I got fired today!!

Re-posting what I wrote upthread in case it's helpful.

This is how many, probably most, employers calculate sickness absence.

If your first day sick is Friday and you return the following Wednesday, that's counted as 5 days, not 3. Unless you were better on Sat/Sun then sick again on Mon/Tue it's classed as one continuous absence.

If you were better on Sat/Sun but absent again on Mon/Tue, it would be counted as 3 days but 2 separate absences (and 3 separate absences in a rolling 12 month period usually triggers further action such as an OH referral so there's no advantage to claiming to be better over the weekend).

It sounds as though this is what has happened, OP's either had e.g. one absence Fri-Tues (5 days) and another of e.g. Thu-Tues (6 days). Or worse, 2 absences Fri-Mon and another Friday sick but has put Fit For Work date as Monday morning so counted as 3 days Fri/Sat/Sun.

Return to Work forms usually ask for 2 dates, the date you actually return to work e.g. Monday, but also the date you were "Fit for Work" i.e. you would have been able to work if that date had been a normal working day. In other words the day you were better, even if it was a weekend.

This is why, if you are sick on a Friday (regardless of when the absence started), but return to work on the following Monday, even if you were sick as a dog till Sunday evening, I would advise putting your Fit for Work date as Saturday morning so that the weekend is not counted as absence.

Many people just put the FFW date as the same date they returned to work, not realising that it's the FFW date that ends the absence, regardless of the actual first day back at work..

the second employee sounds awful. Thankfully I haven’t had anyone like that work for me as they would get short thrift also, but my MIL who is now retired used to say every Autumn “oh, I haven’t taken my full sick leave entitlement yet this year. I better call in sick soon”

My old employer used to do this. I think there was a theory that Friday and Monday sick leave was more likely to be an attempt at getting a long weekend without taking holiday than genuine illness. Making it 4 days sick leave would weed this out. There had been a member of staff who always took sick leave after his football team had an away fixture on the weekend for instance (he did left the company in the end).

It was pointed out to the company that it could also be the case that some people struggled on not feeling well until Friday before accepting defeat and going off sick to minimise disruption to the company and were penalised effectively for trying to do this. Again this may have been an attempt to stop people doing this and making others ill in the process

You haven't declared your disability so they haven't discriminated against you om the basis of your disability (because they aren't even aware of it).

You have had excessive time off and indeed the details you have posted above show that the time off is nothing to do with your disability in any event.

You have been employed less than 2 years. Even when the new ERA comes in they would be able to fire you during this initial period by giving notice.

I am afraid chalk this one up to experience and look for something else.

Because you are saying you have been unwell for 4 days. Most minor illnesses would only need a couple of days off, it's very unusual for a migraine to last from friday to monday for example, and not just friday-saturday.

I've got an employee who's been with me less than two years. Her mum is in really poor health quite suddenly. She's struggled into work everyday, until I told her to go and WFH for a week, and if she didn't get much work done, so be it, I wanted her to take it easy and not run herself down. Her initial response was that she could perhaps take it as holiday. And she could have, but that would mean she'd have to work the days over Christmas instead as she had insufficient holiday left. It's things like that, where she's looking to cause as little disruption as possible that stand out. She's an excellent worker. Stays late because she truly cares (I run a charity), funny and boosts team morale, a real team player. If she needs a month of, I'll give it to her, because I know she needs it, because she hates not doing her job properly, and has pride in her work.

