to think I'd keep my leave?

[HRissue]

Posting here for traffic and bc as very outing.

I’m getting to the end of the annual leave year at work, and I had two hours leave leftover to use so I’d booked it on a particular day.

However when that day came I ended up being very unwell and calling in sick and calling in for most of that week ( 3 days).

When I came back to work I’d been automatically given back the two hours by our system we use to book leave so I mentioned in passing to my line manager that I was looking to book the leave.

He told me that you don’t get leave back if you have been off sick. I questioned this and said ‘but you put me down as sick that day?’ And he said ‘yes that’s right’. I said ‘how can I be sick and have leave in the same day’ and he said ‘that’s just how it works’.

Anyway, I came back in work and noticed that the hour’s leave has been deducted from me again, with no comment from my manager. However on my return to work paperwork from when I was off sick they also said I was off sick for 22.5 hours (ie 7.5 x3).

To me this doesn’t seem right. I will accept the policy if that’s the case I’ve lost the leave, but calculating their lost time rate including the hour I had as leave does not seem right to me? Any HR people around that can confirm?

In my experience, to get leave back whilst sick you will have to have been either in hospital or travel plans / holidays would have to have been seriously disrupted by your illness.

That stinks. If you're off sick, they can't make you use your holiday leave!

Not sure what you can do. HR maybe? Have you contacted them?

We return Annual Leave if someone is off sick as long as they have a drs note.

Usually you need a Drs note signing you off sick for that time period in order to rebook the leave.

I thought you got it back, but I'm a teacher so don't actually know (because you can't book a day off anyway).

We give leave back when sick if a doctor’s note is provided.

"Any statutory holiday entitlement that is not used because of illness can be carried over into the next leave year. If an employee is ill just before or during their holiday, they can take it as sick leave instead."

www.gov.uk/taking-sick-leave

I’m pretty sure we don’t get leave back if we are sick, it’s just bad luck the same way as if you’d been sick over the weekend rather than during the week.

Those are the breaks in my opinion, just bad luck and bad timing.

As a minimum I’d want to see a doctors note, but it’s a dangerous road to start down. What if you were away on holiday, let’s say Spain for example, had a dodgy paella and spent the day in your hotel room, would you want your employer to pay you for one of your holiday weeks?

But who is going to get a doctors note for one day? Or a few hours?

At my work you'd get it back, but I think it depends on your policies. Do you have a staff handbook or can you ask HR?

You get annual leave back if you are on sick leave instead.

Ok so if I don’t get it back, surely they can’t use that same hour in the calculation of how much Sick I had?

Ie if I had 3 full days (7.5 x 3 ) = 22.5 hours, they’d have to deduct the hour leave and say only 21.5 hours were sick?

Otherwise for an hour I’ve been both sick and on leave?

Yeah you should get it back. Your boss is taking the piss. And as for getting a doctor's note. That's just daft. No doctor will issue a note for a few hours!

I'm pretty sure we've had our leave reinstated if off sick (NHS), kind of an unspoken rule with a line manager. If they expect me to come in early, work late and through lunches etc for the needs of the service, then give and take works both ways. I'd be pretty peeved if I'd lost my leave in this way, and rightly or wrongly, probably take the equivalent time 'off sick' in the near future to make me feel better and redress the balance.

To be fair I’ve checked the policy and it doesn’t say anything about days where you have leave booked as like a half day. It says where you are off work and unwell if you want the leave back you’d need a sick note, like others on the thread have confirmed. But what doctor will confirm that for the sake of an hour’s leave? It also says it needs to be agreed in advance - well again; unless you’re mystic meg I’m not sure how I’m supposed to know I’m going to be unwell in advance?!

My main bug bear now is being penalised twice; they’ve taken the leave off me which I accept but have also included the hour I had as ‘leave’ in their lost time rate when working out the sickness. Surely I was on leave for that hour so it needs to be recalculated?

I agree with you OP - either you get the hour's annual leave back, or they need to deduct it from your sick leave.

Do you have a good HR team you could ask?

I believe with a drs note you can? I had tonsillitis once and a week off which half fell over some leave, I got a note and claimed it back. Was about 10 years ago though

I’ve emailed manager directly as didn’t want to seem underhand. Waiting for a reply currently...

You should get it back. Talk to HR.

—If I was treated like that I’d throw a sickie another day—

^^ strikethrough fail!

Of course you would need a Drs note - otherwise what's to stop unscrupulous people conveniently "being ill" on their AL in order to get more?
I am not suggesting this is what you did

I'm pretty sure we've had our leave reinstated if off sick (NHS), kind of an unspoken rule with a line manager. If they expect me to come in early, work late and through lunches etc for the needs of the service, then give and take works both ways. I'd be pretty peeved if I'd lost my leave in this way, and rightly or wrongly, probably take the equivalent time 'off sick' in the near future to make me feel better and redress the balance.

This. If leave was stolen from me like this, I would steal it back.

As a pp said, many companies expect you to flex and bend and stay over (without extra pay,) and work through part of your lunch etc. But rarely give anything back! One manager once expected me to interview a couple whose appointment time was 2pm when I came back early from lunch at 1.40pm - because they had been there since half one. So I ended up losing 20 minutes of my lunch hour, and not eating the food I had got from town because I was jam packed with interviews and paperwork all afternoon. And I regularly stayed 15 to 30 minutes past my finishing time, because people kept me talking, or the manager would pass a phone call to me 5 minutes before I finished! Don't ever recall being paid extra for all the extra time though.

I also know someone who (in July several years ago,) booked Christmas off to spend with family who were visiting from NZ who he hadn't seen for 3 years. His manager who confirmed the leave is OK, left in the August and another manager started. He cancelled his leave on 1st December, saying he cannot have time off over Christmas (it was a place that is only closed Christmas day.) He had worked 3 Christmases in a row and was actually quite within his rights to have it off - and his previous manager who left in the November allowed it.

This was the tip of the iceberg, as his new manager was a twat.

So he went to the doctors, (on 11th December) and said work was really getting him down, and he was feeling ill with stress, and wasn't sleeping... So could he have some sleeping tablets. He wrote him off on sick for 4 weeks. (Til 8th Jan!) So he ended up getting a whole month off on full pay, and the manager was chasing his tail DESPERATELY trying to get cover. This guy was meant to be working over new year too, but his sick note covered him. He never even asked for the time off. The doctor wrote him off!

So this manager of the OP best be careful. Fuck people about and treat them like shit, and you will eventually be paid back...

And can people pipe down with the 'she needs a doctors note' bollux? NO doctor is going to give a sodding doctors note for a few HOURS!

I don't know the answer but personally I wouldn't expect to get it back. I would just put it down to bad luck.