To think my friend will lose her job

[MollyMindy]

Posting for advice as a close friend of mine is in a bind

She started a new job 2 months ago, a promotion, all good.

4 weeks ago her husband walked out, no kids, but she is devastated. Can't function at work, been doing the bare minimum, and what she is doing I gather is pretty poor quality.

Performance is now being monitored, informally for last few weeks, more support given etc. She thinks it is going to get more formal soon, so has got herself signed off for a month with stress.

She is under the impression that although she is on probation she now can't be touched, I think she is wrong but not sure what advice if any to give her.

She likely is required to engage with the employer whilst on long term sick leave. It can be by mutual agreement to suit the situation - I.e. by email if phone calls are too stressful - but needs to be relatively regular, say weekly, even if brief. She can’t just disappear. That allows the employer to understand what support she needs all the way through, and engage occupational health to plan for a return to work. The assumption will be, in a supportive sense, that she will return to work. The question is how best to make that happen. And OH typically advise that returning to work - even on a phased basis, with reduced hours that build up - is a positive action for stress/MH issues.

Sounds like she is having a really hard time. And if she can´t work, she can´t work.

Does she have professional support or is she "just" signed off?

I would strongly encourage her to seek out proffesional help ASAP.
It wouldn´t do for this to become chronic and or autonomous. Which does unfortunately happen.

This would also help her reassess whether additional time off is what she genuinely needs / is best on the road to recovery.
Many people´s first instinct is to detach. But it isn´t necessarily best long-term / does not work for everyone.

I can only speak for myself. But I personally know from experience that for me personally structure, human contact and mental stimulation are absolutely crucial as soon as I am a little better.

Does that involve alcohol?

Your poor friend! .. or is she your Lucky friend?!

She needs to watch the Netflix movie "Fairplay"
She needs to find the fight inside her and realise she doesn't want to be with anyone who doesn't want to be with her.
Goodluck to your friend!

They will just extend her probation though until she has proven herself. Its not looking good for her.

She’s in the pub every night ? She must not be thinking clearly. She is going to need a job to support herself.

My public sector employer terminate the employment of a new young colleague after she went off ill - can't remember what it was, glandular fever or something. I thought it was really shit of them, she was so excited about her new job and really keen and committed. HR said she could be off for ages but our HR were so slow and shit at recruitment that she would almost certainly have got better before they had someone new in post.

Your friend is deluding herself. If she can't do the job or does it poorly they will get rid of her. She needs to get back to work and back to speed as soon as she can.

So I’m her first 2 months she has already had two absences for trivial matters, her performance has been unsatisfactory and now she’s off long term sick?

i’m astonished they haven’t dismissed her already. She’s being extremely naive.

It would be one thing if she was off sick for an accident / cancer / heart attack etc. This is completely different. At the first sign of criticism she’s taken the stress leave route instead of communicating and working through her issues. This early into a job it shows a real lack of resilience.

Unless she asks for advice and you have intimate knowledge of the company she works for and their procedures, I wouldn't give her any! Just listening and empathising is good.

She’s been given incorrect information. The whole point of a probation period is to see if it’s a good fit for both and either party can terminate the contract, usually with a weeks notice.

She really needs a conversation with her line manager and HR very quickly as her contract can be terminated at any point in her probation, not just at the end.

At the risk of sounding harsh, surely if she wants/needs this job then she has to step up and make an effort. In my many decades of working I have known numerous people who have suffered marriage breakdowns, including myself, and other than a day or two off work everyone has just carried on working as before. For someone in a new job she isn't making a good impresssion, and while her employers may be supportive this can't continue indefinitely

Well no, when I had a former colleague whose normally excellent work performance slipped, our boss asked her about it and she told him she found out her H had been having an affair. He told her to take as much time off as she needed. Because he was a great boss.
But that's different from OP's friend whose employers don't know her from Eve but only know she does not turn up to work.

She needs to get back to work asap, be honest with her employer, and she may have a tiny chance of saving her job.

It sucks, went through the same when I was in my twenties, it's not easy to show up to work and get through the day when you're heartbroken, but it's unfortunately part of life and no employer is going to say 'oh, you've had a breakup, fair enough, don't worry about the probation period, you can keep your job'. She's probably already wrecked her chances of keeping the job but if she's honest and gets back asap she might have a tiny chance.

Has she told her boss/HR what the problem is. That is absolutely crucial to this.

I used to train managers and one of the key things is to know what's going on with your employees.

As others have said stress is not a disability and therefore not a protected characteristic unless its linked to a long term mental health issue. I think she may think it's a disability and give her some protection.

Your friend has been given (or is choosing to believe) some very poor advice. She definitely can be let go, they won't fire her while she is off (unless this is over a very long period of time) but if she has not told them what the problem is, they are probably already planning to fail her probation.

A former friend worked for the NHS. Believe it or not she took over a month off after her boyfriend left her /moved out their house.
She was definitely threatened with formal disciplinary action.

