Sick days

[Belladog1]

Just wondering how many days sick you generally have per year. I'm not talking serious ailments but coughs/colds/stomach issues etc ....

I am very lucky and I'm rarely ill. I can't remember the last time I got a cold and i don't think I've taken a sick day in years. I'd have to feel really rubbish before I'd consider not going to work.

But my colleagues are very different. One lady is off a lot, at least fortnightly with headaches or a cold. She apparently takes to her bed and gets looked after by her husband. I've noticed her son takes lots of time off too for ailments and she often gets calls from the school for him to be collected as he has tummy ache. I can't help but wonder if her sickness days and staying home look great to her son who gets a day home with one mention of a poorly stomach.?

My boss often phones me to say he's woken up feeling grotty and is taking a day to stay under the duvet.

I remember as a kid trying to convince my mum i was sick. She would sit on the bed, pull a silly face and if I giggled she'd say 'I think you're well enough to go to school', and off I'd go. But, even today, as a middle aged woman, I still feel guilty, almost like I'm lying, if I need a day off sick.

I'm employed and work with a very small team. If I take time off it does impact the office.

To answer the question from a previous poster, im 52.

Rarely am I off for colds etc. think rarely get a cold and if I do I just plough on through.

I suffer cluster headaches though. Again I generally try and plough on through as I have abortive medication and they tend to happen at night so I but every couple of months I get a horrendous one that floors me. I do take time off then because I literally cannot function.

I’ve got a strong immune system so am rarely sick with colds etc. Over the past few years I’ve had short to medium term periods of sickness (fractured shoulder, gallbladder removal, cataracts deteriorating to the point I was almost blind and needed at least one done before I was safe enough to work).

I think in the past two years I left work early and didn’t go in the next day because I had an upset stomach and vomiting and that’s been it.

if I’m sick, I’m sick, but I really hate taking time off work.

I’m public sector

Last time I was off sick I was at primary school. I'm 49 now.

I’ve had a stinking, rotten cold since Thursday and am now at the choked and coughing stage, but Thursday to Saturday I felt truly wretched. I’m a lecturer so trying to teach while coughing is no use. I went to work on Thursday feeling a bit rough first thing, felt worse as the day went on, and actually left at 3 when I finished my last class. I WFH on a Friday anyway and muddled through, but wasn’t my most productive, then was in bed pretty much Saturday and Sunday. Today is actually a local holiday here but I probably would have called in sick if it hadn’t been. I’ve done a couple of hours of work today to catch myself up from taking it a bit easier on Friday when I felt awful.

I probably average four or five sick days a year - in 2025 I had a weird dizzy spell thing, plus tonsillitis. I’ve never been signed off by a doctor, and don’t have kids so never have to take dependents’ leave because of other people being ill. I used to plough on even if I was dying but finally realised that you get no thanks and the machine keeps ticking away if you genuinely need to have a couple of days in bed.

WFH and I'm PT. Two days in the past 6 years (D&V x1 day and trip to A&E for suspected DVT x1 day)

Everything else I manage with. Including sick children (I've always told work if I have a poorly child and offered to take it as annual leave etc)

Usually about 7 days a year but I catch absolutely everything going and so I'm usually working whilst under the weather too.

Wow.
I've been in the current job 18 years and not a single sick day.
And that's not because I go in when ill/i shouldn't.

You've not caught one stomach bug, or flu, or COVID, or had a migraine, or anything that kept you off in 39 years?! I'm bloody envious

How are you people doing it?!

Usually a couple of days a year, and a handful of days to look after DS when he gets sick! Never been an issue.

Rarely. However in my late teens and early 20s. All the time! Seemed to be forever on a written warning :/ and out of probably 40+ sick days. I was only ill maybe 6 of those. I was just too lazy or hungover to go in.
Yes I know it was selfish , I know that now. I look back and wonder how I was never sacked. Was there another 16 years in the end. And in that 16 years I was off twice for anxiety and maybe 3 times for dc being poorly.

Normally a few a year but last year I had 3 months off with mental ill health.

When my youngest child was a baby and toddler, I was probably off work with something most months. I’ve never known a child to pick up so many viruses and be so generous at passing them on. In between numerous vomiting bugs, I had HFM, repeated colds and covid, flu, strep, shingles, and various unknown awful bugs.

I’ve worked at my company for 25 years. I had almost two decades with almost no sickness, two years of continual absences, and then back to almost no sickness in the last few years.

First job I was in for 24 years and had 16 days off sick. 10 of those were in the first month I started - I took a bad case of tonsillitis, Dr gave me penicillin and I had a bad allergic reaction to it.

Current job I”ve been in for 12 years and had 1 full week off with Covid and 2 days once with a bad cold.

But I am fortunate to generally not get unwell. Never had norovirus in my life (neither has dh or now adult ds), I had flu once when at college. I just catch an occasional light cold.

