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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To think once someone had been off work with stress

227 replies

User10002000 · 30/12/2018 14:13

For six weeks they are unlikely to return. I've got a colleague who's been off six weeks and we are all covering their work. We are unable to start a recruitment process as they are still being paid.

OP posts:

Handprints2018 · 30/12/2018 19:16

Your managers are very poor. One person off with work related stress so they pile more on the others. Great idea...not.

My managers did this once, we refused the work and went to the union after 2months stress. You need to look into your rights and what you can do about the increased workload.

Kemer2018 · 30/12/2018 19:18

Not likely .
We had one who was off sick on and off over 8 months.
I started in March they only did a fortnight (not all at once). They were sacked in the end.

StealthPolarBear · 30/12/2018 19:31

"Severide08

Some people can handle lots of stress,some cant that makes neither person worse or better than the other."
As an employee, being able to handle pressure is a positive

Original poster

User10002000 · 30/12/2018 19:42

I'm a supportive person with regards to anyone struggling with mental health problems or physical health problems however I think if you are intending to not return you should let people know.

OP posts:

StealthPolarBear · 30/12/2018 19:44

The problem is when it is at its worst you might feel like you couldn't possibly return but it gets better as you recover and returning becomes an option.

Schmoobarb · 30/12/2018 19:50

I have recently been told by an occupational health expert, and I believe the HSE website says the same, that stress itself is NOT an illness. Of course stress may be caused by an illness, or may lead to an illness, but it’s not an illness in its own right.

freewheelin your employers are appalling. What terrible people.

CatnissEverdene · 30/12/2018 19:57

Trouble is, for every person off with work related stress, someone else gets their load increased. Sometimes several others.

What then happens about their work related stress?

Sometimes work is stressful. We run a small business, and there are times when I would happily walk away from it in a heartbeat but phoning in with stress is never an option for us.

Dollymixture22 · 30/12/2018 20:14

Catniss I suspect t you have felt stressed, but never to breaking point.

Or maybe you are just better and stronger than people who have suffered mental health issues.

You rock

StartingGrid · 30/12/2018 20:17

@Dollymixture22 its great that you assume my attitude to my colleagues is the problem and not our workplace, but half of our department either on AD's or having had absence with stress as the reason within the last 6 months, there is something fundamentally wrong with our environment, not me.

Anyone who is off with work related stress should be asked what duties/tasks/aspects of their job cause them to feel like this so it can be properly addressed, that has never happened with any of my colleagues and so the issues will continue and the stress persist, and whilst they are off those who have to step in are then susceptible to the same stresses.

Do you not see that without actually addressing the issues, the cycle continues, and spreads, ad infinitum???

Freewheelin74 · 30/12/2018 20:20

Schmoobarb I worked in shall we say an environment with children. The managers should be the very people who should be compassionate about people. Let me say that this manager would make an iceberg warm in comparison. Oh the irony!!!

Dollymixture22 · 30/12/2018 20:23

Starting Gris - my point, maybe made poorly, was you appeared to ask about he policy to cover the absence. Maybe what you actually meant was the policy to address the cause of this individuals stresss, to ensure that person was cared for and others who may also be experiencing work related stress could be helped.

Sorry if I picked you up wrong

Tink2007 · 30/12/2018 20:26

My OH was off 7 weeks with work related stress. He went back.

Passmethecrisps · 30/12/2018 20:28

It is so hard when workplaces are designed to allow absolutely no slack. I have worked with colleagues who have been off considerably longer. In one instance three years before returning.

At the end of the day their reason for being unwell should be irrelevant. If I broke my leg badly I might be off work for 6 weeks or more. The issue with being off with work related stress is that the workplace needs to change in some way for that stress to be removed. Unfortunately that rarely happens and what is happening more in my experience is that the member of staff is never covered properly thus heaping considerable pressure on the remaining staff which makes everything worse.

It’s a terrible state of affairs.

StartingGrid · 30/12/2018 20:35

@Dollymixture22, the latter is exactly what I meant. Im in a position of relative seniority in my department, so am used to being under pressure amd cope accordingly. I am not however trained to assist with mental health issues and can't stand watching my colleagues struggle when a conversation with the right person could help them feel better about their workplace. At the moment all we are able to do is paper over the cracks, and that's not in anyones interest except keeping life easy for HR.

Schmoobarb · 30/12/2018 20:39

That’s awful freewheelin. In my 12+ years advising on HR issues I’ve come across some staggering lack of humanity and decency in dealing with staff. It’s appalling

CherryGlaze · 30/12/2018 20:39

Schmoobarb indeed that is my understanding too, that stress and mental illness might look similar in some employees but they are not the same. If you deal with/manage stress, you stand a better chance of it developing into a mental illness.

