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 she is off sick

It's up to the company to work things out and cover

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.

Do you mean that you and your boss don't know, or do you mean no one at work knows?
Has the person she has to report illness to been information of the absence, continued absence and if there is an estimated return date.

If it's been a week then a fit note will be sent in now anyway, as you can only self certify for 7 days (was temporarily changed to 28 days but think that stopped a while back now) so someone will find out soon.

Although your boss may be the person she needs to report to re the work, it may not be the same person she is required to contact and update regarding her sick leave.

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

This none of your business.

You’re being very unreasonable for expecting someone on sick leave to check email.

If you’re managing a project and have a single point of failure, you need another job.

I think everyone answering this should state if they are public or private sector. Would be quite illuminating I think.

You get good and bad bosses in both. The worst boss I ever worked for in this respect was public sector.

Some MNers seem to have a bizarre idea that the entire private sector work harder than public- my experience has been the opposite.

So interesting, the vast variation in experiences. I've never worked anywhere where i wouldn't expect (and be expected) to make at least a basic plan B for a critical piece of work that I was delivering, and that would involved getting and sending emails. I do agree that work has infected non-work time to an insane degree - but really, this is just being an adult. Unless it's really really serious.

So interesting, the vast variation in experiences. I've never worked anywhere where i wouldn't expect (and be expected) to make at least a basic plan B for a critical piece of work that I was delivering, and that would involved getting and sending emails.

You've presumably worked for pretty good organisations.

Many companies don't pay people who are sick and many organisations don't have capacity/procedures to enable work to be covered easily.

OP's organisation doesn't seem that competent to me.

Do not call her. At all.
Do you actually know why she's off ?
This is a senior management issue.

Totally unreasonable to expect her to check. And unreasonable of your boss to make you the person who crosses the line and harasses an ill person.

I'm private sector. If one of my team is sick, I expect them to get in touch with me on day one (or another colleague if I'm unavailable) indicating what's wrong with them. I've always said that if they don't feel comfortable disclosing for whatever reason, they're welcome to speak to HR instead, but someone in the company must know what's the matter with them.

I don't force people to call me like it says in our staff handbook. If they're vomiting at 4am, I don't expect them to stay awake for another 5 hours and call me at start of business; they can send me a text and go back to sleep, then text or call when they're awake to let me know what they think is wrong. Every company I've ever worked for has had the same stupid 'you must call us at 9am so we can hear in your voice if you're lying' policy and I've always exercised discretion.

I want to know why they're off for two reasons.

1. In case it's disability/pregnancy related so I can make sure their absence isn't held against them.
2. So I know which of their tasks need to be covered, and I can immediately make arrangements to do so.

The people running your company seem like a shit show. You don't contact people when they're sick. Because they're sick. If they feel well enough to pass on a status update on their tasks before crawling back under the duvet or to grab a bucket to throw up into, that's always helpful, but I don't demand it from them. I also send them 'are you feeling any better?' texts when I think they should be on the mend from their initial self-assessment, but there's no expectation or obligation for them to immediately reply. Because sick people are often in the bathroom or asleep.

In my experience, if you treat your employees well and don't expect them to do anything other than get better, they're more inclined to try their best to pass on a status update when they can, rather than to exercise their statutory right to radio silence.

In your case, I'd be inclined to innocently say to HR, 'My boss has asked to me to contact So and So for a status update on work as she's been off for more than a week now. Do you have her home phone number?' Assuming they're not as terrible as her manager or your manager, that should prompt them to get involved and tell you not to do anything.

This is the same in every public sector job I've had as well- I've had to report in by 9am each day I'm sick explain why and how long I expect it to go on for. Or get a sick note with a review date on and send it to my boss, then follow up on the review date. Barring severe hospitalisation/ emergency situation this stands.

Generally speaking I don't expect to be contacted when sick and don't do it to my team.

However we all have work phones so I do sort of expect them to at least put an ooo on with an alternative contact unless they are seriously ill, ie more than flu. Plus you have to contact your line manager - if you have like chicken pox and know you'll need the week then you communicate that asap so your work can be covered.

It is bad though - we do expect our bosses to check emails once or twice a day which isn't fair really.

