To think that sick time triggers are overly anxiety inducing and unreasonable?

[Agix]

Ive written here before about my personal rule where I only take sick time off work if my symptoms mean I cannot do my job. I have chronic illness, so frequently feel rather rubbish and unrested when working, but am able to do it so I do it. I work from home which helps.

However, I was off last week after a bad night turned into a migraine. Migraines not usual for me, painkillers not touching it. I could not focus and do my work, so day off it was. I don't have the kind of job where I can zone out / pretend to work /only answer emails etc.

Then a few days ago I developed a stomach bug - perhaps something I ate. Actually perfectly workable at first, just kept needing to rush to the loo and not too much discomfort, so have been working (again, from home! Don't worry!) but then last night it ramped up to 11. It continues. Hopefully it's in its death throes, darkest before the dawn sort of thing. I also tried to eat more than a cracker at dinner which was stupid of me really, the pain persists. But I absolutely cannot work with this. I feel like an alien has laid eggs in my stomach. (have called NHS 111, obviously can't do much about tummy bug except wait and see).

Have notified work, who actually are the coolest, but they have sick triggers of needing a meeting if you have 4 instances within a year. I've just had 2 within 2 weeks!

I get the purpose of sickness triggers, and employers also don't want people taking the micky, but surely people can't help being too unwell to work? You can't really limit sickness? It either happens or it doesn't, unless you're purposely licking sick people or something (I haven't).

If you're an employer or manager, how do you handle sick time and triggers? Do you find them useful or a bit weird?

Miserable. The answers are probably gonna make me feel worse 🤣

YANBU - Sick triggers are indeed a bit weird, people can't control when they are sick

YABU - Sick time triggers are useful and accurate because (reason)

P.S please forgive if I don't return to the thread. I intend to, but depends on how alien baby situation develops.

Yes I find that bonkers tbh. Also how it gets framed as a disciplinary.

I find it absolutely astounding that the NHS triggers are so low, especially when you're working with unwell patients who may have something contagious. Surely they'd want to protect the patients too and give no reason for employees to feel forced in with possibly contagious illness!

My mind is being changed about sickness triggers in general, but would hope NHS could think of a different system. I don't know what though, so maybe there isn't one.

But so sorry it's difficult for you x

Sick triggers are there to support you not punish you and to prompt you getting the right support to be effective at work. But the reality is your being frequently sick impacts your colleagues so it's fair to them that it's addressed

For my team, if they hit the sickness threshold for a meeting, it is intended for me to check there aren't any issues with work causing them illness e.g. stress, and if there is anything we can do to support them for ongoing issues. For example, new equipment when a team member was frequently off with migraines and it turned out a better visual display would help.

I was a people manager with a lot of experience in this area, and as someone with anxiety myself, I can honestly say that no matter what you do, some people are going to be anxious no matter what the procedure is. It's a total balancing act.
I do think that every people manager in the country should have to undergo a course that covers the basics of employment law surrounding people with disabilities, with additional teaching on reasonable adjustments, how you can support people etc. We fail people every day by just not equipping people managers with the support and knowledge they need to do right by disabled employees. It's a disgrace.
I was also completely shocked, personally, at how many people were rude and dismissive at hitting their absence triggers 'you can't fire me for being sick, this is affecting my mental health' if you cared so much about this that it was affecting your mental health, it's interesting that you havnt done the 15 minutes of research that it would take to discover that we absolutely can fire you, you can't use your mental health as a way of avoiding being fired for taking 5 sickies in a year, and there are ways to engage with your employer, union and additional support that mean you have a better chance of keeping your job. Drives me absolutely mad.

Nice to see a thread with a bit of balance

Sick time triggers are useful because there's nothing to worry about if you are genuinely ill and place limits on those who would otherwise take advantage and take more time off.

Don't forget that when people take sick leave it places more pressure on their colleagues which is unfair if its happening too much then managers have a duty to look out for the whole team.

So - my personal experience is some managers can't tell the difference at all and hand out warnings regardless.

It took me a while to figure out my sixth sense about it. Normally you can tell by the attitude - if someone is upset, genuine, gives details (normally too many details!) of their illness, is OTT in terms of keeping in contact.... I would be keen to cut them some slack. However its often the ones who come in defensive, butter-wouldn't-melt, with a 'you can't do anything to me because I was ILL - not your business what the problem was' kind of attitude that are making things up/weren't as bad as they said they were and I'd hand out warnings. Of course, working in an industry where all the staff are following each other on social media and are eager to mention when a colleague 'off sick' was out partying the night before was also useful....

It is really hard routing through the lies though - I'm thankful to now be in a job where I don't manage sickness absence as much. I once moved location and on my first morning had a 19yo woman sobbing to me that she had missed work/not called in because on her way to work she'd be stopped and groped by a couple of drunk guys (4am starting shifts on a Sunday, so plausible) - I totally believed her and even gave advice around reporting to police etc, before being told by other managers it was the 3rd time she'd used that excuse in 2 months, and she was bragging to the others that the new manager was a pushover.

Sickness triggers are not disciplinary. They are viewed as such, for some reason but they are really not. They are supposed to be a supportive practice where your employer has duty of care to support your wellbeing. On paper anyway.

The problem with that system is that it is detrimental to people who have long term health conditions and/or disabilities.

I also have two long term health conditions and over the years I have had flare ups that needed time off and even several surgeries.

There is nothing I can do to avoid that.

Have you declared your health issues to your employer?

Mine was not sympathetic until occupational health became involved and reminded them that I have long term health issues that qualify as a disability.

The NHS ones are appropriate too.

Your view that they aren’t is probably still influenced by your view that they’re disciplinary related rather than welfare related.

For NHS staff there are two things to keep in mind:

1. The policy applies to all, and a large number are not in patient facing roles.
2. Infection control measures should limit transmission of diseases. So if someone is repeatedly becoming ill as a result of their work activities then their line manager should be looking at what can be done to reduce this - and the review meeting is a prompt for the manager to do that.

These meetings have a bad reputation because the people who are abusing their sick pay make a lot of noise whining about them. Whereas people who had a brief, sensible conversation don’t bother commenting on it.
You’ll also find some managers make the meeting so brief that the person who’s had the sick leave never realised it was a meeting.
‘You’re back, are you feeling properly better? Anything you need from me?’

Yes. No.

Job done. Manager records it. Receiver continues making their cup of tea.

I think they can be ridiculous. I have had COVID and flu this winter totalling 8 days off which reaches a trigger point. I went back to work still feeling very rough and exhausted after flu and have probably felt ill a lot longer because of the early return to work.

I don't think that is true at all. It assumes everyone is being untruthful. Most people are honest and don't abuse the system.
My employer didn't have triggers for most of my working life and I hardly took anytime off and I don't remember others doing so either.
When they were introduced people started coming into work when they were sick, passing on their bugs! But also unable to do their jobs properly anyway, making mistakes and being generally unproductive.

YABU.

You can't have no triggers and let everything be manager discretion on a case by case basis as that opens the door to unfair treatment based on the managers view of what's fair. Or based on who the manager likes and doesn't like. It can even lead to discrimination if some people are getting treated less favourably due to age, sex,race etc (especially since some medical conditions are often caused or affected by these factors)

I've worked in places which had manager discretion for full paid leave versus unpaid and there was also lot of views about 'genuine' illness versus ones that got the 'raised eyebrow' . So cancer or a broken leg got you full pay for several months but depression or mental illness got the bare minimum.

Triggers can help - I've had 2 people referred to OH who turned out to have serious medical conditions . One had been to their GP and fobbed off, one had never seen the symptoms as serious enough even to make an appointment.