It wasn’t her first time taking long term sick for stress in that role, so she was on her last warning . She did eventually go back to work but I’m no longer in contact with her so I’m not sure if she took off any more time from work/ was fired.

The difference I guess was she wasn’t on probation. I can imagine if she was they’d have sacked her without continual warnings .

OP, please ask your friend to give ACAS a call. She’s digging her head in the sand, they’ll hopefully set her straight on the fact she can be fired on sick pay. And extended sick leave during probation isn’t a long term strategy. If she comes back she will need to show them how well she can do the job and it’s likely they’ll extend her probation period.

When I had a bad break up a few years ago (needed counselling and Prozac) I think I took 2-3 days of annual leave or leave at the discretion of my manager. I’d been there 4-5 years at that point and my attendance had been great but I just couldn’t stop crying, it was emotional abuse from him.

There’s no way I’d have taken off a month with stress though signed off by my doctor. I was just encouraged by friends and family to go into work. I did take a week’s annual leave after a month but this was booked, approved and I had the annual leave to take.

I think the company need to know that her personal circumstances are responsible for the stress, her poor performance and being signed off. In the absence of that, they'll assume they've got a new employee who can't manage the work and has got herself signed off as a result of that.

Yeah, public sector here too and whilst I might be sympathetic to some leave to deal with a break up like this, I am afraid that two periods of sickness in the first two months followed by at least a month (and she seems to be planning more from what the OP says) - my sympathy would have run out around the second week and termination would be served by week 3. And if I didn't think that my employer definitely would. We are talking about more than 1/3rd of her employment on sick.

Two+ months of sick leave is looked at askance by our HR for employees with two decades of service, never mind two months. with us she'd now already be in the first stage of dismissal (assuming we used the whole process, which we don't within the probationary period) for absence, which begins at 3 occasions (which she has hit) within 12 months or 9+ days within 12 months. She's being delusioal if she thinks any employer is going to sit back, take this amount of absence, and continue to employer her.

I had 2 months off sick last year due to an operation. I've worked for the same place for 12 years. When I changed my role internally I had to meet with Occupational Health. My only other period of sickness had been 2 weeks about 8 years and ago and another 2 weeks with Covid. This is a very understanding and compassionate employer. I can't imagine that even we would keep someone on who had spent most of their short time with us off sick.

I agree. I had 10 weeks off after major surgery during which time, for 8 of those weeks, I was not allowed to place one foot on the ground ever. I actually worked a bit during that time, from home - just a few hours here and there - with no pressure to do so, but because I needed to keep an overview of a new programme. When I went back I was in stage 1 of the sickness absence process. I totally got it - it wasn't a lack of support or sympathy, it was the process and the policy could not allow for emotions or variance. That was after 10 years with the employer and 1 previous sickness (1 week with swine flu). I wouldn't complain about my employer at all in terms of sickness etc - but there are lines that must be drawn, and at 2 months that line wouldn't be far in the future.

That's all very well - but was your friend on probabion?

Honestly, I get that these things have an impact - but imagine how many people have marriage break-ups, find out about affairs, etc. every day, and think how it would be if every one of those people took extended time off work. There would be a shortage of workers in every field - accompanied by complaints from customers/clients. Sitting around moping is absolutely the worst thing anyone can do. When I separated from my exh my boss was also having marital issues - we talked about it together, but neither of us took time off work.

Frankly, if she hadn't been so slack prior to the breakup she would be in a better position and that's assuming she was upfront about the problem

Sick leave in the first 2 months for a cold and toothache. Pathetic. People like this make it hard for others with actual need for leave.

To be fair, I’ve heard toothache is awful. I’ve never had it but had some friends say it was one of the worst pains ever. If you just have a cold though perhaps best to just work from home if possible rather than take time off in your first few months. Not everyone wants your cold germs flying around the office.

That’s great you did what works for you. But honestly some people could really do with a month or even more, off work due to mental health issues - and that’s OK. Often they go back to work feeling much stronger and don’t take any further extended periods off sick.

For some the alternative is they push through, then feel so burned out and low that they don’t even want to work at all. I’d say this is more of a problem.

I know people who have been signed off on long term disability due to mental health. My school friend hasn’t worked since 2018. I don’t think it’s in her interest at all to be out of the workforce for this long. I think these prolonged absences from work are far more of a problem.

I don’t think the friend is acting very wisely in this instance but that’s another matter.

I would really discourage friend from getting further/extended fit notes, it is painting 'target' on their back.

I think your friend needs to come clean 100% about the personal situation behind this - when I returned to work on an extended fit note (even with Occ Health involved) for a physical condition I was threatened on return with disciplinary action which was very frightening and if I'd been off with depression I might have found that even more worse.

Recently I have made some mistakes at work in temp job prior to resigning and actually to my surprise been told I could go back if the new job doesn't work out, I seriously think it was my attendance ethics which has got that, so mistakes and further leaning needed seems to be something which can be got past.

Some companies/organisations do write in the contract, that they reserve the right not to apply their full capability and disciplinary procedures during the probation period.