Is this an acceptable amount of sick leave?

[MaddenA]

One day in Feb 2023 with a cold and accompanying fever.
10 days in November 2023 with bronchitis which I was hospitalised for.
1 day (so far) in March 2024 with covid.

I think I've been so pressured in previous jobs to be in work when I'm unwell that I have no idea anymore what an acceptable level of sickness is...

That seems perfectly reasonable to me. In my team we often have Covid, colds, etc. and we take time off. We do not want to spread it and our manager strongly believes in rest and recovery.

Seems totally justifiable.
Reasonable and unreasonable are odd concepts when talking about being ill.
HR departments tend to get in a tizz about multiple short absences and have arbitrary rules eg 10 days per year, or 3 periods of any length. You can justify your reasons so shouldn't be a problem.

I think it's not the amount of days but the occasions of sickness and three within a year would trigger absence monitoring in my place of work.

Have you been approached by HR? if not, I wouldn't worry.

Aren't you the recent poster on a training contract asking for help from her parents? In which case I would argue that you're in for a surprise when you realise that the world doesn't stop because you have a cold.

If my kids' teacher was off every time she had a cold she'd barely be there.

Its a lot. They won't sack you but they will start to signal that its too much and you need to try to have less time off. Don't be surprised if you get a warning, warnings can escalate if you keep needing more time off. It won't be able if you were genuinely sick with good reasons its just that short term absence is disruptive and not having you in will impact work and your colleagues.

Looks like a lot but seems justified. I have had 6 days in 2.5 years

In my role in the NHS we need staff to come in with mild colds quite frankly. We are massively understaffed and patients wait months and months for appts. Staff need to dispose of tissues and wash their hands/use gel and keep their distance. But if we all went off with colds then patient care would be even worse. We don’t have an immunosuppressed patient group as a whole.

I've just realised I've only had one day off sick since I returned to work after having a knee replacement in Oct '21.

We mostly work from home though, which minimises the chance of picking up bugs, plus it's a lot easier to struggle through when you haven't got to travel to work. They've found that the teams that WFH have a much lower level of sickness absence than those that are office or community based, which I suspect is why the "40% of hours should be in the office" rule is never enforced.

I don't think it's execessive, OP.

There isn't an acceptable or unacceptable amount of days in a year you're ill. If you're ill, you're ill! Your body doesn't decide to avoid illness when you've had too many sick days unfortunately.

Hope you feel better soon!!

It's still almost one day per month, which is high.

I’ve not had time off sick for over a year, but I had five days off then with flu. You can’t help it when you are ill, you are ill. I know I certainly work when really I am too ill to do so but being at home means it’s easier to get through the day. I definitely would have a higher sick rate if I was in the office - and being perimenopauseal means it would probably be monthly absences. Thankfully I am very part time so only work half the week anyway.

I think it completely depends on the absence policy where you work.

We used to use the Bradford score but moved away from that a couple of years ago.

Where I work, the amount of days off you’ve had in the last rolling 12 months would have triggered our policy and you would have entered our formal process.

Doesn't seem a lot to me.

At my workplace, 4 occasions in 12 months gets you referred to HR. I've had 3 occasions but only totalling 5 days! Seems mad to me that someone could just be off for 4 days in 12 months but get referred because it is over 4 different occasions. When someone else could have had 10 or more days off, but only on 2 or occasions, so nothing happens!

Cold or a sniffle is not ‘sick’ ffs. Can you imagine going off sick for every cold or sniffle, no one would work. Even my child’s nursery does not send them home for that unless they need medication. You’re the one who needs to get a grip really

I've had two years where I took the full 6 weeks. First time was for a scheduled surgery and I did all my work before going off so anything planned was already done.

The other time was for a brain bleed and some of it was used on a phased return to work. HRa never said anything and on the second occasion we're incredibly supportive.

The full 6 weeks? Is that the maximum people are allowed?

Probably the amount the pp ,work place pays full pay?

I think in this context the full six weeks would mean the maximum number of sick days that they would be paid for.
This would vary between companies.
My company is ten days per year at full pay when sick.
If I was off for more than ten days, I would only get statutory sick pay which is something like £110 a week.

As a result, I have private sickness insurance which would pay out if I was off longer and keep me closer to my normal income.

Your employer is unlikely have a maximum number of sick days and then automatic dismissal policy - you can be fired for being too ill to do your role but they should show that they've considered other options first including giving you enough time to recover and looking at adjustments to your role in order to protect themselves against a disability discrimination claim (in some cases long term illness would be a disability).

(Note that this doesn't apply if you have worked there less than two years, the Tories took most of your employment rights away and you can be fired almost at will)

However they definitely don't have to pay you for very long when you are off sick. Depends what is in your contract.

However if they suspect you are not actually sick then that would be different - hence why having regular single days off, especially if that day is a Monday, is much more likely to raise suspicion and action by HR than if you have been in intensive care for six weeks.

Are you concerned about work?

Levels of acceptable sickness, sadly are often defined by work policies.
In my public sector role, I hit attendance management procedures for 2 absences in a running 6 month period, one absence is half a day. Policy also includes attendance management for every absence of 8 days or more.

What does your work policy say?

It feels an arbitrary line though, set by the employer. My ‘high level’ of absence and a concern to me and my employer is set by policy, so a worry at the second absence. That ‘high level’ and associated worry, bizarrely will be different in a different job.

In my job if you have 8 days off sick in an academic year (work in a school) you need to have an informal meeting about absence which goes on your HR record. But if it’s justifiable, which it almost always is, it’s more of a formality and no one actually bats an eyelid.

All of yours are justifiable, I wouldn’t worry.

Our system has triggers. So if you were off sick 3x in a year, or sick for more than a certain number of days (I think it’s 10), the system would flag it and I’ve have to issue a ‘letter of concern’ to a team member at this stage. After that, it becomes warnings.

Depends on the job. I wouldn't take sick leave for a cold or COVID unless really unwell but I would work from home, so it depends whether that's an option for you.
Any sickness that requires hospitalisation is a no-brainer of course.

The odd one or two days a year for anyone is pretty normal I'd have thought. Anything serious that involves a hospital stay is outside the norm, and most employers would accept that as completely unavoidable.

@Blibbleflibble the OP never specified whether they were working in the office or not though so you've jumped to conclusions on that. As I've already said I realise their sick leave was actually over 12/13 months not 5, so perfectly acceptable.
I used the term justified because the OP was clearly ill! No I wouldn't want someone spreading the lurgy either. But surely you must realise some workers view sick leave as annual leave?! My DP is always talking about a person at their work who openly says they've still got x amount of sick leave to use up! So that's "unjustified".

if I had time off every time I caught a cold off of the school children I work with I would never be there!!!