Going to work sick when on a warning.

[divadee]

Ok. I can assure you this is hypothetical as I am not on a warning! But me and my partner were talking tonight about when you have had too many sick days in a year due to genuine illness that when you get sick again you go into work and pass it on to everyone else. Can work tell you off for this? It seems a tad unfair that you can get a bollocking for having too many sick days and then a bollocking for going in sick. Say if you had chicken pox or a tummy bug and you went into work...... work go nuts and send you home, can they they give you a warning for being off too much?

Yes there is a sickness policy at most work places. Mine is 3 episodes in a year. Then 1st absence warming etc. It works people don't come to work sick and hr and occ health will intervene to ensure policy is followed and it is fair. Underlying health conditions are taken into account.

We’d certainly review multiple short term absence and take action if it was deemed excessive. We’ve generous policies and offer absolute support to people with significant ill health - think cancers, serious mental ill health crisis, surgery, cellulitis or appendicitis. We’re kind to people who have recurring migraines or flares of rheumatoid arthritis.

We’re less kind to people who seem particularly susceptible to indeterminate sickness bugs, who are off with frequent colds or who are often ill,on Friday or Monday.

Ok. So you have had a bad year and had more than 3 instances. You come in to work with chicken pox as you don't want a warning for a 4th instance. Who is in the right for that scenario?

Ours do it on a pattern basis, but we’re open 24/7 365 days so it’s porbbaly different than an office for example

You shouldn’t arrive with chicken pox but would be well advised to get a doctor to certify it as such. I’d ask for confirmation and you’d likely be off over 5 days of self certification.
I’d let you off if you produced a certificate that said chicken pox but be watching you’re attendance carefully.

You have to be sensible, it's not unusual for someone to have a bad year and of course you can't go in with chicken pox. Sometimes you will just be asked to provide a sick cert for future illness, in the return to work interview you should be asked about your illnesses and given support, you might get referred to occy health if its the same thing happening all the time but you can't be blamed for genuine sickness. That's why it's never a good idea to pull a fake sickie karma comes back.

At my work you would get sent home and then given a warning for being sick!

We have a warning system. However it still recognised that people get ill (especially where I work) and we would take into account the nature of the illness.
For instance if one of the illnesses was a car crash or you broke a leg we would discount it when reviewing it so you wouldn’t get monitored.
Also if you were in monitoring and got something like chicken pox we would ignore that totally.

Obviously the person would be unreasonable to come in with chicken pox. Also, if they did, that's the sort of thing that's immediately visible and pretty much any manager would send them home. Something like a heavy cold would be harder to monitor.

The 3 instances and then 4th leads to action is based on the average that most people aren't significantly ill four times a year. If you are it is very unlucky. Again if it's an ongoing ill health issue as pp said it's slightly different, most places would expect you to make them aware of it and then would put measures into place.

In most places if the 'warning marker' was 4 that would lead to a disciplinary meeting but you wouldn't get fired. There is usually an intermediate step between the x amount of illness that are 'ok', then hitting the trigger, then a severe sanction. You would therefore have to be very unlucky to then be ill again for a 5th time within the same year. Ultimately it would be up to the person to 'risk' getting that 4th sick leave logged, depending on what sanctions were in place. If it's just a talking-to, okay it's not nice but if it ultimately doesn't affect your long-term job/pay then what difference does it really make?

I'm luck in that most places I've worked allow you to WFH if you felt well enough to work but didn't want to infect colleagues (obviously depending on job) - ideally more places would allow this.

Another option would be asking your manager if you can take the days as annual leave or unpaid to avoid hitting 'too much sick leave' trigger.

Ok. So you have had a bad year and had more than 3 instances. You come in to work with chicken pox as you don't want a warning for a 4th instance. Who is in the right for that scenario?

You don't come in a and take the warning. Usually first stage sickness review will set a new sickness target not to exceed so no sick days in the next 8 weeks or similar. If you meet the target you'll be back to normal again.

Our policy triggers at 3 absences in a rolling 6 month period you'd have to be quite unlucky to keep breeching that.

Yes. I have an underlying health condition and have went in to work a number of times when I have been very ill.

You go in if you're on a stage higher than 1 where I worked
After stage 1, any sickness in the next year takes you to stage 2 etc
I went in with pneumonia, a herniated disc that I was on morphine for, and raging tonsillitis but what else can you do when you're told any more sickness and you'll lose your job despite the fact you are immunosuppressed...

I used to work with a terrible headaches..but sometimes I couldn’t. My work were very understanding. When I had a period of time off I got signed off. I think it’s important to follow correct protocol. It’s when you don’t it looks suspicious.

I think that it was very obvious that I was genuinely suffering. I have been well now since June.

