place that result in hitting trigger points?

There is no sick leave entitlement. It's a sick pay entitlement.

If you're sick, and can't work, you need to be off sick. If you're lucky, you might get full pay for a period of it.

I get 4m full, 4m half. In four + years I've taken one day for a burst ear drum, and I only took that because it was our team away day and I couldn't go on the train, plus had only three hours sleep when it burst, and no-one else was working so I thought I might as well rest and recover. My boss didn't even mark it as a sick day, so technically I've had none.

But I do know how things can change. In 2020 I got gall bladder disease and was very ill, I didn't take time off with that but had two weeks off for the OP, and in 2009 I broke my ankle, I actually took very little time off but it was good to know the sick pay was there if I needed it. Not used up because I had felt like an extra holiday earlier in the year!

I'm quite shocked people do this, and happily freely admit it.

I view sick leave as exactly that. Time off when you are too ill to go to work.

When people say their sick leave 'entitlement' is that what's in the contract about enhanced sick pay, so 1 week at full pay or whatever? I've never seen that as an entitlement, just the company offering something over and above the statutory minimum.

This. ^ I know 4 people who work for the public sector, (all mid 20s to late 30s,) and as far as I know they don't get official 'sick leave entitlement.' They do get paid if they are ill/off sick, but they don't have 'sick leave entitlement' to use as extra leave! (And they don't swing the lead either - and have time off 'sick' to go shopping/get their hair done/have duvet days etc!)

!

One place I used to work, it was a joke but very true, that there was a ‘sick rota’

I don’t know what amount of sickness I’d be paid for, i’ve only been with the company for three years and had one day off last year (maybe the year before actually) with a migraine.
Since I’ve started there I’ve noticed a couple of members of staff having the full 6 months off and once the pay reduces to half pay they arrive back. And they stick around to build it back up again and go off again.
However about 3 months ago there was a new much stricter policy that came out adhering much more closely to using the Bradford scale. So they’ve effectively really cracked down on the piss takers which I’m delighted about. They’ve not been off sick since.

I cant stand people like this. Sick leave is for when you are sick. Using it any other way is totally out of line.

A colleague at my last job (nhs nurse at a community hospital) was very guilty of faking taking sick leave. She had it worked out exactly how much she could take, and when to take it, to avoid going down to half pay.

I was working in the office one day, when my line manager and her manager were saying how the colleague had went to a leaving night out, but she had to use a wheelchair, as she said she struggled to walk more than a few meters. I burst out laughing when I eavesdropped and heard this and my manager asked what was so funny about it. I told them that I had been at the same night out (only other staff member there) and the colleague had not used a wheelchair, but had walked in wearing high heels and had danced all night. I didn’t care if anyone thought I was a tell tale, as I was totally pissed off that she was cheating the system and I as well as lots of other staff had been unable to get time off, because we didn’t have any staff to cover.

Another time when she had been off ‘sick’ for 5 and a half months, her GP had signed her off for another month. I said to the manager, when she was doing the rotas, that colleague wouldn’t be off the whole month. When she asked me why, I said that she was due to go onto half pay halfway through that month, so I would bet my house that she would be back before that happened. She phoned in as fit to work 1 day before she would have went onto half pay.

As you will have gathered, I was really annoyed that she was cheating the system and those of us who (some might say foolishly) really cared about our patients and colleagues were struggling in to work, because we didn’t want to leave the hospital dangerously short of staff.

No, I am NHS so have a great sickness pay allowance but only use it when genuinely ill. Use it even less now we can wfh as find without the commute and being office bound I can make it through without calling in sick.

We know someone who was off sick every year around Christmas shopping time, with Laryngitis.
They lost their voice without fail, for several weeks, every year, but managed to shop.