Work now tells everyone why you’re off? AIBU to think it’s a bit naff?

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At work we’ve recently appointed a new senior manager. They’ve brought with them a new sickness policy…

First; no more emailing in; you have to call his mobile directly and explain why you are going to be off.

Second; and this is the bit I think is a bit crap… and email comes out everyday with a list of who is not in the building and why, it doesn’t go into masses of detail but does say if someone is “WFH” “Meeting” or “Sick” for example.

This is supposedly so we can “support” in places where they might have a lot of people off, but AIBU to think this is a little crap; and is actually meant to encourage presenteeism… which is a bit irresponsible considering the pandemic isn’t over yet!

The only one I can see a problem with is "medical appointment" because that does open the door to speculation about private matters, but phoning in and publicising the reason for not being at base in very general terms is normal and acceptable, especially with WFH in the mix

Totally reasonable to expect an employee to phone in to say they are unwell.
Perfectly reasonable to inform other staff that someone is off sick.
Out of order to say that someone is attending a medical appointment.
Where I used to work the policy was that when you came back to work after being off sick you had to have a 'back to work' interview where you and your manager discussed your illness and how your attendance record could be improved. The official line was so that they could offer support but unofficially it was seen as a way to make skivers feel uncomfortable. After I had once been off sick for a day with a tummy bug I was asked how many times I had had diarrhea that day, had I taken any medicine, had I rang the doctor for advice.

Given the number of people that complained that they were not told when colleagues had tested positive with Covid I can completely see why communicating this is a good thing

I see nothing wrong with

Fred on annual leave until 17th September
john working from home
Susan annual leave till 14th September
jane off sick until 17th September
Pamela doesn't work Mondays
james away until 2pm

I do see something wrong with
Jim hospital appointment until 2pm
Jane on holiday in maldives until 20th September
Susan has covid isolation ends 19th September
John emergency leave for his three kids
David working from home !!!!!!
Pete dentist appointment at 3,30
Ann off sick and won't say with what it's personal

@amillionrosepetals

Totally reasonable to expect an employee to phone in to say they are unwell. Perfectly reasonable to inform other staff that someone is off sick. Out of order to say that someone is attending a medical appointment. Where I used to work the policy was that when you came back to work after being off sick you had to have a 'back to work' interview where you and your manager discussed your illness and how your attendance record could be improved. The official line was so that they could offer support but unofficially it was seen as a way to make skivers feel uncomfortable. After I had once been off sick for a day with a tummy bug I was asked how many times I had had diarrhea that day, had I taken any medicine, had I rang the doctor for advice.

Exactly what we do no however the back to work interview is also intended to provide a safe secure one to one space in the hope that opening up a conversation will give the employee an opportunity to bring to the head any issues the employer can help with. Anyone seeing it as anything else pretty much is yep, skivving!

@amillionrosepetals

Totally reasonable to expect an employee to phone in to say they are unwell. Perfectly reasonable to inform other staff that someone is off sick. Out of order to say that someone is attending a medical appointment. Where I used to work the policy was that when you came back to work after being off sick you had to have a 'back to work' interview where you and your manager discussed your illness and how your attendance record could be improved. The official line was so that they could offer support but unofficially it was seen as a way to make skivers feel uncomfortable. After I had once been off sick for a day with a tummy bug I was asked how many times I had had diarrhea that day, had I taken any medicine, had I rang the doctor for advice.

I used to do those interviews and I would NEVER have asked how many episodes. I worked in the NHS and we had a rule that it had to be 48 hours after the last episode of D orV before you could return to work. What people often didn't realise was that this meant that you could NOT take medicine to suppress the ilness as this meant that you might come back to work infectious. people would say to me proudly "Oh yes I phoned the doctor and they said to take loperamide and here I am ready to work again" and I would have to send them home.

Insisting on you calling in = totally normal

Sending an email about who is out sick = seems ok to me, as is saying whether or not it's Covid consdering it's a pandemic and it helps people who may have been in contact with you. More details than that and I would be upset too.

To be honest where I work the absence and brief reason would get round quickly enough anyway. I can see it would be useful to know if the absence is going to be for a known fixed time (eg leave) or open ended (sickness). Appointments I'd lump in with leave.

@HarrietsChariot and how exactly do you know that's true? I'm genuinely intrigued!

My friend has the odd day off and has even been away on a mini break after texting to say she's sick.
She is a well regarded employee and nobody has a clue she does it, how would they?

@sirfredfredgeorge

Explicit consent is one of these conditions but there are 9 others that allow sensitive information to be shared without consent

None of those could realistically be used to share information with colleagues though, as you note, so I was being simplistic.

Your view on the ICO is different to mine, and have certainly not imposed any large fines in my mind, but that is of course a matter of degree, but the fines so far have always been less than the profit gained from not being compliant.

The little enforcement they do is to justify their chocolate budget

BA were fined £20M last year. They did not gain any profit from being non-compliant. Similarly, Marriott Hotels were fined £18.4M for breaches that did not gain them any profit. Those were the two biggest fines to date. Before GDPR was introduced 3 years ago, the biggest fine the ICO could impose was £500k. A number of companies were fined at that level.