Then I had this other one. Three kids. Had her MIL and brother (both not working, one on full PIP) living with her and her husband, so always someone at home who could have looked after her kids. First week, she was sick by the Thursday. Fine, you can't help that and hopefully no one is that thick that they'd risk faking a sicky on day 4 of their new job. The next week, one kid was sick for 2 days, and she "couldn't" leave him with MIL or brother and decided she'd not come in for those. Then the oldest kid she wanted assessed for something or other and announced she couldn't make it in the following Friday as the kid had a doctor's appointment. Then she discovered that (due to the nature of my business we have many vulnerable and elderly) my policy was anyone who had COVID needed to WFH until they tested negative, and the day after this policy was made known to her, lo and behold, she's got COVID and needs to WFH. In her 6 months of probation, she had over 3 weeks off and that's not including any weekend time. And the thing about probation is that you pass it, fail it, or are told what you need to improve over a designated extension of probation and then at the end of that, you pass or fail. Fucking right she failed her probation. And wouldn't you know it, she was then trying to concoct some bullshit to go to ACAS with for anything her workshy lazy ass could grab. Unfortunately in trying to do that, she unknowingly fucked up and enabled me to write her a letter stating (in professional and diplomatic terms) that I invited her to shoot her fraudulent shot, and it would guarantee me reporting her for the regulations she had breached. She then turned up at my office and turned on the waterworks, as if that's the adult solution to anything when you know you've been caught. It then transpired that she had a claim against a company for "falling down a pothole in the carpark" and another "have you been in a car accident that wasn't your fault" claim. Oh, and she'd had extensive time off at her previous employer for "stress".

I think she knew she was a piss taker, but her mentality was to expect to get paid for not working and then would just go for a claim when she inevitably got sacked. Not her fault, she was the real victim here and just doing what the system allowed. Everyone else does it, she was just getting what she was "owed". If you pointed any of the above and the poor unethical attitude? Oh she'd gasp in faux naive offence, how dare you pick on poor her for her stress and ill children.

Like OP, this behaviour is a pattern. And it's pretty obvious when you've got one of those workers. People aren't stupid, and employers can recognise people who use any opportunity not to turn up Vs those who genuinely can't come to work that day.

I know, it was the fact it was 3 separate incidents. The best of it is it was a council role and I’d worked in the council for 3 years in a different position and transferred over. My holiday entitlement was transferred so really my employment status should have too. I hated the job though and didn’t want to be there so I didn’t fight it.

Better than the Tory arseholes who employment rights away and made it two years before you get any rights. Six months would be a huge improvement for employees.

OP, talk to CAB and make sure you are getting all the benefits you are entitled to for now. Could you pick up some seasonal work still? Onwards and upwards, consider it a lucky escape from this disorganised employer.

I'm sorry OP
I have been in my new role since July and I fear I have had more time off than you.
Some of it has been related to me having a break down after losing a parent.
Others have been related to needing to be at home with sick children (unpaid leave and sick leave is lumped together in my work)

I did consider going pt to not affect the business anymore but I know I'm holding on by the skin of my teeth. Its just shit circumstances for me at the moment and hope my work will be understanding when my probation is up for review in a month or so

I've had return to work meetings after leaving early due to illness 🤔 and that was leaving 3/4 hours early

I have been sympathetic to people's illnesses / struggles while also raging inside at the amount of work I had to cover, causing me to miss out on time with my own family, because of it.

The fact is that was a lot of time off and if you pass probation, it gets harder to get rid of you. Most people move heaven and earth to make a good impression in the first 3 months. You didn't and it was an indicator of a likely future where they just couldn't rely on you to show up.

I've never heard of that before. Why are people allowed to include 2 days at the weekend if you're not supposed to be working on those 2 days? I know someone mentioned up-thread, but I didn't think to ask.

I agree with pp that it sounds like they include weekends i.e. if you were off sick from Friday morning to Monday evening they would count that as 4 days sick not 2

When you're a new employee, surely you can work out that taking a lot of time off work is going to endanger your chances of being kept on without needing your employer to spell it out to you?

And yeah, I'm a bit annoyed that there was no contract, no mention of probation, no warnings. No back to work meetings after absences to discuss, etc. They were very happy with my work, and my time off hasn't been mentioned before today. As I said, there were no warnings, no discussions. It just feels shitty. No opportunities to improve and keep my job, etc.

Irrespective of whether they used the word "probation" or not, you must have been aware that in your first few weeks there they would effectively been trying you out to see if you could do the job properly or not. You must equally have been aware that no employer was going to be too happy about someone taking off six days within less than three months; why did you need them to confirm that? I don't know any employer which routinely has back to work meetings after each day an employee is absent.

I think possibly you have an unrealistic idea about what employment means. Next time you start a new job, you really need to do your utmost to be there every day - that means trying to have some pretty rock solid emergency child care arrangements in place, and going into work when you're unwell, unless you've got something contagious or are literally unable to get out of bed.