I think with WFH, the feeling guilty about taking a sick day increases… because for me at least can still work from bed even if I’m sick. So taking an actual sick day seems too far from me. If you have an office job every day and genuinely feel sick, you should absolutely not feel guilty because commuting is tiring etc (not to mention spread of germs)

totally get what you mean though… I don’t take many. Sometimes i get migraines and I have to email the team that I’ll be offline for a few hours so I can sleep it off… but again that’s the perk of wfh

I think I've had 3 or 4 days ill in the 5 years I've worked where I am now. However I have a 2 year old in nursery and the amount of dependent leave I've taken is horrendous. My manager is so understanding but I still feel horrendously guilty even though it can't be helped!

I think sharing what contractual sick pay entitlement people have, over and above statutory, would also be interesting. I've worked for a range of employers over the years, in the public and private sectors, including small charities and the UK civil service. Employers paying SSP only seemed to have less sickness absence overall.

Those who offered six months full pay and six months half pay had lots more people off sick and not just the odd day or two here and there but months at a time and usually followed by a generous phased return also on full pay. As a manager, I know that not all the frequent or long term absences I was aware of were disability, bereavement or pregnancy related.

I'm all for decent safety nets for those who need them but it seems the more you offer to all, the more that a decent proportion of employees will 'take'. On top of hybrid working with less than 50% office attendance expected, generous above statutory annual leave, extra long service leave and up to a week a year of fully paid carers leave.

I think there are plenty of times when working from home, if possible, is much preferable and more ethical, so long as you're not so ill you can't work but don't want to spread germs around or just can't manage a long commute. Not everyone can do this, I know.

I’ve had 3 days off this year, the most in years cumulatively, I did some bits from home even then

I thought a lot of employers now had policies on being off sick.

Not so.

Where people can't get into work when they have an obvious hangover..They should be made to take time out of their Annual Leave

I don't believe is spreading germs. So maybe cold sufferers could wherever possible. Work from home.

Whole sick day system is open to abuse.
Needs a radical overall.

Pretty sure my last sick day from work was in 2021.

Depends on the year. I pick up infections easily
last year I had 24 separate sickness occasions and then 4 weeks off post surgery. Nothing I could do about it, I couldn’t work when my condition flared and I had exceptions made for it as they knew I was waiting for the operation

I do think being a martyr and never taking sick days is a bad thing

Mental health days count as sick days

You don't need to say the reason why you are off

It's not a badge of honour to never have had a sick day. I have colleagues who never have time off sick and say it with pride. But they come in spreading their germs to others, don't spend any time with their young children and leave it all to their partner or they don't do a public-facing job and can thus slack off from time to time.

I teach in the public sector. I have had a fair bit of time off for sickness. Not because I'm taking the piss, but for any and all of the following reasons over the last 2 decades:

• I'm a single parent. When my children are ill, I usually catch it, too, because I'm their sole carer.
• I'm in direct, close contact with up to 500 children a day, all with varying levels of (usually poor) hygiene and parents who will dose them up on Calpol and send them in so as not to have a day off their own work.
• Cleaners in my school don't have enough time for deep cleans, so cleanliness is questionable and disease spreads like wildfire.
• I cannot drink enough liquids during the day due to not having time to pee. UTIs and kidney issues are common among staff.
• Behaviour is more and more appalling. During times where my own mental health has been poor (say, during an abusive relationship or those times we all have when just about everything goes wrong at once) having to deal with a bunch of teenagers waiting for you to slip up, actively letting their anger out on you, threatening you, physically assaulting you or smashing up your classroom may just push you over the edge. I've had a few days off for mental health reasons due to that over the years.
• The pressure in my job is insane. It leads to overwork, which leads to burnout. I've had two instances of that.
• More recently, as I have got older and wiser, I've started putting my own health first. I've come to realise that I don't get thanked for being in all the time. I've had too many instances of dragging myself in when I was ill (but not enough to justify being off - say, with a heavy headcold or a huge headache) only to have been given cover to do or being surprise observed. After teaching with a blinding migraine once and having leadership doing a surprise drop-in during that (knowing I was unwell) then pulled me up on a minor issue, I thought sod it and now I do not go in when I am too unwell to be 100% on.
• Teaching over the winter months has, more than once, led to severe vitamin D deficiencies. I go in before sunrise, come home when it's dark, don't get to go out during break or lunch because there is no time. It has led to heart issues, fatigue and other illnesses that then took time to diagnose and rectify, because even supplements don't always help. This is a pattern from October to March and while I do what I can, 10 hours a day in work and an extra 2 hours a day working from home add up to a huge lack of sunlight.

If employers want staff to have close to 100% attendance, don't overwork them, don't put their health at risk at work and allow some flexibility. I've generally had much better attendance in schools where my employer did their best to support their staff rather than in schools where my employer squeezed every last drop they could out of us.