UK employers' attitude to sickness is Victorian & tired of office 'martyrs'

[Startingagainandagain]

Reflecting on this as we are in the flu season.

Why do so many people will go in the office when they are so obviously unwell and risk infecting everyone else?

Why do employers seem to think that if someone is off sick they are automatically fibbing?

I have had flu symptoms all week (awful muscle pains, headaches, sore throat, constant sneezing...). I have a long term health condition and have to be careful not to mix too many pain killers with my regular meds. So I had to stay home to recover and after 3 days of rest I still feel rotten. My employer seems to be pissed off that I dared taking som time off...

I have people in my team who 'perform' martyrdom on a constant basis when it comes to illness: someone who broke several bones insisting they were working from their hospital bed (which is impossible & unsafe considering how much pain meds they give you in this situation and how drowsy they make you...), another who also assured our manager they were working while sitting in A&E with their sick partner. We also have regular instances where someone comes in with covid or similar contagious disease and then causes the rest of the team to catch it and go off sick which is totally counterproductive...

Basically I am puzzled that employers seem to think that people should never get sick and that so many employees go along with the charade.

Would it not be more sensible and healthier to have a more pragmatic view to illness at work?

And don't get me started on disability: if like me you have a long term health condition/disabilty your card is marked as soon as you declare it on end up needed time off when you have a flare up.

Why is the UK workplace like this?

Am I being unreasonable to think there is a better way to deal with illness and disability at work?

Of course yanbu but at the end of the day it’s all about the money, money, money!

Money. Everything boils down to it. And it’s shit.

It's the old problem though where one person can ruin it for everyone. If you said it's fine to always be off when you are ill then some people would rarely be in work. Every cold would have them staying home.

YANBU and I’m thankful I don’t work for someone like that.

I was off last week for two days sick.

I’ve been very sporadic this week as my son is sick.

My manager has just told me to look after my child and myself and not worry which is exactly what I’d tell anyone in my team too.

I would send someone obviously unwell home without hesitation.

A really bad virus is currently doing the rounds at work, but there is a very Draconian attitude to sickness in my place and it is almost impossible to have time off sick. Plus pretty much a no WFH policy and it is spreading like wildfire.

People have different attitudes to sickness and it impacts them differently. Some people genuinely do take days off at the first sign of being under the weather. Others genuinely do feel well enough to work with a minor illness. The law also allows for employees with a poor sickness record to be dismissed which, while reasonable, work needs doing and its a huge strain on others when colleagues are frequently absent, it frightens people. There's no easy answer to this as its simply not possible to be endlessly 'kind' when there's a business to run. What do you think is the better way to deal with it?

But people like that are generally poor in other areas. I think if you are a good manager and don’t let shit behaviour become endemic you don’t get this stuff.

I’m not one to take time off at the first minor sign of illness, but that’s only because I have a serious medical condition so need to save up all the sick leave I can in case of a major flare. But if that wasn’t the case, I think it’s more sensible to take the time off at the first sign so that you can give your body the time to recuperate properly, therefore needing less time in the long run.

At the end of the day it doesn't particularly matter what your employer thinks.

If I'm sick, I'm going to take the day off, as is my legal right (and my social responsibility, if it's a transmittable virus).

They can think what the fuck they want.

I WFH - flu or colds don’t stop me working, because I can’t share them with anyone else.

Companies do need to wake up though.

Are you paid whilst off sick?

My employers were never like this with me. I think in my whole working life I came across only a handful of people who were skivers. There was appropriate pressure placed upon those few.

I should have added that I am a manager and I don't want the people I manage coming in sick and infecting everyone else!

People who were popular or very useful to the company I worked in rarely triggered . I worked it out that they were given unpaid leave , thus didn't trigger so they didn't get written warnings after so many absences . I also worked out they were claiming family tax credits as their absence followed a pattern. Friends in high places .

You're not being unreasonable of course, but the other side of the coin is that some people (myself included) cannot afford to be off sick, especially just before Christmas.
I have a friend that moans constantly that people go into her office when they are sick and she risks catching whatever germs they have got. But if these people don't get sick pay, and SSP currently doesn't kick in until the fourth day off- they often have no choice but to drag themselves in.

