Just come to the end of my six month probation period at work, 3 other staff do the same job and we work as a team.
Due to having to go into hospital for a chest infection I was off for 3 days, another of my colleagues was off for four days with bad sickness.
Me and this collegeue have met and greatly exceeded our targets dispite being off and have had great evaluations from our clients, not had one bad one.
Two other colleagues have has no time off but have not met two of their targets and one even had two clients complain about his attitude. Their evaluation scores are not as high as me and colleague who has been off.
Guess which two have passed their probation period and which two have had theirs extended!!!
It's just so frustrating it was the same in my last job if you managed to get your arse in all year you got a bonus no matter how crap you where at the job. No bonus for actually meeting targets and being good.
Now I see schools are going the same way. I was off for most of my first two years of high school in and out of hospital for operation and I still came out with 10 GCSEs at grade C and over. Yet if a kid has two weeks off all hell breaks lose with nasty letters and warnings about attendance targets.
People get ill, it is a fact of life. Of course some people take the piss with absence and they should of course be delt with but I really think firms and schools need to realise that the majority of people only take time off when they absolutely need to and to not put (reasonable) absence levels above performance.
AIBU?
That actually being good a your job comes second to your absence record.
Dollymixtureyumyum · 19/11/2015 12:46
This reply has been deleted
Message withdrawn at poster's request.
Sorry you've been sick, OP 
I think it's difficult. I worked with someone who was off sick a LOT and it really brought down everyone's morale. She came across as unreliable and nobody wanted to work the same shift as her because if she rang in sick, they were stuck on their own.
Now she's left, the whole team is happier because the rest of us are reliable and never off sick. In the last year, nobody else has rung in sick. So I know when I go to work tomorrow, I'll not be stuck on my own, or asked to stay late to cover someone who's rang in sick yet again.
I'm not saying your absence wasn't justified but company's don't see it like that. If they have someone who is regularly off sick, they're not going to hire them above someone who is always at work. They have absence targets to meet and unfortunately, being off sick during probation is not going to look good.
I hope you're better now, though.
In the industry I work, this sounds like standard practice.
Whether or not an employee 1) passes their probationary period, 2) has it extended or 3) is let go, is weighted heavily on attendance rather than performance.
The process is computerized - it's not personal and there isn't a human being making a judgement on how 'worthy' an employee's absence happens to be or not.
In our system, to pass the probation period employees must meet their targets at a minimum; exceeding probation targets would not offset sickness days. In fact there isn't an option to record 'exceeds', it says "Employee has met all probationary performance targets, Yes/No".
Bonuses are dealt with differently. These are only ever paid to employees who 'significantly exceed' targets for the previous year. Sick days are not taken into account, however an employee is highly unlikely to 'significantly exceed' if they are off work a lot.
When the end of probation reports are being prepared, the reason for sickness absence is not shown (just the number of sick days taken).
I'm not sure it would be of any use anyway, as a doctor's certificate would only be required after seven days. We would not be allowed to independently confirm whether an employee had attended a doctors/hospital appointment/was admitted to hospital.
If there has been over a specific percentage of sick days on the report, the probation period would usually be extended automatically. If it was really bad, the employee would be let go.
The employee who has just passed their probation period and handed in a 2-month doctor's certificate for depression is on dangerous ground. I assume he displayed no symptoms whatsoever up until now? In these exact circumstances, I don't know many employers who would not look to dismiss that employee as soon as possible.
Although our processes are automated and impersonal, in practice my employer has been very good. I've required surgery/reasonable adjustments (equipment and a change in hours) and time off for appointments.
Have a chat with people who have been working there for a while - if they are generally happy then I would be inclined to think you are just going through the standard 'corporate computer process', rather than your employer being a bit rubbish.
I hope you're feeling better now
Most places I worked valued attendance over everything.
My old boss, the one who sacked me eventually, used this analogy:
"You get more done on a slow computer everyday than on a fast computer half the time"
Also, a big supermarket chain I worked for insisted we worked even if we had a virus like diarrhoea etc even though I worked the bakery 
I was like,
"But that's putting customers at risk!"
Manger didn't care, just threatened my job.
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I'm afraid its the first thing you have to apply to the redundancy matrix 
I've been in the unfortunate position of having to make staff redundant . It's a lengthy and, IMO, cruel process. You have to fill in a 'matrix' and absence carries the most weight. I think it's TRYING to make it absolutely fair but believe me, it's horrible having to do it
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