Work sickness

[Stuckinthemiddle1990]

Last week I, and 10 of my colleagues were place on support plans due to unacceptable levels of sickness. Mine is 7 days in a rolling 12 months. Unfortunately 3 of those were in the past 3 months.

Others in the department vary. From 4 days but 4 separate periods to people with long term health issues.

Yesterday morning my DH nearly called an ambulance for me as I couldn't breathe. Had a cough all the night and started to choke on my own phlegm. All ended up well but I was shivering and aching but I got in contact with my boss to say I would WFH, as I didn't want to spread what I had to others in the office considering their plans.

Woken up this morning, logged on and I ache even more than I did yesterday. Moving the mouse even hurts (DH is typing this)

My support plan says no sick for 3 months otherwise I go on formal. I feel so rubbish I'm sitting here in tears. I started the job just before Christmas and don't want them to think I'm useless. I'm normally quire healthy but the last few months I've literally been hit by everything.

WWYD? AIBU to call in sick?

I'd start looking for a new job. As for me the relationship with my employer for penalising me when I'm genuinely I'll would be damaged. I'd also call in sick and probably take the rest of the week off to get properly better. As if you're this ill today you're not going to be all fine tomorrow. I think going back to work too soon often causes repeated illness in my own experience.

Get better soon x

If they are allowing you to work from home I would suggest taking some lemsip and doing your best to show willing. There have been a lot of nasty bugs around and high sickness everywhere, especially in schools.

The OP hasn't said they took sick leave for childcare issues? 😕
Just that other family members, some of whom provide CC, have also been sick earlier this winter. She didn't mention taking time off for that - sick or otherwise.

You’re so ill you thought you need an ambulance for a cough yet you’re getting your dh to post on Mumsnet for you🤣. Not surprised your workplace is cracking down.

Not sure if you're saying some of sick leave you took was for childcare problems OP.
Please make sure you're not calling in sick if you've got a sick child or childcare issues. That should be carers day (if company offer it), annual leave or unpaid leave.
If you take it as sick leave you run the risk of ending up in the scenario you're in now if you then become sick yourself.

I don't understand this reply. Are you suggesting her dh does her job for her today? Or saying she should put in the same effort as posting here? It makes no sense.

@Whyisitsososohard I think they're saying that if you're ill enough to consider an ambulance you'd know you're well enough to know you can't work, and it's a bit overkill to get your H to write a social media post justifying your behaviours.

I can't imagine transcribing an OP to DP and making sure he uses all the right acronyms if I felt too unwell to work.

In your situation I'd try and WFH as you've had a lot of time off in 2 months so I can see how it wouldn't look good. I'd even go on a call and let them see how bad I was.

Out of curiosity, for everyone telling her to work and do her best, if you and all your colleagues were based in the office and you knew one colleague was WFH and doing a half arsed job for a week, would you be ok with that?

I'd rather they took a couple of days off completely to get better then come back ready to pull their weight.

My employer has a similar sickness policy. People are going in to work with covid and are clearly unwell, all it’s doing is spreading it around the office and everyone else we come into contact with.

I had it a few weeks ago and worked from home, went back to work someone was in office unwell with covid, then I started with bloody symptoms again.

it’s a viscous circle. People are going in to work unwell due to the sickness policy, it’s shit as all it’s doing is spreading it around and no one can recover properly.

Am I the only one that thinks that 7 days sickness in 12 months is quite a lot 🙄

It's unfortunate but if you're sick you're sick.

It is a lot of it is single unrelated incidents, yes.

I just don't get how employers in the UK think that people can control sickness.

With Covid we have all had more days off sick than usual and people have had their immune system messed up because with lock downs we have lost some of our usual immunity to the usual viruses that go around every winter.

So of course some people will end up with more colds/flus at the moment.

Not to mention those who have kids who bring in all kind of stuff back home has viruses circulate in the play ground.

I really don't see how any of this is the employee's fault...

If you are sick you are sick OP. Nothing you can do about that.

