To be annoyed a whole sick day is recorded as a part time worker?

[PavlovtheCat]

Grrr. I know that 'officially' I am, but bloody logically, it's just so bloody anal.

I work 3 full days, and on a Friday for 2.5 hours. However, those 2.5 hours are random, in that, I sometimes work longer hours on those other days due to child are, or because my work makes it so, and then I take those hours back on a Friday. I have Thursdays off officially.

This week, I was not going to work on either Thursday (my day off) or friday (toil). then I needed to go into work on Thursday for 1 hour, on my day off for a court related matter

Unfortunately, I was sick, so this court related matter was covered by another colleague (that was fine, as that colleague was there anyway, just would have been better for me to be there).

My manager was not around, but had she been, she would very likely have just told me that as this was my official day off and as I am on schedule for my hours this month (have like 10 hours toil to take) to just not record it as working, or something. As if I had not been required to do that hour and sick on my day off, not relevant.

So in her absence I called the absence recording line just to be sure I recorded so did not get into trouble. They said that as I was expected in, it would be recorded as sick. Fine. But that it would be recorded as one whole day sick. Not a proportion of my part time working hours.

I was at Christmas for one week with a slipped disc. So taking into account the bank holiday, this has been recorded as 3 whole days, which is almost all my hours, not the actual 17.5 hours I was actually sick (tues, wed, 2.5hrs fri). I have two other sick days from June ( full days so no concerns there).

So add to this the whole additional day recorded for yesteday, this now means I have been sick 6 days in total. When in fact it has been 18.5hours which is 2.5 days or so! My maths is probably slightly out but you get my point.

But,because full days have been recorded, it means I may now be on the threshold for disciplinary process due to number of days off.

when it comes to my annual leave, they convert my days into proportionate hours so if for example I took 2.5 hours, I don't take a days leave, I take 2.5 hours off my total. And if I worked a scheduled 10 hours (which some pt colleagues do) I take that time off not just one day. So they don't lose out. So why not do it for sickness, convert it to hours so it is accurate.

Part timers get such a raw deal.

But definitely if a full days sick is being used to penalise you in some way then you should get paid sick pay for both days! Wouldn't it be just a half day anyay/?

If you're sick, you're sick and can't go to work. If you're swinging the lead (and I'm not implying you are personally), that's a different matter entirely. No-one has a sickness entitlement, there's just an agreed threshold over which a discussion should take place to ensure the employee has no health issues that are causing major problems.

I had a similar problem last year . I work 24 hours a week but really I work 96 over a 4 week rota . Last year I took a weeks holiday which should have been 24 hours off my holiday entitlement but that particular week I was scheduled to work 35 hours , so they took 35 hours off my holiday entitlement . When it came to light needless to say I was not happy about it but there was nothing I could do . Part timers definitely get the raw deal . Especially in my work we get all the wee crappy shifts no one wants to do . I definitely wouldn't accept that tho I would fight it .

Holiday entitlement is one thing, but there's no such thing as sick leave entitlement.

Scholes, but its on her record she has had 2 days sick when in total shed have been working half a day

She's still been sick and the two days isn't eating into any "entitlement". If it becomes an issue and she reaches the "disciplinary" stage, she can easily document what happened. For full-time workers, sickness periods include weekends.

scholes I a, not talking about entitlement. I am talking about being treated differently to a full time worker. I am talking about my absences from work not being recorded correctly and thus giving a false picture of what I work and do not work. As I have said, for example, if I have worked 22.5 hours and those on my normal hours, on normal days and not overtime, I cannot then be off sick for 7.5 hours the rest of that week if my working week is 25 hours.

I should therefore not receive formal disciplinary processes if my sickness levels are less proportionately than my full time colleagues, that is what I am bothered about. The unequalness of it all.

I will sort it so that I do not work on Fridays. I will work those extra hours on the other days and then if I am sick on those days, I will just be sick for a day, whatever hours I m meant to work.

Re my back problem, already being supported by my boss, and through OH. on my own request to minimise my absences from work. This sickness was nothing to do with my back, it was a stomach bug from the kids, though I hindsight I should have just lied and said it was my back. But not keen on being dishonest. Or feeling that I even need to consider it.

scholes surely,it only includes weekend if it crossed er to another week. If someone is sick mon- thurs for example, it has nothing to do sith the wekend right? so if I was sick on wed, and on Friday, then sure, being sick on thurs will count. But I was not sick on weds and I was at work (well I was, but it was just starting, you don't need details). And I am not sick today I am on toil.

stealth I haven't idea why it is not half day either. If I had been at work for half day and then went home, it would be half day, so why it is not half day when only one hour I have no idea. I will sort that out on Monday.