Of course people get sick, and both the employee (and the business) need protection - but here we are talking about a brand new employee who has within just weeks of starting work proved themselves to be unreliable, by being absent on no less than 6 occasions - and it could be up to 11 - through not just sick leave but other things that should have been discussed/negotiated prior to employment commencing.

Businesses do not have the capacity to be charities to the unreliable and those who do not give full disclosure from the outset, thereby leaving the employer both unaware and preventing them from making reasonable adjustments from the start.

As much as I may sympathise with the OP’s personal circumstances, I too would free this brand new employee of only a few weeks from not working very much for me. Had they then come back at me with other new information that makes it appear they want to ‘create a situation’, I would be relieved I’d dodged a bullet. Hard, but true.

65 working days since 01/09 and you've been off for 11 of them! That's ridiculously high and more time off than I've had off in over 2 years at my current job!

Sorry op this sounds shit for you just before Xmas.

ignore the stroppy twats on here.
it’s meant to be a good space to rant regardless of any situation.

can you look for work from home jobs ?
there’s a site called work from home hub online that advertise this sort of wfh admin type jobs so that may work better for you

its a shitty time for many right now. Everyone is feeling the pinch and the country has gone to shit which doesn’t help so sorry your getting grief here aswell

They can do what they want within the first 2 years unfortunately but I can see you’re stressed, I hope you find a new role soon. Maybe ask for a decent reference if the work was good?

side note- why do all Mumsnet kids have autism/sen? It seems so disproportionate to children I know. Like every other post “I have 5 kids, all sen”…..how!? I have 4, no sen just normal kids with normal needs (ones a bit highly strung but we love her for it 😆).

I may make a post asking do you identify your kid as sen and if so what’s sen about them? Is it like behind with reading or are they smashing their head off the desks?

Sorry OP but you must have known all those absences wasn't a good look as a new employee. All you can do is put it behind you, learn from it, and move on.

I'm sorry this happened to you.
I do agree though that whether its been six days or eleven days, its still too many instances of sick leave.
I don't understand why they said eleven days and you say six days. Did you leave early the day before you took sick leave and they are counting this? If you were in the office, this is surely easy to prove if you send out emails as you cross reference the dates.
My guess is that it doesn't really matter as a} you won't be using them as a future reference b} you may be fixing on this because its the only part you have any control over.

I hope you find some temp work or work from home in the near future.

@JKLollingBut she didn’t have a cold, she had a sickness bug (I read that as a V&D thing, not a cold), migraines and her child was ill. Usually people who skive off are also poor performers when they’re in too, but the OP was told her work was good, so there’s no reason for them to think she was lying. If you’re off for more than 3 days in a row they usually require a note from a Dr too, so it’s not like you can keep the lie up for very long if skiving.
At the very least they should have brought it up with her and given her a warning rather than just firing her out of the blue.

You would go in with a sickness bug and make everyone else ill, while you couldn't do your job properly anyway because you'd spend most of the time in the bathroom as is the norm with a sickness bug?

As for the child, you'd take your ill 7 year old son into work with you? Or would you leave him at home to look after himself?

There's an awful flu going about and some of my DC friends have been off school for over a week. The parents have been fortunate that for most they have one parent WFH or a grandparent able to take over. OP clearly doesn't have those options.

If you didn’t declare your disability then it’s not a protected characteristic dismissal so unfortunately, I don’t think you’ve got a case here. Although from your description your days off sound like several unrelated issues anyway.

Sadly I think it sounds like the disproportionate amount of days off since starting has led them to suspect you’re making things up. Not that I think you are, things just happen sometimes, I once started a job and on day 4 got unwell and ended up in hospital and not going back for 2 weeks.

@Amiunemployable Unfortunately even if you had been told about a probation period, it wouldn't have mattered as it doesn't sound like you had any choice but to miss work regardless.

I'm in a similar position to you and am looking for jobs with remote working, or at least that offer a hybrid style working.

How were you supporting yourself previously without claiming any benefits if you weren't working?