@godmum56. I think the problem in that particular instance was that my manager was very much a 'by the book' person and often took it to extremes. A colleague who had a lot of health problems used to say 'time for my interview with Dr *Smith' whenever she had been off sick.

It’s definitely “personal data” OP, so clearly in breach of GDPR, since it also identifies the person(s) to other colleagues. My Employer has even introduced a new “Out of Office” message that we set for Outlook and we aren’t allowed to state any reason for absence ourselves!
You should contact your Company ICO or Legal Team point this breach out.

I'd be asking for a bit more privacy to be honest. It really shouldn't matter if you're off sick with a stomach bug, the flu or migraine for example, you're just off and are unavailable.
Just as you would be unavailable if you were on annual leave you're still as unavailable there too.
Imagine if you were in the early stages of a miscarriage, and you phoned your manager to let them know you won't be in work. You wouldn't want anyone to know that you're going through that and you are not unwell in the traditional sense of being 'sick' so I wouldn't want anyone knowing if it were me.
There has to be some privacy thing that they are going very close to being in breach of I'd imagine.
Your manager would have to let your team know that you wont be in but they shouldn't divulge why you wont be in. At least that is what I would expect to happen. If the manager is any good that is.

I would have said this was not ok had I not had the example of my boss being off for some months and being given no info as to why. As he had previous health problems we assumed it was that. Turned out his child had died. He came back to a bunch of cheery people asking him, 1 at a time when they saw him, 'are you feeling better?' I was horrified when he told me why he had been off. And furious that no one in the management line had thought to warn us so that the poor man did not have that experience. Similarly when my mother died. So I am in favour as long as they dont go into a bunch of detail.

BA were fined £20M last year. They did not gain any profit from being non-compliant

I imagine we disagree on the cost of ensuring compliance and security in the system in the first place, I see no penalty in 20 million, that's what it would've cost to have protection in place. I would've at the original proposed 183mill. It's similar with Marriot, the added profit in these cases come from not having to put any security in.

[quote amillionrosepetals]**@godmum56*. I think the problem in that particular instance was that my manager was very much a 'by the book' person and often took it to extremes. A colleague who had a lot of health problems used to say 'time for my interview with Dr Smith' whenever she had been off sick.[/quote]
yeah...you can't do much about duff management...it sounds to me as though the "doctor" didn't understand the reasoning behind the practice!

We have a policy for phone calls as well - that's completely normal.

I think reasonableness of the email around saying where people are depends on the situation and the workplace. My team are often out on site and we all WFH as a matter of course, so if someone's off sick it is very useful to know as they won't be chased/no one will assume that they're 'available' in the way we would usually. However I don't think it's appropriate to go to the whole company unless literally everyone in the company could be reasonably expecting correspondence from that team.

We have similar policy. You can email that you are sick of you’ve called and its gone to voice mail. I usually let my secretary and my boss know so they can take care of my schedule and so on.

We also do track in real time who is in the building and who isn’t, even visitors. This is because in event of emergency evacuation you have to be able to account for everyone who is in the building. There’s no sense sending in fire rescue for Jacques if he is away at a meeting. This data is similar in that people put whatever they are comfortable with for their status. So “sick” “medical appt” “meeting at location y” or “wfh” are very common.

Anything we potentially don't like has to breach GDP. You have been permitted to identify Covid as a reason for absence from the work place due to contact tracing etc, you are permitted to inform colleagues reasons for absence without giving medical details if it is sickeness, you can require a telephone call as long as it is required for everyone
In fact you can actually manage your work force and sickness absence and doing this isn't an attack on your rights or breaches of Data Protection.
It seems to be a default position for anything that people don't like.

@boredzelda because GDPR and personal data matters. Telling the whole company that someone is sick or has a medical appointment indicates a "health issue" which is personal data as outlined by the ICO.

It may make a difference if it was just sent to relevant people. However, in order to send the list to all employees the company has to have a lawful basis in order to do so.

So I am not just spouting GDPR. If people are private they have a right to have their personal data protected and not for the whole company to know they have a doctors appointment.

@BetterCare
Our system doesn’t breach GDPR because each person decides what to put by their status, we have full control over our status and we know it is viewable by anyone. It would only be a breach if the information were given in confidence to another person and that person then released it.

@PlanDeRaccordement I am bit confused by your response. The OP said they sent around a list. That is what I am talking about.

[quote BetterCare]@PlanDeRaccordement I am bit confused by your response. The OP said they sent around a list. That is what I am talking about.[/quote]
Sorry,
I was just saying we don’t know if the OPs list is in breach just because a list is sent out. The employees could have approved the status “wfh” or “sick” or whatever by their name as releasable information. In addition, by not objecting or asserting the information as personal when they give it to the supervisor, the employees forbearance could mean no violation as well.

because GDPR and personal data matters. Telling the whole company that someone is sick or has a medical appointment indicates a "health issue" which is personal data as outlined by the ICO.

It is not a breech of GDPR to say someone is off sick. Don't be ridiculous.

@boredzelda Yes, it is a breach of personal data because it implies a health issue and it, therefore, requires a legal basis on which to share it. They can't use consent because they have not asked for it. They may be able to use Legitimate Interest, but they would have to show their reasoning for doing so.

That is not me pulling information from my arse that is something I know has been confirmed by the ICO.