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?

If the government covered or even contributed to sick pay for employers it would be different.

I run a small business, I can't afford to pay my staff full pay for no work, especially when it's ridiculously tough out there because prices are still increasing and no one is buying anything. I already work a crazy number of hours myself as it is. One person off sick for 2 weeks at full pay is at least £1200.

Companies are not a benefits system and the govt should stop thinking of them as such.

For office based jobs I think it's got better. Staff can work from home if they are infectious but well enough to work. That wasn't possible usually, before Covid.

However, on my team of 20 there are one or two people with high levels of sickness. Late 20 somethings who over the course of a year have half a dozen episodes of one or two days off for a variety of reasons: gastroenteritis, migraine, sore throat, muscle pain, uti, ear infection, etc. hangover lazyitis

DD has struggled in all week because so many staff have been off. She shouldn't have been in on Wednesday and Thursday but has held the fort due to piss takers in her department, otherwise there would have been no qualified for teacher for the Y11s and no qualified teacher of her discipline for the Y10/11s. She called in sick this morning because she literally has not enough voice to get through the day. The Deputy Head thanked her and said she was surprised she made it so far through the week. SLT know who the piss takers are.

All my staff all have a RTW meetings and concern is expressed and they are referred to OH as a duty of care because fit, active people should not be getting so ill so often and there may be an underlying cause about which they need advice.

We pay full pay for six months!

That's the sort of sickness that needs to be managed robustly to safeguard the very seriously ill for whom I have to negotiate to stay in service so they die in service which is better for their families.

Personally I think if more people stayed home when they were ill, the loss to the economy would be far outweighed by the amount of absence prevented by people not spreading their germs. It's not rocket science. It drives me mad when people polish their halos over how they've 'never had a day off sick in years', while filling the bin (and the air around them) with germs from their snot.

It's not Victorian, they expected people to stay at home if they were ill.

I agree and it's so counterproductive and probably costs more money in the long run.

Sick workers infect healthy colleagues and aren't productive anyway, so you end up with a workforce that might be there but are all of very little use.

Miserable workers take a lot more time off sick as well.

Add to that that there's a big crossover between employers with punitive sick policies and employers against flexible working/ WFH, both which drastically reduce sick absence.

Lazy people take time off for minor illnesses. That’s the truth.

I used to work in an area where the last 2 weeks in anuary were insanely busy. One year I had a virus and my boss told me that I had to come in and could take my sick leave in February. 🤔

Please don't generalise. Some of us employers are very compassionate!

If I don't work, I don't get paid.

Guess what? I go in regardless.

My gas bill doesn't pause just because I am coughing, neither does the mortgage.

And so do hardworking people who recognise their health is too compromised for them to work effectively, and/or don't want to put their colleagues at risk.

It is those who have the option and can work from home but are forced into the office that is the real issue here. Compounded as well by those who have sick days off when hardly ill or where it is self-inflicted.

What are you on about? Perfectly normal for flu, covid and RSV to take out perfectly healthy adults for a week or more.

Also really irritated by people suggesting sick people come in as it's that which causes spread 🙄. I've sent sick people home who have come in to prevent the rest of the team getting ill.

We went through a company take over and it was vicious /toxic and the worst I’ve been treated during that period. I was sick, d&v, and called in sick. Day two, still not keeping water down. Manager sends a message saying if I’m ill I’m ill but it’s putting a lot of pressure on the team which is unfair… she then listed everything the team was doing. Totally guilt tripping me into working from bed. Nothing was even urgent.

Now things have changed and we’re fully staffed, she’s much better with sickness. During the takeover it was like her stress levels turned her into the biggest dick ever.

Did you miss the bit about OP having a long term health condition, despite quoting it?

Perhaps instead of being smug you could try some gratitude that you’ve never experienced illness that impacted you enough to need more than a day here and there (except of course the time you did). 🙌

Decent employers don't just pay SSP. This is part of the issue.

Lots of people have conditions that mean a cold can make them quite ill.

You aren't some superhero you are just lucky.

They may well feel more unwell on a normal day than you do on an "ill" day

Yes I remember someone coming in for a senior managers meeting very thrilled at how tough she was as she had been up all night with D&V. Half the senior managers were off with the bug by the end of the week. It wasn't heroic it was stupid and selfish

I had a period when my immune system was compromised due to medication. HR sent a gentle email to all reminding people that we get paid sick pay and can work from home when needed, so please don't come in with a cold or similar. They explained, without naming me, that someone was immune compromised.

There was a massive furore - "whoever is compromised should stay at home - it's ridiculous that we are dictated to because of one person" was a common reply to all.

Honesty it was awful. People's views are really skewed.

Yanbu to say stay at home if you are sick because we don't want your germs.
Yabu to expect people not to work from home or their hospital beds if they want to. I get really irritable when I'm under occupied, and if I'm ill or injured it's likely that there's a whole load of stuff I can't do so at least let me work if I want to and don't label me a martyr for doing so.

My immune system is fucked for life and that's a fairly common response. So I just stay home forever then? My world is small enough as it is!

@Startingagainandagain what would be the solution?
At my place, the work has to be done on THAT day... anyone off sick a day here and a day there just means the remaining staff have to cover for them....

I think the double standards that we need people back in work and not off forever on disability vs you're a criminal if you take a day off for some flu are the problem.

People need to understand that many sick people and disabled people and immunocompromised people have jobs too, people with long term illnesses will also need time off for sickness as well as time off for their illnesses, and very few people take the massive financial hit of being on unpaid days off (waiting days) for no reason, let alone the absolute joke of SSP. More empathy and understanding is needed as more people who aren't as healthy as a horse get into the workforce. And people need to actually understand that modern medicine has a limit and seeing your GP isn't a miracle cure for a bloody virus or seeing a therapist can't fix long term MH issues etc.

And fuck the Bradford score, it helps no one.

I work in a care home and I've had disciplinary action taken after my kids had both been off school sick quite a bit. The company I work for has this stupid policy whereby if I take time off due to DC being poorly, it's classed as me being off sick.
It got to the point where the scrutiny meant that I didn't take any time off when I needed to, because I'd been told not to take any more days off. Soon afterwards I was signed off by my GP for 6 weeks, because I'd neglected my own health so badly.

Flu will stop you working. If it doesn’t, then you don’t have flu.

The loss is to them? You are determined to interpret legal and economic constraints as personal failings.

If you think it's a moral failing then you are also morally failing by not paying everyone's wages so they can go sick. What's that? You can't afford to? Yes, that's the point!!

People cannot live on air. They work for money. They need the money to feed clothe and shelter themselves. It's not a quirk of their personality.