To ask why my colleague has been off sick for weeks and is on the beach?

[waitandseee]

My colleague has had nearly a month off sick leave, yet on facebook, there are photos of her on the beach, and on days out at cafe's. She is paddling in the sea, looking happy and very healthy. Am I being unreasonable to ask why this being allowed by management?

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• * Edited by MNHQ ** Hi all, and thanks to all those who have replied so far. It looks like the OP has left the site and won't be back to update the thread. We'll let the thread run as it's an interesting discussion. ===========================

There are plenty of things it could be that would mean she could still go on holiday. You know that really.

If she was taking the piss and wasn't a fool she wouldn't post on Facebook so take your pick between

1. she's very stupid
2. she's Ill in a way that doesn't fit your image of the word, perhaps recovering from something dreadful or a mental health thing. I know someone who had a year off recovering from a brain tumor, would it have been taking the piss for that person to go on holiday?
3. she's deliberately taking the piss she wants to get fired.

while there is more awareness of mental health issues, there has been a correspondingly vast increase in employees taking time off for depression, stress and anxiety

Possibly because people now feel less stigmatised and more confident about being able to be honest about their mental health

This is interesting and I agree. I recently had time off for mental health and was honest with work. I don't know (and hopefully won't ever have to know) what I would have done if I didn't feel I could be honest. I suppose my options were to force myself in and risk a mental breakdown, to make up another(more acceptable) illness, something hard to disprove like a back problem or to leave my job. I bet people have done all these things in the past but would now be brave enough to take the time they need to recover and ask for help.

I hope more research is done in this area.

So basically people should not post on FB if they're off sick because others can't cope with seeing it?

That's a bit precious isn't it?

Often the piss takers are off here and there rather than for long periods. I knew someone who after working a few long days wasn't very discrete that he'd be going off sick. Sure enough, he did a dive that would make a footballer blush and was off for a few days. While he was off, one member of staff happened to pass the local pub on the way back from lunch. There was this person walking out of the pub. Only when he recognised his colleague did he remember to limp.

Nothing wrong with going to the pub (so long as it won't affect your recovery) but forgetting to limp is a daft thing to do.

That workplace had a limited number of days per year which could be taken off on full pay. Some of the staff treated it as extra annual leave. One asked the union rep when the "year" changed. Before he could answer a foreman piped up "January 1st". A few hours later "Oh, me back...". Trouble was that the year actually renewed on February 1st so the lazy git wasn't entitled to pay as they'd used it up!

Only on MN do people say its none of your business. There are an awful lot of skivvers around now. Dont get me started on government depts allowing people to work at home. Lazy so and so's. I work and need to contact them extensively. They are hiding behind their emails and just wont take phone calls.

With your attitude, no wonder they won't take your calls!

Working from home isn’t skiving.

@Itisbetter it definitely isn't skiving. In fact, my DH has said that he gets a lot more done when he's WFH. At work, there are more distractions, like chats with colleagues when making tea, and general chitchat during the day.

It's easy to monitor whether people are taking the piss and not pulling their weight. My DH has one to ones with his team and has a lot of virtual meetings.

Others locking up the workload of someone who is sick need respect from that person. So perhaps not posting is the best way forward. It’s about being reasonable to your colleagues as well as getting better yourself. So I think posting is not appropriate if it’s a fun activity! (Even if the DR said it was a good idea!) Its about working as a team and if the team is dysfunctional due to one person being sick, this should be dealt with by management because the other employees are adversely affected. One person who is not there is expendable I’m afraid.

Locking - picking !!!

Others locking up the workload of someone who is sick need respect from that person. So perhaps not posting is the best way forward. It’s about being reasonable to your colleagues as well as getting better yourself
A colleague off sick has no obligation to their colleagues still in work.
It is the manager's job to allocate workload and hire appropriate sick cover. If the organisation don't do that then it is a management issue and has nothing to do with the sick colleague.

A colleague off sick has no obligation to their colleagues still in work. don’t be ridiculous. Unless you want those not off sick to have the same mindset.

My social media pages were already friends only but I have taken the additional step of blocking all my teammates because my manager was stalking me online during long term sick leave and a SAR enabled me to see that he was questioning just how sick I was. I then found out he was questioning why I'd blocked everyone on social media. Knobhead.

Imo it's down to management to provide appropriate cover when someone is off sick. It's obviously going to happen at some point, they should have practices in place in the event of sickness.

If someone is off sick, they are off sick. Part of running a successful business is dealing with the inevitable event of employee sickness.

Too many people are quick to place all the responsibility in the sick employee and none on the people responsible for actually managing the place.

My workplace doesn’t backfill maternity leave. No one ever comments people shouldn't take Mat leave (or they don’t openly at least...) surely it’s the same problem? If staff are unfit to work and entitled to have time away the business should provide cover.

The other thing to consider is that, assuming that the sick leave is because of stress or depression (in other words not a physical illness that's infectious), then if the colleague is a parent, then they obviously can't just stay in bed all day.

Picking up on another point, I hope those of you saying that people should drag themselves into the office if they're not at death's door, I hope you accept it readily if a colleague calls in saying they have to self-isolate because of COVID symptoms? Because if they were to go in, a vulnerable colleague could catch it and become very ill.

Attitudes towards working from home need to change during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A colleague off sick has no obligation to their colleagues still in work.
don’t be ridiculous. Unless you want those not off sick to have the same mindset
That makes zero sense.

It isn't ridiculous at all to say the person who is unwell has no obligation to colleagues.
If someone is off work sick, they are off work sick. They need to follow medical advice and get better.

They have no obligation to their colleagues at work. The colleagues at work are responsible for their jobs. Their manager has responsibility to manage staff absence appropriately and professionally.

