To think that if you are ill (self certified) & main decision maker for a department you should respond to emails wherever possible?

[strivingtosucceed]

Genuinely have no idea where the opinion of this will sway but i'll give a bit of context.

We have a project about to go live in 3 weeks, I own this project. A particular sub-department is in charge of one part of the project and is headed by a woman who also happens to be the only person in that sub-department. Unfortunately, she fell ill and seems to have not told anyone that she had remained ill past the original day she called in sick. It's now been a week since the original day of illness and neither me nor my boss (who she reports to) has an idea of whether it's something long term(eg broken bone/mental health) or something more short term like the flu.

Unfortunately the part of the project her sub-department is on the critical path, this means there are strict timelines that need to be adhered to and quality sign offs that need to happen before we can move to the next step. I want to email her to ask 1) when she'll be back & 2) who I can delegate her work to in the meantime so we stay on track. However, I've been told by some other colleagues that i'd be badgering them if I did so.

So AIBU to expect an answer from my colleague if she feels better for 5/10 minutes during the day or should I expect radio silence until they're fully back and well.

Yabu. Is this a reverse?

Your boss has clearly never been truly, desperately sick or injured

if a person is going to be incapacitated for a long time, it is best to try to ask someone to communicate this to the employer if the individual is incapable of relaying the message themselves. Sometimes though, there is no one to do this.

Your boss should be dealing with it if he wants a sick employee to be harassed. I don't think in general if someone is sick they should have to monitor and act on emails. It's up to your boss to find a solution.

It's totally unreasonable to expect someone off sick to respond to emails as frustrating as that is for you.

If your manager doesn't know why she's off sick that's weird, but she shouldn't tell you the reason anyway.

Yes, this would be unreasonable. Your manager, as she manages this colleague too, should be communicating with her directly and should know whether this is likely to be a short or long term absence and also who the work is being delegated to.

Very unreasonable. She should not be checking her emails while off sick and your boss should definitely not be asking you to contact her whilst absent. There should be a back up plan for things like this?

I'm a project manager and would never set something up with a single point of failure like this. If you haven't built in contingencies for this sort of thing is kind of on you.

If noone has heard from her in days that aren't you concerned about her welfare? She could be dead or in a coma for all you know.

Boss or HR should phone her to find out how she is - not to pass on work. She shouldn't be looking at emails. If you have sickness absence policy is much different from this, get advice from scas and join a union before you're ill yourself.

No.

Your boss should call her.

Whoever she rang in to when she called on day one should have sorted this. There should be a protocol and it should be in her contract/employee handbook.

This is also why your boss is an idiot.

No absolutely she should NOT be checking emails while self certified or even wellness note covered. Somewhere in back of my mind Is lurking about negation of insurance for employers if this happens.

However her boss or HR has a legitimate claim to call her and discuss how long she thinks her illness may last for and whether she is likely to need to extend with a doctors note. While he can ask for a simple explanation of the illness she is not obligated to tell him, though it isn’t very good tactic on that persons part given if it extends the GP has to provide a simple reason anyway.

you have no right or duty or responsibity to get in touch with her- he is her line manager and clearly if he thinks that you can contact her to ask this or that she should be checking her emails whilst off sick he doesn’t have very good management skills or knowledge of HR . Just smacks that he doesn’t want to and wants you to get the blame if backfires.

unfortunately , as any project manager will tell you, projects, no matter how important , how much money can be wasted, or how pissed off clients get, do get delayed for all sorts of reasons and sickness is one of them. Yep, it is frustrating, and stressful- that’s what you get paid for as a project manager to sort it out. If all plans ran according to the original goal plan you’d not need a project manager throughout! If you are planning a project where a single resource (with no obvious backup that is identified) is on the critical path you should have done a risk assessment on that “product”. At that point, you’d have identified the risk of this part of the critical path breaking due to sickness or resignation and either accepted that risk or built a buffer in. So, in my view this headless chicken approach is because you’ve failed to do that important part of the project planning process. If you’re the project manager that’s on you in terms of responsibility and your manager is accountable for that. The resource you’re using is not responsible for sorting it out. Particularly not if it involves putting pressure on her whilst on sick leave . You run the risk of causing her stress which means she’ll be off for longer 🤦‍♀️

Not reasonable.

