Work ethic?

[Uglycurtains]

I own a business and the level of staff sickness it insane! I’m not sure if I am being unreasonable- but I have staff of for their child having suspected chicken pox, tingling fingers and my favourite conjunctivitis.
Is this usual? Not sure how to motivate people to actually turn up to work?!

Don't pay sick pay. That usually miraculously cures them

That sounds like staff taking time off when their DC are sick. Surely you don't have to cover that? Doesn't it come out of their annual leave?

They don’t get paid! Unfortunately I have statutory requirements that I have to meet, so if someone if out, it really affects the business. They just don’t seem to care about having a job?!

So if a nursery won't take a child with chickenpox or conjunctivitis (as some are particularly draconian about conjunctivitis) and there is nobody else around to look after the children - would you rather they bought them into work?

Is your business a shit place to work for/in?

I think it's unfair to say they don't care about a job because they are having time off with ill children!
The problem is that most childcare settings/schools won't take them even with something as silly as conjunctivitis so they are forced to have time off. What is the alternative for them?

I'd have to go sick with conjunctivitis as I wouldn't be able to drive (I'm very short sighted in one eye so if my 'good' eye gets infected I'm virtually blind!)

Tingling fingers?

No i’d rather they found someone to look after their child, as quite frankly it’s not my problem! UGh- I know all about nurseries... and i’ll Leave it at that!

How well do you pay them? Do you hire from the bottom of the barrel in order to pay low wages, thinking you'll be saving your business money? "You get what you pay for" applies the most to the workers you hire.

To be clear, only the suspected chicken pox was a staff memebers child, the rest have been adult ailments!

I pay them above the going rate and they get free childcare...

Pretty good i’d say! A particular perk worth over 12000 a year!

That's not staff sickness, it should be annual leave. While annoying it is what annual leave is for.

If you are concerned about your workers taking a lot of sick leave then monitor it using the Bradford Factor. But use it as a tool to identify issues that you can work with them to overcome, not as a stick to beat people with.

Sometimes it’s just not possible to find someone else to watch children at short notice. Can I ask if you are paying around minimum wage? If that’s the case, then, yeah, I can guess why it’s your employee and not their partner taking time off for the kids

i'll work for you! i crawl in no matter what! can usually work it off :)

Hang on, are you hinting that you run a nursery? If so, surely the parents would be horrified if they knew that you'd rather staff came in with conjunctivitis and other contagious illnesses?

Do you run a child care business op? If you do then the shocking work ethic doesn’t surprise me, it’s a wide spread problem in the childcare industry I’ve found.

Isn’t conjunctivitis highly contagious though? Depending on the nature of work you could be looking at multiple staff with nasy infections if that one comes in to work.

I'm sorry but unfortunately it is your problem because it's being made to be your problem by your staff being off.

Given you said there's regulation staffing requirements that you need to meet is there any bank staff that you could employ? Or even create your own bank of staff on zero hours? I'm sure there would be people willing to take occasional work like that. Is there any other possible employee type you could look to take on? Would early retirees be suitable for example as they obviously won't have child care issues. Tread carefully that you don't fall foul of discrimination of course.

Unfortunately some people work to live, particularly in lower paid and lower valued roles. There's nothing wrong with that, many moons ago I managed a call centre, and even my deputies and team leaders were of the type that clocks on at 9 on the dot and leaves like a rat from a drowning ship at 5. It was just the nature of the beast. The best bit though was there there was always someone who would take their place.

Good luck!

From your comment about nurseries and saying that staff get free childcare I’m guessing you run a nursery? If that’s the case then surely you don’t want infectious diseases being brought in by staff or staff children?

Some people just don’t have anyone they can ask to look after a sick child. paid for childcare usually excludes ill children (sensibly), parents both work, grandparents probably work/live too far away/no contact/have other commitments. I don’t even have kids but I can easily imagine that, I’m not sure why you find it so difficult. Yes, it’s not your problem, that’s why you don’t pay them if they’re off sick looking after a child. But they’re legally entitled to unpaid leave to care for dependent children.

Staff sickness and unpaid leave for sick children of staff are part of running a business that employs people.

No i’d rather they found someone to look after their child, as quite frankly it’s not my problem!

Well here in the real world we don't all have people who can look after our children in an emergency. If I had a boss with that attitude about me using my annual leave I'd leave.

Well, if it is a nursery, most nursery staff I know are paid a pittance so tend not to be too arsed. Also, they can't really come in with something you'd not accept kids with....

It’s not normal to exclude children for conjunctivitis in a nursery though

OP it’s not really normal to have high sicknesses levels, and tbh I think you need to think about the working conditions?

Crist, if you run a nursery and expect staff with conjunctivitis to look after children, as a parent I’d have my child out of there quicker than Mo Farah’s shadow.