I'm in the public sector and I keep an eye on emails when I'm sick and outside my contracted hours. But that's because I care about the client group and don't like to think of my colleagues struggling to manage my work when a quick email from me could cover it. But crucially this is NOT expected in my public sector department and I never expect it of my colleagues. In fact I do it very much on the sly because I don't want it to become part of the work culture. I'm just a control freak and like to know what's going on.

So one of two things has happened:

a) she has self-certified sick beyond the initial day and has informed either HR or another line manager but for whatever reason this information hasn't been passed on to you or,
b) she informed of her illness on the first day and hasn't seen fit to follow up

If a) whoever was told of her absence should have informed you and your boss, who should have delegated or found cover. It should have been incumbent on your boss or another boss to have instigated a back-up plan at this point. If that hasn't taken place then your company is a mess.

If b) and unless she is really critically ill, I think the colleague who is sick is in the wrong. If you inform your employer of a day's sick leave on day one I think the expectation is that on subsequent days if you don't return to work, you follow up to let your employer know you are going to be taking a more extended period of leave. At which point they find cover.

It's very rare for someone, as long as they haven't been hospitalised, to be incapable of sending a five word text message once a day to their line manager to keep them informed and I don't think its "totally unreasonable" or "harassment" for someone to send a brief, courteous and compassionate message saying "are you ok? shall we hand this on to someone else?"

Whilst she should let her manager know how long she redirects to be off for, she absolutely shouldn't be working while off sick, that includes answering work emails.

In our place we have to complete an online form confirming we haven't worked while off sick. That said, we are expected to keep in touch with the office. I've just had an extended period of sick leave and my boss and I had a call every 7-10 days just to check in.

Her boss doesn't sound very caring about the employees wellbeing or interested in the project/actively managing resource.

And this was never a thing prior to the big WFH push. I only had the technology to WFH from about 2018 onwards. Prior to that you were ill and that was it. We had to have systems in place to manage staff sickness then that didn't involve the ill person working

Expects, not redirects 🙄

you can't say that when you have absolutely no idea what this person's job entails.

Unreasonable.

Her boss needs to step in given she's off, and delegate out as needed.

If there's literally a situation where she has deliberables or information no one can access without her, there's been a monumental fuck up with key man dependency and your department leadership need to learn from that.

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.

Having had to go completely offline with zero notice at all, I can confirm this is absolutely true. There are barely any jobs where it is literally life or death if this happens - they tend to have seriously good contingency plans. What happens is usually a bit of money gets lost on a corporate level and actually no one gives a fuck a month later.

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.

Or something fucking serious has happened?

I've seen this happen on several occasions. One where a guys wife literally fucking dropped dead, unexpectedly. Another where a woman was in a car accident and was seriously ill in hospital (eg fully sedated and hooked up to machines)

Maybe she found a better highing paying job that wasn't such a disorganised mess.

That is an appalling thing to say. Someone from my workplace called in sick one day, and the company then didn’t hear from her for a few days. They definitely would have tried to contact her. Turned out she’d had a heart attack and died in her flat - a young woman in her 30s.

Christ no wonder the poor woman is off with this shitty attitude from her boss.

Its not her problem, she’s off sick, a good workplace means work is transferable if the worst happens to someone. Definitely don’t ask her when she’s coming back, you really aren’t supposed to do that

You sound like my old boss, he had the same attitude, including when I nearly died of sepsis. I do hope you aren’t anyones boss.

I'd expect her to read her emails esp if there is something urgent due- but you shouldn't be relying on that. She should have an out of office protocol that says who should be contacted - either her boss or her team. If i'm sick and there is something urgent i'd normally just say who to speak to or get a delay.
Does seem very badly managed -surely you'd have backups in place any way- and at the very least her boss should be able to step in/

Not reasonable at all.

If she isn't following the sick policy re notification that's the line manager's job to chase up.

They need to follow their sick policy re contact.

There should have been contingency plans in place, surely 2.5 years of a pandemic has taught that. The info should have been shared with the project owner by the project lead instilling this ethos.

Sounds like the project lead has some learning points from this episode. I wouldn't be contacting the employee at all, not your role, when she's said she's sick.