As an employer, would this bother you?

[PetitP]

When asking previous employers for sickness over the last two years employed by them. Employer from 2017-2021 will be 0 days for the last two years. Current employer will be 6 weeks with investigations for potential heart issues (have cardiology letters) - all finished and am now on beta blockers and had no issues since, 2 days with covid, and 3 days with a virus. All genuine. Would this be an issue for you? WIBU for them to not give me the job because of this?

not in the slightest, to be concerned i'd be looking at regular odd days here and there with no reasonably explainable reasons esp things like lots of fridays or mondays / days around bank holidays etc

When I looked at my annual leave and saw thy I had had 53 days off in the last 1.5 years it just looked so bad!

Is it all sickness though if you've used some annual leave?

Not at all.

I'm currently on 4 weeks sick leave. I'd be very surprised if this was a concern to other employers. 20 single 1 day sickness would probably raise a few eyebrows but sickness due to investigation for a heart issue wouldn't. If it did.. its not somewhere I'd want to work anyway!

Sorry I meant my sick leave.

We would work it on a percentage, so number of absent days divided by number of available work days that year multiplied by 100%

anything over 40% would be a concern, and we would then maybe look further to see the pattern / reasons etc

With the explanation, then that's fine. If I just had the stats I'd be put off.

Enough to rescind a job offer?

It looks a lot better with the explanation! "Shit happened but I'm fine now" looks a lot better than the statistics.

How long have you been in your current job, OP?

If you've been there less for a relatively short time, and had 3 separate sickness absences during that time, I think it your potential new employer might raise it with you.

Perhaps you could explain the absences before hand?

I've been there 20 months. Not sure if it's worth bringing up beforehand though! It's the only thing in my pre employment checks that I'm worried about.

If you've been there nearly two years, that's better, OP.

Changing jobs is always fraught 🙈
Hope you get on well.

Have a read here: www.jobsite.co.uk/advice/can-potential-employers-check-your-sickness-record
Talks about the circumstances a job offer can be withdrawn for sickness. I've not looked any further into it.

It's so stressful and I can't hand my notice in at my old place until I've passed all the pre employment checks!

I once had six weeks off to get my bunions fixed. Obviously that wasn't a recurring thing. Nobody even remarked on it but I am from a country with far more generous sick leave policies. My current employer will tell people to stay home and not spread contagion among the staff - I'm talking about colds here rather than covid. We don't want somebody hacking away with a running nose in the office. I've never even been asked about sick leave when I've done references for people - except once when somebody emailed me from England. My boss said it was private information and there was no way we were giving it out!

We dont ask for a sick record and tbh I would be surprised in referencing if it was asked for and given.

We look more for regular one/two days especially on Mondays and Fridays.

It's been part of every employment process I've ever had to be fair! People always seem to ask for number of days sick.

It is deemed discriminatory in some sectors, in my line of work it is never asked any more.

No issue for me

I never ask about sick days. It’s honestly never occurred to me that I could, I would deem it as discriminatory a bit like asking a woman if she has kids or is planning a family.
I only employ a very small team though so possibly not the most clued in when it comes to HR.

The form they've sent out asks my work history, reason for leaving, absence days, periods and reasons, disciplinary action or performance issues, main strengths, areas for development, whether they would employ me again, quality and quantity of work, attitude, knowledge and skills, supervision and responsibilities, working with clients, professional boundaries, relationships with others, initiative, honesty, Reliability, time keeping, dealing with pressure then areas for development (again) for some reason. A lot of these things are on a likert scale so not as in depth as it sounds, but no idea how HR are even going to be able to provide half of that information!!

Even if they ask all that information it doesn't mean your old employer has to provide it. I only would ever provide dates employed from and to.
but even if that info does come back then it will be reviewed and they'll ask what happened. If it's a reasonable explanation they'll be fine. Perhaps get ahead of it though if you're worried?

Both workplaces won't even use the form the employer sent. They have standard reference forms that they use. It's a lot of info to ask for and a lot of pressure for line managers in organisations that allow line managers to give references!

I'd be surprised if they provide any more info than dates of employment and job title. They certainly won't provide anything like that amount of info requested. Never mind the GDPR issues at play, if they provide glowing stats on timekeeping, sickness, honesty, performance etc and you suddenly decide to be a perpetually late, rude, lying slacker then they could open themselves to issues.

My company would definitely not provide that information at all.

We would stay 'XYZ worked for us as xyz Role between date and date'.