Colleague permanently off sick

[Littlejuice]

Colleague at work, forever coming to work for a fortnight then being signed off for a month or 6 weeks with anxiety - there is always something : currently it is her boyfriends uncle died, last time it was her cat died, time before she was upset about her boyfriend not proposing when they went on a holiday where she was convinced he would propose

Team I work in all sick of it. Have got to the stage where we just never expect her to be in and cover her work, but genuinely now getting so pissed off

Said colleague has been off for 3 weeks currently as she can't cope, but has plastered.many many pictures all over Facebook this weekend of various parties, BBQ, trips out. Rest of us working extra on call shifts to cover her because she's too stressed to work

I know I'm being judgemental, I know I am, but has made me rage - surely at some point she just has to accept life has its challenges, come to work like the rest of us?

Another person perhaps using the sadly misused mental health problems to skive.
It may be genuine,only she knows,she could be manipulating the system but as her manager I'd be looking very closely at this and the welfare of the rest of the team.🌈

NHS manager here and this is not an easy issue to resolve. I am a ' compassionatte' manager but mental health conditions are very difficult for the person themselves, the team and the manager. I have several staff with diagnosed mental health conditions. I know the ones who drag themselves in when they should be at home, the ones who could be back but wait until half pay threatens and those who are just chronically unwell and not at all suited to be working in the stressful environment they have chosen to apply for a job in. This last category is most difficult for me as HR will not allow capability management if someone is highly anxious as it will make their anxiety worse and you end up in a bit of a catch 22.
My current strategy is to focus at interview on resilience, self care, and reasons for choosing a really high pressured and stressful work environment in the hope that we get the right people for the job.
Covid has not helped with anxiety levels in the NHS either.
For those saying managers should just backfill these posts, must of my staff get signed off a couple of weeks at a time and always think they will be back soon. We have a fixed budget for our team and unlike nurses, do not have bank staff available at the drop of a hat. When staff are on maternity leave we can use two thirds of their hours to recruit to but by the time someone is in post( if you can find someone prepared to leave their current job for a fixed term contract of less than a year) you are halfway through the mat leave. During Covid in NHS, staff go non patient facing from third trimester but still on full post so you are without them for 15 months often. It is really really stressful at present and as a manager, I often end up just having to work clinically to fill the gaps and then do my management stuff in my own time when everyone has gone home!! I don't know the answers really.

Not sure why I jumped to may leave but just thinking of difficulties in maintaining a fully staffed team.

Flickflak
Do good spellings make a grwat senior manager.

caecilius 32C8H10N4O2 so someone hired HR employee to write HR policy, someone signed of on HR policy which is either not fit for purpose or not applied in real life. HRM continues to use policy. What changes?

YANBU in the slightest but many on here will disagree. I taught in a school where one of my colleagues was, nearly every week, off on a Monday and Tuesday recovering from the weekend. I had to double up with my classes or set work for his to do. The headteacher would do nothing about it and I eventually left.

Friend knew such an office worker called "A". Loads of time off. So colleagues started to get doctors notes for stress, as they had to cover for A's frequent absences. Forced management's hand.

It’s management, not the sciver, that’s the problem at this stage.

Mental illness is the new bad back - all I can say is, I hope scivers are careful what they wish for.

Your only hope is to hammer mgt with how hard it makes your life, extra workload etc, and ask for a pay rise. That should wake them up.

I used to manage teams where almost all those with poor sickness records seemed to come under the same GP practice. I then was told anecdotally that it was the place to go to if you wanted a sick note more than treatment.

It could be doctors who are reluctant to challenge patients, could be those who want a quiet life (who can blame them), or those who fear a complaint if they do not comply. I wonder if any of those apply in this case.

I worked in the NHs for many years and sickness levels were like nothing I had ever witnessed anywhere else., probably because of the full pay for six months which you don't get everywhere.
Colleagues would make a drug error and get told off - they would get upset and take weeks off sick, they would have a disagreement with management and take weeks off sick, one had a partner whose dad was ill - so six months off sick caring for him on full pay, not even her own relative. Sick children - no problems just call in sick yourself ! It was never ending.

Her reasons for being off sick are irrelevant, what is relevant is how your management handles it.

Right now, management has the rest of the team covering her shifts. I think it's time you collectively complained and pointed out that you need another team member to cover her shifts. Would refusing the shifts mean a management bod had to cover it instead? This is their problem to solve, not the team's burden to carry. Pass the responsibility back to where it belongs - management.

So who has told you those are the reasons she is off sick?

@SilverDoe

So who has told you those are the reasons she is off sick?

I was wondering that too.

But anyway, who knows if they're the real reasons.