Ad I said in the first line of the OP scholes I guessed it was officially correct, but has just annoyed me how disproportionate it is to a full time worker having time recorded correctly.

And, surely from their point of view it's better for it to be accurate? Hw can they monitor how much man hours are needed to cover sick if not correct? As, while some are saying it is a days sick, whether a full day or not, it terms of colleague cover, if I am sick for a 2.5 hour shift, only 2.5 hours need covering by colleagues (in reality not even that needs covering as that is my admin day so no one does it in my absence and I just cram it all in to my hours when I return). It does not reflect the company sick records correctly in terms of money lost through sickness, it over inflates those statistics, and it then also suggests there are more hours to be claws back than there really are. If I had not taken that day off, they would not have 7.5 hours more work hours available, they would have 1. And it does not truly reflect my workload each month, for which a days sick is taken off my availability for that month. That means it appears I have less availability for new cases than I really do, which messes up the company being able to manage its own workload as they will potentially have to give that work to someone else if that whole day takes me over my capacity, where if it were recorded as 1 hour, or even half a day, it would give the correct capacity for work. So from that point for view alone, they are losing work hours by incorrectly recording, not gaining anything.

But were you ill for the whole day, or just the hour that you were expected at work?

Is your employer not going to be open to any explanation from you as to how your sick leave has been accrued? I think you can be a bit miffed about how the sick leave is registered, but there are probably more important things to get really cross about.

That's no different than saying I was sick for 24 hours, but that is not recorded. I was not sick for a whole working day as I was due in for a whole working day. Just like I would not be in for a whole 24 hour period, but that is not recorded. The fact that I was also sick outside of work time is not really relevant toy emplyoyers if I am not required to be at work.

In temrms of them being responsive to listening to reasons blah blah, I doubt that very much. They are very much 'follow' procedure type people. A colleague opine received first stage disciplinary with improvement requirements for having one period of three weeks of sick with a prolapsed disc similar to me, nd no sickness before this for years!

I am aware there are more important things to worry about, but it's not really rthe actual hours thing that bothers me, well, it is, itis more h differently part time staff are treated to full time staff, even when there is now statutory law to proct part time workers from being discriminated against. If this did make me to disciplinary, I should not have to explain myself where a full time member of staff should nt have to, where it would not get that far with a full time member of staff.

What I mean by I was sick for a whole day, I mean so far as was concerned, it is not relevant. I was actually sick for a couple for days, the day before, and that entire day and evening as you generally are with a tummy upset.

It's the number of 'shifts' missed that they'll be interested in rather than the hours. I haven't actually heard of employers recording sick leave in hours.

What about shift workers doing 12hr shifts?

Do you think they should they be recorded as being off sick for 1.5 days rather than 1 day?

If you missed a day, you missed a day, whether the 'day' is 2hrs or 12hrs.

YANBU. If I take sick leave, it is recorded proportionately to my hours, not as whole days etc. (I have something like 4.83 days left!)

Good luck with this.

Shelley but I didn't miss I shift, I was asked to go in for a specific bit of work, on my day off. I was not 'shifted' to work that day. And, re 12 hour shifts, if it is recorded in hours, that would not be an issue, as it would reflect the proportion of work not completed due to sickness.

And treadwarily has just that second provided an example of a company that does it for part time workers.

I'm with you Pavlov. I used to work p/t and to get a HR that actaully understand how p/t holiday works is rare, let alone sickness. Everytime we got a new HR person in I had to sort out my holiday entitlement again.

Agree working things out in hours is so much simpler, I don't know why more companies don't do that.

Hi OP, something occurred to me while reading through this post. You say you are owed 10 hours toil but that is working on the assumption that your hours are recorded the way that they have been worked. If your organisation decides that it won't correct the way it records sickness then they have a different problem on their hands ie. a full day for 1hours work means they now owe you the other 6.5 hours either as toil or pay. Not much, but when you consider that we are coming to the end of the financial year it would appear that they are effectively creating a 'ghost' worker, they can't record your asbsence as 7.5hours sick for a 25hour week and still have you recorded as working 24hours that week.