I had an argument with a colleague a couple of years ago, because I went into work with a cold. She kicked up a right stink and told me I should be at home. When I pointed out that I wouldn't get paid for sitting at home, she said I was selfish. Ironically she was a salary paid employee who would be paid for sitting at home! She actually went out and paid for a covid test for me to take- which was negative and pissed her off even more.

Some workplaces are bad. And some people are just martyrs. I have one colleague who kept trying to work from her hospital bed. Making massive mistakes and breaching loads of confidentiality rules.
IT had to turn off her remote access.

Statutory sick pay is £116.75 per week, not many people can survive on that.

Well there's your answer. Your boss isn't mad you're off sick.

Your boss is mad that you've got responsibilities to other people and now you're not there that your boss now has to do their job, and find some cover or do it themselves.

It doesn't sound like you've got a very good boss at all.

I’m in HR. Employers that acted like this absolutely didn’t by the time I left. Most had tens of thousands of employees. Sickness absence levels fell as a result.

it’s your employer, not all employers.

My husband doesn't get paid if he is off sick - and he is a team manager in a private sector business! Some companies just don't give it (which is BS in my opinion)

But I do also work with a martyr (my workplace is much more generous) and she is a fucking idiot - drives me mad with her behaviour!!

You'd have to be bloody sick to go on statutory sick pay. DH goes in when he's sick quite honestly because of how much each day of costs him.

I came to a realisation just like yours and wish we could get the information out to everyone in any sort of job, mine was supermarket work, 12 hour shifts, always staying late, but the same counts for any job, but still get it out there that….

work colleagues are not our mates, if we do them favours and cover their shifts, adding extra hours to our working week, all we are doing is making ourselves more miserable and tired, they won’t remember you in their will and you won’t receive an honour on your deathbed from the king. It will be forgotten and you will be more put upon, only cover work or shifts if it’s a direct swap.

When you are ill take as much time as you need to recover, the company will have to cover you, I returned early with glandular fever, management didn’t care I was ill, they just wanted the work covered, I only harmed myself, I shouldn’t have caved and returned early.

If we keep covering work or shifts when ill management will never think there is a problem and so nothing will change, they won’t get extra staff and won’t care that anyone is working themselves to the bone to cover.

The very fact of the matter is that NOBODY CARES about you in work, you won’t be remembered for going in when ill or working overtime, you may think that you are loved for it, but you are not, there won’t be a statue in your honour for wasting your life on work and people that don’t give two shits about you, you will just miss out on what you could be enjoying in your free time.

I wish I could tell my younger self this and also that others now would say ENOUGH, life is short and we don’t want to work 40 plus hours a week until retirement or death just because previous generations had to. Apologies for the rant, but hopefully there is relevance to the OP.

Totally agree. There’s an issue at both management and individual levels.

I take sick leave when I’m sick. When I managed a team I told them I expected them to take sick leave. I had a situation similar to the hospital bed mistakes one above - I had to tell the person that if they insisted on working when they were not capable of it I would issue a formal performance warning (our employer gave full sick pay).

Company I used to work for had a reasonable sickness policy and we had fully paid sick leave. However my old manager was a moron and ran the team with fear & disinformation. E.G. telling staff members that they were not allowed to contact HR ! Manager actually rang one lady who had phoned in sick and told her that she had to come in to " show willing" as she was in her first year of employment. Lady came in,vomitrd at her desk, off to doctors who confirmed Norovirus. She took half of the 16 person team down with it, including the manager.

Statutory sick pay is just over £100 per week!

I work from home permanently now but remember when I was office based, one of the directors would regularly come in with all sorts of bugs then would complain endlessly when everyone else in the office came down with it and had to take time off. It was so unfair of him, a couple of people in the office cared for vulnerable parents, as well as a few who were vulnerable themselves.

He was finally told to stay home when unwell when he passed norovirus round the office and caused one of the team to be hospitalised with it. We all had fully paid sick leave so there was no reason for him to come in.