Do you get paid overtime for these extra shifts? What I mean is, is it all running on good will and extra unpaid work, or is there some kind of benefit for you and colleagues? (I'm not saying it's not annoying/demoralising too; I know it is).

And if it's If it's impacting you and colleagues and your work very badly, approach management, but from this POV; don't make it anything personal about her, just raise concerns about workload etc.

There's always one isn't there? At least one everywhere. On the rare occasions they do pop in they drone on about their shite setting the scene for the next skive. They also are the ones who complain bitterly if they have to cover anything from the decent workers they broke. Sick leave needs to be much more restricted in all settings.

Would definitely annoy me. It puts a strain on the team when there is a colleague like this. I have left jobs before over it. It becomes too stressful on everyone else to continue.
There was a couple who have been terminated while on probation for being off all the time which was ideal. We all have our cross to bare and most of us just front up and do the job, if it's too hard, leave, let the workplace get someone reliable in.

I’ve worked in several jobs with people like this. The last one would be off sick for months, then back for a week or two. Several people complained as again, she was apparently posting her non stop social life on Facebook. Eventually she left before she was presumably sacked.
But now management have clamped down on sickness absence. Her abuse of the system has had an impact on us.

YANBU IMO
I have experience of this too and sympathise OP. As PPs have mentioned, whilst we are being conscious of the possible MH issues that may cause someone to have repeated episodes of sick leave, we also need to recognise the likely impact of their repeated absence on the MH of their team members. Their absence will inevitably mean other members of the team will end up covering for them, whether that means having to be more flexible, work longer hours, cancel holidays, take on additional responsibilities etc. We can all do those things from time to time to support our teams, in the expectation that others would do the same for us if we need to take time off for any reason. However that’s likely to be very disruptive if we need to do that constantly because one team member is unable to attend work to do their job on a regular basis.

Most companies will have an sickness / absence management process that would be triggered in the circumstances the OP describes. Hopefully your employer is already managing your colleague’s absence OP, but these processes may take time as they typically involve monitoring ongoing absences over a period of time to see if staff continue to hit absence triggers.

Those posters telling the OP to stop covering and commenting that the company needs to provide temporary staff to cover her colleague’s absences - both are actually quite hard to do in these kind of scenarios when absences are likely to be short notice and for relatively short periods of time. Easy to plan for and cover long term sickness or maternity leave for example, but not lots of random and unpredictable absences such as the OP describes.

I think you do have a colleague problem OP, you only have an employer problem if they do not manage your colleague’s absence.

I agree. I'm in a team of 3 and one has been off for 18 months now. I was sympathetic but it's really starting to grate now especially when I see the WhatsApp and Facebook statuses

@teaandtoastwithmarmite

I agree. I'm in a team of 3 and one has been off for 18 months now. I was sympathetic but it's really starting to grate now especially when I see the WhatsApp and Facebook statuses

18 months?! That person shouldn’t still be employed, regardless of what they’re absent for.

@benfoldsfivefan I kid you not. She has. Chronic pain but still posts pictures all the time etc.

@PAFMO

Have you always been scathing of mental health problems OP, or is it something new? There but for the grace of God eh? (perhaps you should ask HR to remind your colleague that being signed off requires them to stay locked in the house, preferably confined to bed, on a drip/life support machine, etc)

lol

She’s straight up taking the piss. If I were her employer I’d be asking what steps she’s taking to try and overcome her anxiety so she can get back to work. Worked with too many people like this myself!

Can I ask are these piss takers NHS workers?

I ask because I worked for the NHS. When I worked there if you were off for more than 3 occasions in one year you were hauled up in front of a committee for a bollocking and a stage 1 warning. My colleague was off one Monday, came back into he Wednesday but felt shit again so went home in the afternoon. That was 2 occasions!! He was told another in the next 12 months would be escalated to stage 1!

Meanwhile another colleague would take six months off on full pay, come back for a week and do the same again. Didn’t go to stage 1 that year as at the time it was about the number of occasions, not the length of sickness.

In the end, she was eventually sacked as she’d worked for NHS for 10 years and been off sick for 4 of those years. It my god, the unions waded in and it took them so long to sack her

Sounds familiar- there’s very little you can do. It’s frustrating and unfair.

HR here. Does your work have a sickness policy e.g Bradford factor ?
If she has MH issues diagnosed she will be protected to an extent and they would have to go down a capability route eventually.
The best thing you can do is approach manager/ HR And say the lack of staffing is putting extra pressure on you all and politely decline the extra shifts. Do not accuse her of lying or taking the piss.

I think you should be sending emails when you do communicate with your manager, so it’s all recorded.