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 to expect an answer from your colleague. Your/her boss would not be unreasonable to expect an answer from your colleague, in fact it’s very unreasonable of your colleague to not have communicated with her manager before now and on my employment her emergency contact would have been contacted had she not been in touch to discuss absence

BORIS?

Echoing @KylieKoKo here - your work should not have allowed for a single point of failure and always planned for such a situation. Though I can’t think of a single functional workplace in my own career where that has happened, so why start now eh? Sounds like you’ve got yourself a good old toxic workplace there.

Apols yes YABU to contact them.

No, this is not reasonable or normal.

Most sickness policies have some stipulation as to how frequently the employee should make contact (usually daily until a sick note is issued) and how frequently the employer will make contact (usually weekly, or monthly if the sickness is long term).

It's up to her boss to have the conversation with her about he anticipated length of sick leave and it's the bosses decision who to delegate work to, though they may ask the employee for suggestions if the employee feels up to it.

It would be remiss of the employee to respond to emails when they are not fit to work- the validity and competency of their decision making could be called in to question. When I had covid I was asked a question which would be feeding in to a court case, I'd advised that I wasn't able to answer it as the brain fog could render my answer inaccurate or unreliable.

This is for your boss to deal with - not you.

You shouldn't even be entertaining his suggestion that you should contact her. The work will have to be designated to somebody else. Your boss should already be getting on with sorting this aspect out. Thats it.

you're being ridiculous, unfortunately people get ill (and sometimes even die) during the course of projects (yes have had this happen). You need to find another way to move it along without her. Speak to her line manager. Speak to the rest of the project team. Agree how to go forward.

You need to escalate this to your (mutual) boss’ boss or HR. Your boss is a very bad manager of both project and people.

why?

Your organisation must surely have a Sickness Absence Policy?
This should lay out the responsibilities of the sick employee in terms of keeping the organisation up to date on their condition, and the responsibilities of the employer (usually the Line Manager in practice though could be HR) to keep in contact with the employee.

It should definitely not be the responsibility of another employee to be contacting the person who is sick. Aside from the fact that it is not your job to manage a situation like this, the sick employee has a right to confidentiality. Your manager is behaving badly towards you both.

It's your boss problem to deal with. I would refuse to call or email her while you know she's off. It's completely inappropriate

If she's had her 5 self-certified days off and still hasn't returned, she should have told someone at your company that she's taking more sick time, even if she hasn't managed to get a doctors note yet. People can't just go off sick and then not be heard of again until they decide to walk into the office a few weeks later! What offices work like that?
I'd refer it to HR and get them to contact her to ask her where she is because her sick note has run out.

Down to your boss to manage her own employee and ensure there is no single point of failure in a team.

Unless I was in a coma, I would expect to try and hand over to someone else. Or inform my boss, that I can't. I would NOT be allowed to be home sick without my boss having some idea of what was wrong and how long I might be sick. But then I work in the private sector.

It IS up to your boss to deal with this, not you. That's his/her job.

It's not acceptable to expect someone to work when they're off sick even if it is 'just keeping an eye on emails'. That's a really unhealthy work expectation. Her boss should be able to deal with it. I do think though unless it's an emergency (ie she has a cold rather than is in hospital for example), she should have indicated some sort of handover. But the team should be able to cope with a man down, it's part of being a team.

Ok, I'll bite.

Public sector.

You're not allowed to be properly sick unless you're calling in dead and then you should have already ensured that everything was done at least six weeks in advance so that nobody else has to do it. You will be expected to work from home or your hospital bed until HR tell your manager to leave you alone.

Your boss is her boss. It’s his responsibility to deal with her sick leave and any fallout from it.

What would happen to the project if she was hit by a bus and died? Your mutual manager would have to cope.

Push back hard, this is not yours to sort, he’s taking the piss.

Probably public sector. I remember being called to ask me to sort out a patient. When I myself was already an inpatient in the same hospital. Luckily I happened to know who was covering me, so could tell them who to call.

You do know that your 'critical' project is most likely to be completely unimportant to the rest of the world don't you?

It's nice you take your job so seriously but unless you are deploying people to a war zone or talking someone off a ledge, it will be less important than you imagine.

I've worked in the public, private and charity sectors. Never have I just been allowed to go off sick and not keep up to date with sick notes, without telling someone what was going on. And I would always pass back work. I mean if I was on resus in hospital, that would be different but my partner would be informing my manager or hr on what was happening. This woman's sick note has run out and is effectively AWOL if she hasn't informed someone what's going on.

You can't email her but your:/her boss should contact her to find out how she is as they have a duty of care towards her. Your boss should also be finding the solution in terms of who to delegate her work to etc.

If she’s highly paid and working on a key project then let’s be honest it is expected for people to be checking emails in the corporate world.

I agree she shouldn't be having to check emails while off sick... but I also think its fairly bizarre for the expectation to be that there is total radio silence from her until she is out of her self-certification period and damn all anyone else can do.

As a PP mentioned its very odd for her to be the only person in this team and for the project to be set up so there are no other employees working on this workstream at all.

Also, and someone will be along to shoot me for being a ruthless bastard, but unless she is critically unwell I can't believe she couldn't find it in herself to send one single blanket email to the relevant people informing them of her illness, stating that she doesn't have visibility on her recovery and asking them to delegate to others.

I get that its unpleasant for people to be asked to be "always on" when sick but I think sometimes people take this to extremes. You'd have to be very unwell to be unable to send a single short email or text informing people of the situation. She must have done this initially in the process of informing her line manager she was sick so presumably she could have followed up.

Agree with others though that its really for your boss to sort and not you.

Whilst many people do, it should never be expected or seen as the norm.

If someone is off sick they should not be having to work in any way. They certainly shouldn't be being chased through lots of emails, messages or whatever.

I don’t think she should be checking work emails or responding when off however she should be providing a sick certificate if she’s been off for more than 7 days and an indication of what is wrong and when she hopes to return

I would suggest HR contact her and ask for the relevant information