Where I work, there's some sort of facility where emails can be automatically forwarded or something. Don't ask me how, some sort of IT voodoo.

I was off unexpectedly for over 2 months, and when I went back, all my emails that needed attention had been dealt with.

It doesn't matter to other employees why she is on. That's confidential. Her line manager and HR should know. It is not on you to be contacting someone off sick. Your absence policy will cover communication whilst of sick but I guarantee no one is expected to work whilst off sick. Single point failures within a business like this are always highlighted when someone is off sick. If she is the ONLY person in the building that can do the work your company needa a better business continuity plan for things like this. Some people choose to keep on top of emails whilst of sick. For example if they have a broken leg but they are certainly not expected to. Your HR dept or her line manager should get in touch with her

I’d expect my boss to be rightly pissed off with me if I called in sick for a day then made no contact whatsoever for a week and ignored emails as well.

She’s a shit, unreliable employee.

Surely when she called in sick she told her line manager brief details of the illness and gave an idea of when she hoped to be back? No she shouldn't have to look at emails but everwhere I have worked you have to call daily with an update unless a doctor has signed you off.

Personally I don't think it's okay to email her. I really have a problem with the work culture where people are expected to email/do things whilst ill. Not to say there aren't cases when people take the mick, but I think all employers should have a 'back up' plan for when someone is off sick.

Though I would have thought most employers like employees to give light detail on why they're off ill (e.g. is it COVID, migraine, etc) and when they expect to be back at work. Seems a bit odd that the company doesn't have this information to help you make a decision about what to do in the meantime.

I don't think it's reasonable to expect a sick employee to be checking their email but I also don't think it's reasonable for her to essentially vanish with no indication of when she'll be back. Barring situations where the person is genuinely unable to communicate (if they're in hospital for an unforeseeable reason) it's only the barest courtesy and obligation to your employer to let them know how long you'll be off.

On that basis I'd suggest your boss call her to find out what the hell is going on.

Let's hope your boss is nicer than you. One of my work friends called in sick and wasn't heard from for a week when he needed to hand in a drs note, turned out he had been diagnosed with cancer at 35.

OP - it's your manager/HR who needs to follow this up via the proper channels but this was always a risk if you've got a project hanging on one person.

Her boss should contact her to see if she’s ok.
You shouldn’t be involved and there should have been a contingency plan.

I'm quite surprised by some of these responses. Perfectly normal in my line of work (banking if it makes a difference), to pick up critical e mails when you're ill - even if just to forward on to someone else to deal with. We're not expected to be contactable all day, but checking in once in the morning and perhaps again in the afternoon. We'd be discouraged from doing any actual work, but forwarding on e mails and giving people a rough idea when we might be back would be standard. If I'm ill, I find it quite reassuring seeing e mails I'm copied in on, confirming my more than competent colleagues are managing perfectly well without me and I won't be returning to stack loads of work and angry clients!

Your/her boss isn't doing his job properly here. He needs to find out how long she's likely to be off for and put some contingency plans in place for her workload.

If she's sick she shouldn't be working, even from home. If there's an expensive error made while she's unable to concentrate who will take the blame ? If your/her boss wants to contact her let him do it himself. As far as I know this would be considered harassment

Her boss needs to find out what's wrong and when she'll be back and arrange to have her critical work covered. She shouldn't be expected to do any work if off sick.

Is appalling that she's been left for a week without any contact.

Wow, your boss is shit. She called in sick for one day, hasn’t told anyone what’s wrong and hasn’t been heard from for a week?! Has no one considered that she needs a welfare check? Does she live alone?