Hence the variation in some GPs being much more amenable to signing people off with 'stress' than others. The NHS website says it falls within generalised anxiety conditions and medication won't be offered automatically.

So while I'm happy to go and read up on it, I don't accept that I'm way off beam, sorry Snap and Cards. Stress is real but it can be eased considerably by e.g. removing one of the sources of stress rather than by medical treatment.

In Freewheelin's case, of course her GP was right to sign her off because her employers were being dicks and expecting her to be in three places at once.

In my colleague's case, I sat in a pod with him the week before he went off. There were no signs at all of stress, he seemed as amiable as ever. The sign off did however coincide with some of his work being criticised and so it irks me that I feel possibly he's using a situation which has caused me massive unhappiness and anxiety, to support his claim of being stressed, when I have been really, really low over the same period but just kept going.

Anyway OP I really hope you find a way of getting your employers to address the stress in your team as a whole, good luck

CherryGlaze · 30/12/2018 20:45

*preventing it developing

howvery - so glad you were able to access support while you were off and have been much better since. That sounds really horrible.

Touchmybum · 30/12/2018 20:47

I've been off work twice with work-related stress. On both occasions, it was due to micromanaging, nit-picking, downright nasty managers. I was anxious, unhappy, constantly on edge, tearful, oversleeping, generally not enjoying life at all.

The issues were never addressed. Second time, I inherited a different manager who comes from the same school of management as the previous one, aka doesn't have a clue about managing or motivating staff. I'm older than she is, and much more highly educated, so I think she has no idea what to do with me. If things go really badly, I will go off again. I have to think of my own health first here.

I've had meds, and CBT. I am trying to work on strategies to handle the situation. I shouldn't have to though. I shouldn't be the butt of others' incompetence but unfortunately that's what's allowed to happen.

Gth1234 · 30/12/2018 20:56

the world is full of willing people, Some willing to work (or skive), and the rest willing to let them.

This is just the end result of nice generous employment policies. Some people take liberties, and you can't stop them.

LakieLady · 30/12/2018 21:01

If you have an increased workload due to staff shortages then that's for management to sort out, if its left to fester then more people go off sick

I saw this happen on a busy legal team. One of the most experienced and knowledgable employees was off sick for a long time because of unexpected complications following routine surgery. One by one, all the others went off with stress, until the whole team was made up of temps and locums.

OP, your employer has a duty of care when it comes to stress management. It's essentially a health and safety issue and they should have a stress management policy.

I think you need to have a chat with HR and/or occupational health to make sure that they are aware of the effect this absence is having on the team.

*I work for a LA. My team of 5 has 3 on long term sick, one of these is off for months every year and she’s been there years. And her pay has never been reduced because she comes back in time to avoid it. I sympathise but my own stress levels are through the roof - but I couldn’t go off and leave my remaining colleague unless I had a heart attack or something!
There needs to be a shift in how MH is supported in the workplace. Ours plays lip service to it, but no discernible action is ever implemented.

LakieLady · 30/12/2018 21:03

Apologies for that big space. I appear to have leaned on the space bar while picking up my tea.

LakieLady · 30/12/2018 21:07

I work for a LA. My team of 5 has 3 on long term sick, one of these is off for months every year and she’s been there years. And her pay has never been reduced because she comes back in time to avoid it. I sympathise but my own stress levels are through the roof - but I couldn’t go off and leave my remaining colleague unless I had a heart attack or something!
There needs to be a shift in how MH is supported in the workplace. Ours plays lip service to it, but no discernible action is ever implemented.

I'm surprised that an LA is failing to take this seriously. There was a sort collective soiling of underwear in local government 20 or so years ago when a social worker won huge damages for work-related stress that hadn't been appropriately addressed.

LAs all over the country suddenly wrote stress management policies and trained managers in dealing with work-related stress in staff.

The case is Walker v Northumberland CC if you want to look it up.

Coffeebean76 · 30/12/2018 21:27

I hate this impatience by management around medium and long term sick and the push to backfill: your colleague is on sick leave as is her/his entitlement and they are hopefully getting the help and treatment to recover and return to work.
Don’t be a bitch and try to be indersranding.

I work in HR and see far too much of this.

Schmoobarb · 30/12/2018 21:33

The thing is though being performance managed or disciplined, even where justified, IS stressful. It doesn’t mean the employer has done anything wrong or that the employee is severely mentally ill thoigh. That’s why a general broad brush assumption about it isn’t helpful.

LakieLady · 30/12/2018 21:41

This is just the end result of nice generous employment policies. Some people take liberties, and you can't stop them.

What a jaded view. And that viewpoint sounds very disparaging to those who suffer from MH symptoms caused by stress.

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