If they start discipline procedure I would argue the above about the fact that this is an unusual situation (Covid and increased vulnerability to other viruses)

I would also make an appointment with your GP to see whether there is an underlying reason that could be weakening your immune system.

I work for a homelessness charity. I am not a frontline worker but our frontline staff have had really high levels of sickness this year and especially this winter. This is because they are in contact with a large number of people who themselves are in poor health. Most of them would find themselves being disciplined for the sickness record if you went by the book but it is blatantly obvious that this would not be appropriate under the circumstances.

It can take 7 days to recover or more to recover from cold/flu/sickness bug etc etc 7 days in 12 months is not a lot of time off for sickness. 7 days in 3 months is a lot of sickness.

''@MyPurpleHeart · Today 08:23
Am I the only one that thinks that 7 days sickness in 12 months is quite a lot''

I guess you have not heard of Covid?

It would be perfectly normal for someone to get the virus and need a few days to recover then have another instance of illness within the same year.

I am a manager and at some point 2 members of my team went down with Covid and needed about 3 days to recover, then one of them caught a flu bug that her young kids brought home from school a couple of months later.

I don't see anything unusual with that and there is nothing the staff member could have done to avoid it.

The same thing happened with the rest of the office: people getting Covid and then some the winter flu bugs.

That's just life.

Oh please covid is long over. The guidance doesn't even say to isolate anymore. I'm talking about current times. Not 2020!

The guidance doesn't dictate how unwell it can make an individual @MyPurpleHeart

My employer has the same policy. It results in people coming in to work when they are sick in order to avoid being put on the 'special measures' Not ideal 😟

And yet the majority of people get virtually no sickness at all. I struggle to believe that high sickness absence from work can still be attributed to covid!

Eh? Covid isn’t over! A couple of my friends have recently been really poorly with it and have spent days in bed.

OP I would take AL and tell your employer exactly why.

How many different instances were those 7 days OP? If only a couple then that’s not a bad record, but if it’s like 6 or 7 different issues at different times then I’d say that’s a terrible sickness record, and the employer would want to manage that.

I would make some sort of an effort to go in, just so they can see how unwell you are.

Last year, I felt ill. Did a covid test that was negative. I had no absence and rang my manager to explain. We were low on staff so she asked me could I come in. I dragged myself to work feeling terrible. I lasted 2 hours, then my manager sent me home as"she could see how ill I actually was"

I had a doctors appointment that afternoon. On a whim, I took another covid test and it came up positive. Within 2 hours. I notified work who then had to send home my team members and deep clean the area. Its safe to say they didn't force anyone in after that.

That being said, I do think there are more sick absences since the pandemic. More people seem to think "oh I have a cold so ill take off" as workplaces seem to have a stay at home policy now, even if you have a sniffle.

One colleague was told she HAD to come in or go on a formal plan ( 3 days off in 5 months as separate illnesses) . On this occasion she had norovirus, the GP contacted her mid morning, it took half of the office out within the next week.
HR then relaxed the policy to let managers show some common sense and override the system.

I.E. I changed a medication and had a few weeks of nausea, vomiting and migraines whilst my body adjusted and my line manager put the 4 different days down as one incident.
A blanket policy is bonkers.

Pre covid I had very little time off. I'd generally have one bad bout of cold/sickness per year if I was unlucky.

Since 2020 I seem to have loads of bouts of illness. Luckily I can wfh and managed to drag myself through most of them with just one or two days off, but it was actually quite fortunate that I had Covid whilst we were on holiday- I was totally floored for about 5 days and there was zero way I could have done any work - otherwise after working at my institution for over 20 years I'd have ended up on the absence management trigger.

Thankfully I have good managers and I hope she would be able to tell the difference between someone who is taking a day off at the drop of a hat - and these people do exist, I have managed a few over my time - and someone who has hit an unfortunate illness patch. I've also been taking Beroca daily - well vitamin tablets now as it's quite expensive- to try to boost my immunity.

The only thing that wasn't clear to me OP, is if some of your time off was because of sick DCs. You need to be very clear if you're taking time off for that primarily as it would be emergency leave rather than sickness.