Too many people are quick to place all the responsibility in the sick employee and none on the people responsible for actually managing the place
Too right, probably because it's a bit easier to bitch and moan about the person off sick than to speak frankly to a manager or make any steps towards raising workplace issues. Every workplace has its fair share of gossips and drains.

YABU I thin, and directing the anger at the wrong person. There are many reasons she might be able to go to the beach but be unable to wor. The issue here, seems to be that her empoyers did not replace her when shes on long term sick. So I assume the rest of you have to work harder to cover, but it shouldn't be that way at all and its not her fault either.

Why does everyone think employers have lots of people they can call on who are fully trained and up to speed with what the absent employee is supposed to be doing? That’s just ridiculous in many smaller organisations that wouldn’t remotely have the luxury of this.

My DH has teams working on a variety of engineering design projects. The idea that people can keep flirting in and out of the teens doing complex work on multi million £ jobs is ridiculous. Posters simply have no idea about how slim companies have to be to make profits. Not everyone is operating an Amazon warehouse with low skilled staff! Just accept that prolonged absence or multiple absences is a massive problem that cannot be planned for in advance. There are no floating staff!

Hmm maybe.

I am a bit biased in stuff like this as I look to my father in laws business. He did have people who knew the job to step in for longer illnesses/holidays. And if those were't available, he would book someone temp from an agency, not just expect all the other staff to work twice as hard.

How would you get a temp to step in and design a water drainage system for a housing estate? Or pitch to get a contract to design the structural steel for a mansion? Or someone to go do background work for a planning inquiry for the expert witness? Just go to a temp agency? I don’t think so. Temp agencies simply provide cover for straightforward jobs. These days jobs can be very high tech, need specific skills, use specific computer programs and generally be highly qualified. It’s simply not possible.

No one wants anyone to be sick. No one wants people to be unhappy at work but very rarely someone is a square peg in a round hole. They would be better suited elsewhere. It’s reasonable for smaller companies to help employees with job design etc but it not reasonable for employees to think that absences don’t matter and other employees can take up the slack.

I can see both sides. I wouldn't be able to hold down a job because of my own health issues, particularly this year, and having 2 adopted DDs with attachment issues and one of them having SEN as well. If you're not able to work, then at some point you do need to accept that you can't do it and resign/have early ill health retirement.

I could also see how it has been for my DH when he's had to pick up the slack for his line manager when she was off with stress and family issues, and she resigned this year. It's put a lot of stress on him, when he's also had the family issues I've mentioned earlier. He's had a hard time and is himself showing signs of stress. (He hasn't had any time off, though; we will be going away next week so hopefully that will help him.)

I don't like the accusation of skiving, as a colleague can't possibly know that. But long-term absence from work does affect the rest of the employees and it does need to be dealt with, otherwise the other colleagues won't cope and more will be off sick.

Why would any company be going to a generic temp agency for covering a highly technical role?
First point should be that companies train their staff to have a sufficient depth of experience to cover absences - you can never tell when a key member of staff might be hit by a bus and companies need to mitigate against that risk. Surely the bid for a multi-million pound contract would require some element of contingency and risk mitigation?
Second point is that, if you can't cover an absence by reallocating work within a team, then you need to go to an expert agency or contractor. It will cost - but next time you will have made better contingency plans.

“ it not reasonable for employees to think that absences don’t matter and other employees can take up the slack. “

To be blunt... so what? If someone’s sick and can’t work, it makes no difference whether they think others can take up the slack or not, they still can’t work. I was off for weeks with hyperemesis and I was perfectly aware that due to the difficulty finding locums where I work, my colleagues would be having to work short staffed and cover more hours. That didn’t mean I could do anything about it, I wasn’t fit to work and that was that. Same when I had depression (on mat leave but otherwise I would definitely have been off sick). Yes, it would probably have been possible for me to ignore the fact I was ill and gone to work out of guilt over my colleagues. I was absolutely not capable of safely making medical decisions all day under pressure. And I definitely wouldn’t have recovered as well as I did.

??? Who actually said they were? I said it wasn’t possible! Smaller companies find it virtually impossible to have strength in depth. People are at differing levels of capability and expertise. Some are grads still training and others are team leaders. The team leaders cannot just step into another team at the drop of a hat.

You obviously know nothing about high calibre qualified engineer shortages! You simply do not understand the nature of the business but you make wild assumptions about contingency plans. Do you seriously think small companies have staff just waiting in the wings with sufficient technical data on specific jobs up their sleeve that they could step in at a moment’s notice and take over? Many schemes and pitches have been worked on for months. Most employers find recruiting very difficult and doubling up on highly specialised roles is almost impossible. However I’m sure you know more than I do about this business so maybe you could solve the shortage of engineers at middle and senior levels? And while you are at it you can tell me how a structural engineer bones up on suds in a day!

Lucy sums it up; if you’re not paid, you drag yourself in. If you are paid, you stay home. It’s not the sickness that decides, it’s the employers charity!

OK, you paragon of HR expertery. How are you going to handle communicable illness in a post Covid-19 world? Are you of the "schlepp yourself to work to spread your germs around everyone" type or are you of the "please don't get everyone sick, and get well soon" type?

Companies have return to work interviews, and sickness policies where repeated and extended bouts of sickness are questioned. That is fine. And someone repeatedly swinging the lead will soon be caught out if those policies are applied properly and with sensitivity. And again: colleagues who are expected to pick up the slack (especially for someone off with burn-out) with no consideration for their workload deserve better bosses. (and i hope they're unionised)

Sure, public bodies have (or used to have) pretty generous sick pay schemes. Private companies often not so much (but the really good companies to work for do have excellent sickness benefits/policies). That isn't a reason for us all to race to the bottom of schlepping ourselves to work or the family don't eat.

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