Hi Pavlov, just checked something out and I think it could be useful to you on Monday. www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/layer?r.l1=1073858808&r.l2=1083106843&r.l3=1083116279&r.s=tl&topicId=1083260537
The interesting bit is the bit about your employer being able to claim back some of the sick pay if they have a high level of staff sickness. In this case, I would suggest that if they persist in recording your sickness as they are and then claim it back from the government they are in fact committing fraud!!!

If we reach our first stage of disciplinary measures due to sickness, we get the chance to make a case. I would calculate accurately the number of hours and percentage absense you have had and argue the toss (I've never lost yet )

I work in the NHS and annual leave is recorded in hours. The number of hours deducted depends on the number of hours in any particular day actually worked.

But sick leave is calculated according to number of absences, not by hours. I'm not sure how sick pay is calculated, but the number of sick days threshold is based on a perceived national 'average' number of days that are taken. It varies from Trust to Trust - my old Trust had a threshold of 6 episodes over 6 months (an 'episode' could be one day or 3 weeks - it presumed being off for a spell with one illness)

My current Trust has a threshold of 4 episodes over 4 months.

If you cross the threshold, a 'sickness absence advisory' kicks in - the first meeting with HR & your manager is pretty informal, just to flag up the issue and ask if there are any underlying problems. They then usually ask you to 'improve' your number of absences.

If the sickness absence continues then you have a formal review, and usually a referral to Occupational Health for a check up with them.

It then continues in this vein until you eventually get to redeployment to a less demanding post or ill health retirement.

The system is designed to support those with genuine health issues while 'bucking up' those with repeated unconnected short term absences. It's difficult because they tread a fine line between genuinely supporting sick colleagues and ensuring the least amount of disruption to service.

But as far as I know, it's not meant to be punitive? I very much doubt that they will convert your sickness into hours, but I would put it in writing that you were helping out on a non working day and so would like that 'absence' removed from your sick record.

That doesn't sound fair.

I had a similar situation last year. I work Tuesday to Friday and never work Mondays or weekends. (Our office is closed at weekends).

I got flu on a Monday and the GP wrote a sicknote covering me until the following Monday. I went back to work on Tuesday. Because my sicknote covered me for the Saturday, Sunday and Monday those were counted as sick days, even though I would never have worked on those days, and that triggered a disciplinary interview.

Mel, that doesn't sound fair. Regardless of when the doctors note covered you for, you were only off sick for 4 days. I would put that in writing to HR to go on your file and on the company Manpower records. The weekend concept only used to exist as far as the need for docs certificates was concerned. Ie it used to be the case that if you were off more than 5 days you needed a med certificate. So if you were off Mon - Fri, you'd need a cert as they counted the weekend as well, taking it to 7 days. But if you were only only off 4 days, you should have been able to self certificate. It's worth checking your sickness policy as they shouldn't be counting the Monday if it's a non working day.

My company decided a year or two ago to start recording annual leave and sickness in hours rather than days. It seemed a bit complex at first but actually is a very fair way of doing things. Clearly your sickness is not being recorded accurately or fairly at the moment. Even if you don't want to start a dispute over t and cause bad feeling you definitely need to state your case very clearly in writing now (preferably one single polite and factual email) copied in to hr and your manager just so you have it on record in case this does cause problems in future.

I take the point some others have made that weekends can sometimes be included when deciding whether a doctor's note is requires but as far as I know they would never be included in the calculation of number of sick days taken that year.

I wouldn't make too big a thing of it now though or it might make it sound like you are already 'intending' to use more sick days which would take you up to the threshold where any action might be taken.

The posts I made were just to compare how NHS does things really, and it really looks like different companies do things quite differently. But I'm getting quite on your behalf the more I think about it.

Please do go and have a chat with someone in HR if you can/feel able to? They should know the correct policy, whereas as I've worked with too many managers who may be very good at their job, but genuinely don't understand anything to do with HR. I presume it's a hangover from before Personnel (they do this stuff for you) changed to Human Resources (they empower managers to do this stuff so they can focus on strategic stuff).

I had my official Maternity meeting with one lovely manager, who, when I asked her to clarify something in the policy, said "Oh! Do we have a Maternity Policy??"

in works it works this way.

my shift is 7am-2.30pm if at anytime i would have to go home due to illness then thats the 1st day of sick.

if I have decided to do overtime and phone in sick it will also go against me.