To ask what an acceptable level of sickness absence is?

[PoesyCherish]

My sickness record is through the roof due to my disability and work refusing to put in reasonable adjustments. I'm in the process of applying for jobs but worried I won't get anywhere because of my sickness absence. It's got me thinking though, what is an acceptable level of sickness absence over 2 years? And would this acceptable level be increased for a disabled person?

I am not sure there is an acceptable level as such, it is looked at on a case by case basis. I have never heard of a specific cutoff. As a comparison, neither dh nor I have had any sick days in the last 2 years, however neither of us have a disability. I would think most people would have a few days off most years though?

Your sickness policy at work will give you a rough guide to what most employers find acceptable

are you part of a union by any chance, there are certain laws for making provisions where possible to facilitate adjustments where possible.
it would be an idea to speak with hr or citizens advice if you are not a union member.

How long is a piece of string kind of question.

Was every single abscene absolutely critical/honest, the length of absence (3 weeks for an operation is probably preferable to 10 single days taken separately), the size of the business, loss of income/incurring further costs to cover.

If it were single days I’d think someone had been very unfortunate with their health to need more than 3 in a year.

Where I work it’s 10 days or 3 periods in a year. Any disabilities are assessed and adjustments made, thankfully I’ve never had to ask them to quantify this for my disability.
How many days off are you talking about?

We have a traffic light system, red is 4 absences or 10 days. I've had a disciplinary once as I had 5 periods of absences due to tonsilitus. My 'reasonable adjustment' was to have them taken out, and they have kindly discounted the surgery from my record.

It's hard to say, as different employers will have different thresholds and it also depends how you're asked to give the information - days, or instances.

For example, "30 days' absence" in a single year could be one instance of absence for planned surgery and recovery time, or it could be 30 different days throughout the year. Most employers would be fine with the former; probably not the latter.

Are you being asked to disclose this at application stage, or are you concerned about it being an issue later on?

They can’t ask for your sickness record before offering you the job from what I understand.

Also, speak to acas but is there not something about disability related leave not being held against you? @tittygolightly gives good advice on this (sorry for tagging, Hope it’s ok).

Are you the poster who they’ve refused to buy equipment etc for?

We can’t really answer that OP
Sorry 😐
Advise a cooperative and non combative approach and hope they listen and collaborate

I’m a manager and I’ve never seen the results of an employee’s references. Is it HR that would flag up sickness?

It really is dependent on so many factors. For example this year I've had two two week periods for a surgery and following a minor accident. Prior to that I only had one day going back to 2012 and before that it was 2008. Work have been really good.

Most companies use the Bradford factor for working out sickness levels.

No idea what an acceptable/normal level is, but I've had 7 days absence in the past 2 years, which isn't too bad I don't think. That was a 3 day throat infection, 2 days with an awful migraine and a 2 day absence with unexplained dizziness (I have tinnitus which was REALLY bad at the time, so I think this was linked to the dizziness...awful experience!!).

The year before that though (so three years ago) I had two full weeks off with pneumonia so 🤷‍♀️

I don't think you can really put a figure on what is 'normal' and what isn't! You don't plan on being ill do you?

Good luck with your job hunting 👍

Are you the poster who they’ve refused to buy equipment etc for?

Yes that's me @Letsgetreadytorumba

Was every single abscene absolutely critical/honest

^^ Yes. Most due to my physical disability and being unable to move / being in immense pain. One instance was for an operation which was 2 days off (day of the op and then I was advised to take a second day off due to recovering from the anaesthetic). And now currently signed off sick again due to physical disability and the GP has told me not to go back until they put things in place, i.e. never at this rate hence the looking for a new job because it's causing me too much pain. I tried going back but within a day I was in immense pain again so my GP signed me off as fit for work if the adjustments are put in place.

Are you being asked to disclose this at application stage, or are you concerned about it being an issue later on?

Thusfar I haven't been asked at the application stage. I'm worried about it at a later stage though as I know most employers do ask for at least some info regarding sickness absence.

I was more just curious as to what prospective employers think and if there is ever an acceptable limit.

At my work a Bradford score over 300 (or 4 weeks) in a row triggers a sickness plan.

I would be interested to hear anything @tittygolightly knows re disability as I’m in a similar boat.

are they not being any better? I’m so sorry your employers are crap. It makes or breaks your experience as a staff member.

Can I suggest you post this in employment? It’s just your going to get a lot of responses with no idea of reasonable adjustment/equal opportunities law.

Sadly not @Letsgetreadytorumba

Thanks for the tip re posting in Employment.

Sorry, not trying to be a pain - I just despair of some of the disabilist advice I’ve seen on here!

If a lot of your time off is due to them not sorting reasonable equipment for your disability, any other decent employer would understand that (and I would want to steer clear of ones who didn’t anyway). If you say, my doctor has signed me off because my current employer has not put reasonable adjustments in place, and if you explain that these are fairly simple adjustments that you need, and say that the reason you’re looking for another job is because you don’t like being off work long term and want to be productive etc etc I think that would all sound really reasonable.

I’ve only ever been asked about previous sickness on a form that was sent out with my contract and had to be returned with my signed contract, so it didn’t seem like they would revoke my contract if it had been a high number of days. Not really sure why they asked.

My old workplace was very strict, no more than three days a year expected. Most people never hit the triggers unless they had an operation etc.

New one seems a bit more relaxed but staff rarely ring in sick.

@Letsgetreadytorumba - not a pain at all, just helpful

@MeredithGrey1 at what point do I say this though - application, interview or when they ask about sickness absence? I know some of the jobs I've applied for do an occupational health assessment before the offer becomes unconditional so would that be an appropriate stage to mention it or before?

@TheBigBangRocks wow 3 days a year isn't a lot

I guess when they ask depends on the organisation. I know when I was interviewed they asked for permission to contact one of the 2 referees from my current position and they phoned & asked them about me in general and asked then about my sickness level.
Can you not get occupational health involved? Does it not come under disability discrimination? It is shocking that their failures are resulting in your sickness.

At my work it’s 10 days and/or 5 separate occasions of self-certified absence. This is because we’re trying to deal with frequent, short term absence which is often harder to deal with.

You do know that, unless it’s a requirement for the job, a company you apply to can’t ask you about your health or sickness record?

@poesycherish I wouldn’t bring it up before being asked, your reasons for being off are totally reasonable but I wouldn’t suggest just adding at the end of an interview “just to let you know I’ve had a lot of time off because..”. An exception could be if you feel like you aren’t able to give them enough/any examples of what you’ve achieved at your current job, and need to explain why - I’m not sure how long you’ve been at your current job and how much of that time has been spent off sick, if you’ve been off most of the time you’ve worked there then it might be better to explain why you don’t have much to talk about in your current job, if you’ve been there a while and the disability is more recent then you’d be ok just talking about things before the disability affected work.
I think an occupational health assessment is the perfect time to mention it if they ask you do it. Even then you wouldn’t necessarily need to mention the time off unless asked, but you would need to tell them about the equipment you need and let them know that not having the equipment would make it hard/impossible for you to do your job.