Ours would discount certain things, but not others. It does tend to make people come in when they shouldn't and spreads bugs. Yes policy needs to be there for those that take the mick, but it doesn't always work with people that have genuine illnesses.

Yes. I got sent to Occ Health with recurring illnesses (DS's baby years, picked up everything going from him, proximity of "holiday" to look after sick child and sick leave for me triggered the HR system).

After that I just didn't take sick leave. I either staggered in feeling like death, or took holiday instead of sick leave (against the rules, but no-one was checking that one). It was utterly fucking miserable. I had no real holiday to use and just felt knackered and ground down.

Thankfully that stage has passed - DS is older and no longer functions like a petrie dish on legs.

We would also use common sense -eg after a bereavement people are often prone to picking up every bug going for a while so I wouldn't be rushing to discipline someone with a good record normally, someone with epilepsy might well be prone to more seizures on a Monday (because of change of routine) or a Friday (because of tiredness). I might be less sympathetic to someone whose regular Monday absences were triggered by excessive drinking at the weekend....

The logic would be to get a doctor note and send that the HR who would acknowledge that coming wth chicken pox is never a good idea.

With a particularly difficult company (and I know there are some) and risking to loose a job I really need, I wouod go in and head directly to HR asking them what they want me to do. In effect, asking THEM to take the decision so that this isn’t taken as a ‘3 rd absence therefore you are fired’.
But tbh, I’m sure plenty of people go to work with a cold and pass it on to avoid that exact scenario (and because it’s just not possible to not go to work each time yu have a cold)

I once had two separate illnesses that both kept me off work for 2 weeks each. I was signed off work with flu, went back after a fortnight, really run down and then caught chicken pox from the boss's kids and signed off for another fortnight. Other than that I was only ever off for the very occasional half day when I would be sent home with a migraine. I don't think that there was a company sickness policy though.

Only ever seen it happen once. Said employee came in with a vomiting bug and was sent home pronto. Pretty sure she didn’t get into trouble about it. Having a strict and low sickness limit must, in general, mean more people come in with infectious illnesses.

I used to work for a large company many years ago. When the SARS outbreak occurred in Hong Kong (I think it was Hong Kong) they issued an in instruction that anyone who had travelled there within the past month was immediately forbidden to attend work for a period of four weeks. But anyone who that applied to (which fortunately was very few) who then subsequently became ill within the next year was still subject to disciplinary proceedings for having unsatisfactory attendance.

They also used to discipline people for having cancer or car accidents.

So, in short, some employers are just mind bogglingly unreasonable.

You shouldn’t arrive with chicken pox but would be well advised to get a doctor to certify it as such. I’d ask for confirmation and you’d likely be off over 5 days of self certification.
I’d let you off if you produced a certificate that said chicken pox but be watching you’re attendance carefully.

A doctor won't issue any certificates for absences of under a week as you can self-certify.

Also surgeries are very reluctant to have people with suspected infectious diseases come in. Good luck getting a home visit to diagnose a common, usually mild condition that should be well covered by the 7 days of self-certification.

Doesnt matter if you have a Drs certificate. And I worked for the council.

Funnily enough, I possibly did go into work with chicken pox last year.
DD came out in an itchy, blustery rash we were pretty sure was CP. I wasn’t absolutely sure if I’d had it as a kid.

About a week later, I developed 12 (yes, I counted them) ulcers on my tongue, and sore roof of the mouth. It was actually most painful over the weekend (mostly when talking/eating).

I felt OK to go into work, which had no reproductive-age women in it. BUT I vaguely remembered my new colleague making slightly non-committal noises when I’d mentioned the payroll CCV scheme. As I didn’t want to be the potential agent of CP to a possibly pregnant woman but also didn’t want to embarrass my very private colleague/ his DW, I had to do a load of cloak-&-dagger stuff to establish it was safe to go in.

I have been off on long term sick leave after major surgery and many many complications and PTSD. My employers sick leave policy has left me stressed to say the least. Every month they have a face to face meeting where I'm asked the same questions over and over including triggering events. Now that I'm ready to go back to work they are having a conference to see if that's allowed. If they allow me back I'm pretty sure any sick leave will result in my dismissal

OP it would be really irresponsible of you to go into work with chicken pox. All you can do is genuinely consider each bought of sickness and whether it warrants sick leave. It is entirely possible that within one 12 month period you get CP, Pneumonia, and a hernia. Each would justifiably warrant some time off. It may breach the sickness policy but any employer would lool at the type of illness and completely understand.

Multiple individual days off for coughs/colds/back pains etc whilst individually arent long, would leave you vulnerable to breach of policy if you did happen to then catch CP.