To find work absence procedures frustrating?

Having to set an alarm when you’re sick does seem harsh. As other PPs have said though, unfortunately a lot of workplaces have a phone in procedure in place as it has been proven that it discourages employees throwing a sickie. Do your managers have any scope for discretion? At my work the official procedure is to phone in by xx time. However on the very rare occasions I’ve been off sick I’ve sent a text to my manager and they are fine with that, because they know I rarely take time off.

I'm unable to speak at the moment without uncontrolled coughing from a chest infection, which is followed by gagging. Sometimes it's not possible to ring, and it doesn't take catastrophic medical circumstances either.

I worked in a school where you had to ring the head every single day you were off sick without a sicknote.
She would then quiz you if you were going to the doctors etc and whether you could come in late etc. it was awful. No im not going to the doctors for a one day migraine.
She also wanted everyone to ring at a certain time - 7-7.30am but sometimes you couldn’t get through so had to keep trying.
The kitchen staff started from 6am and they would have to ring their manager then so he could do cover. So they would ring the head then too as they said, I’m not ringing at 6 (or even earlier) and then sitting for an hour to ring again when I’m sick. She was furious about it.

sick levels actually went up at this time! I think a lot of good will about coming in later just went out the window because she was so horrible to everyone when they rang up they all stayed off.

We have this policy because a text might not always get seen and then our clients might not get their support visits.
We always ask sick people to call the office number

Makes sense to me

When I was a nursing student back in the 80s, I had had day surgery for a (benign) breast lump and went back to work after a couple of days. It was an orthopaedic ward so there was a lot of heavy lifting involved. I had my stitches out in my tea break and went back to complete my late shift (9pm finish).

Towards the end of the evening I started feeling very unwell and told the powers that be that I wouldn't be in the next day. Nope - not acceptable. The procedure was to call in the morning before my next shift which started at 730.

I didn't live on site and I didn't have a landline in my flat where I lived alone. The nearest public phone box was a 10 minute walk away so I had to set the alarm, get up early and walk to the phone box to tell them exactly what I had told them the night before. Madness.

I had to phone in recently with laryngitis and I sounded so bad it was like I was faking it and I ended up feeling very embarrassed although I was genuinely ill. That said, there was a staff member who texted in once or twice a week often saying the bus didn't show or she was sick or her Mum was in hospital etc. It was so bullshit they had to deal with her individually but also brought back the phone in system. It was collective punishment which I don't like but I do understand they had to address it.

I'm a manager. This is our workplace policy. I don't enforce it and treat my staff like adults and human beings.

There are always individuals who take the piss. Their poor attitude normally shows itself in a multitude of ways and results in them moving on quite quickly IME (worked in 3 different sectors). However, those aside, I find that workplace culture and quality of line managers has far more influence than the requirement to phone in personality when it comes down to whether staff take a sick day when they feel a bit meh but not really poorly.

When I had double pneumonia and pleurisy I was having weekly sick notes from the gp issued on the Friday for the following week and my employer phoned like clockwork on Monday to ask if I'd be back the following week. Sometimes multiple calls a week. "Yes. I still have pneumonia and yes the doctors note still stands" was really all I could say!

I think most organisations I've worked for have a phone policy, but regardless if I've been up all night I might email in the early hours of the morning, explain, say "I'm going to try and get some sleep now, will call you when I wake up" - I've never had anyone pull me up on that.

I don't take a lot of time off - when I do, it's most likely to be bronchitis, so my line manager will usually have heard me in the office in the lead up to sickness absence. and the hacking cough will be very evident when I do call for a very short conversation, there's not much cause for doubt.

I wouldn't offer any without a doctor's note if I could help it. Or with one unless it was a real issue. Had a handful of skiving wage-thieves under me for years. They bloody loved COVID with their "I saw my auntie walk past the end of the lane and somebody coughed outside her house the day before so I will see you in two weeks" .

Yeah. The raspy voice. Skiving wankers.

One phone call for a full days pay to do nothing at your place of work? Is it really such a hardship?

Good idea. Too many malingerers these days.

For me, it's a duty of care thing...anyone could text/email. Hearing someone on the phone provides me with some level of comfort that my team member is safe. I've had an unfortunate instance where someone couldn't get into work because she had been assaulted by her then partner who messaged me from an unknown number pretending to be her. Something didn't sit right so I called her and that's when the whole sad story came out.

They don't though. My employer is no more responsible for "safeguarding" when I'm outside the office than my neighbour. It's a stupid excuse to use.

You have to have a rule for the first point of contact. You can relax it later for employees you trust if you think they will not be able to phone easily, and obviously make alllowances for people rushed into hospital etc, but if you have a slacker you need to be able to put pressure on them.

Hopefully employers can tell the difference between serious illnesses and life events and the guy who's just "feeling a bit under the weather" yet again.

Didn't save her, though, did it?

Calling in and return to works decreases the amount piss takers, will take the piss. It's also a chance to ensure you have support and are properly recovered. Very common practice. Can it be awkward? Sure. Everywhere I have worked has had this rule, although many bosses are happy for texts at their discretion. It might depend on how likely they think you are to take the piss or if they think you're vulnerable

Whilst I do have to phone in with general sickness, and I hate it, our HR department would be more than happy for someone else to phone in those kind of circumstances, and rightly so 🤣.

They would also accept an email if it was a case of bereavement, which I know is different.

I had to phone in every few days when I was on ( unpaid ) parental leave because my teenage son was dying in hospital. My witch of a line manager asked me if I could come into the office for a meeting and was annoyed when I explained that i couldn’t as I was sitting at his bedside all day, every day as he only had a few days left.

She then said she would email me with a date to come into the office the next week for a formal meeting. When I phoned her in a few days, she asked if I was definitely coming to the meeting, so I said that no I couldn’t commit to any date as I was at the hospital every day.

She then said in an exasperated voice “ you said that last week ! “. When he died a few days later, she ordered me to come into the office for a meeting in the week between the death and the funeral.

I still had to keep phoning her every few days until the funeral. Maybe she was worried he would come back to life and I’d have claimed unpaid leave under false pretences.

BTW Id been in the job for over 10 years and had never taken a single sick day, the only time I’d ever had off was my maternity leave. And she knew it was all true because I worked in the NHS - she could have phoned up the ward or the records office if she wanted to.

This. I've encountered DV cases before where an abusive spouse would beat up their partner badly enough to show, or simply not trust them to come home if they allowed them to leave the house, and one of the things that stopped them being able to completely take control was the individual having to speak to their manager themselves. It's pretty obvious if someone's on speaker phone or being coached through what to say in that situation so if you already have suspicions that all is not well at home that's another solid clue. They might not accept support if it's offered, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be offered.

Also, messages go astray, emails can go to spam, if you've spoken to someone you know they know you're not coming in and can arrange cover.

Edited to add: asked the daft thing to quote the previous poster who talked about workplaces needing to know something terrible hasn't happened to you with the person contacting them being the cause of it.

Yes! The croaky voice. I call it 'sick note throat'. If you're ringing in with a bad back, How's that impacted your voice? 🤣🤣🤣

We allow texts. Or emails.

At a previous firm a colleague had a burst appendix, rushed in hospital and was pretty much unconscious for two days before she started to improve. Her H rang the day after she was taken in and she was disciplined for not ringing the morning of her absence between 8-9 (she was in an operating table at the time). So ridiculous - that was when I decided to leave. Stupid decision made by stupid people. No common sense applied.

I'm a manager and that is why I do it. My staff are fab, hardworking and I really wouldn't want anything to happen to any of them.

There was a case where a girl was murdered by her boyfriend who buried her in the woods. The boyfriend had been texting her manager. The alarm was raised as the manager finally got suspicious that they couldn’t talk to her.