If anybody knows about the Bradford Factor.

[SandyMindyMandy]

Putting this here for traffic because there seem to be a lot with HR experience on this board.

The management decided to bring The Bradford Factor in this January. I've never heard of it before. Have googled it but am none the wiser. I've read plenty but don't get it as am useless at maths. It's never even been mentioned before. Not one person understands it. Not now anyway. There was one but they sacked him, the HR chap, and it's now being used by random managers without a clue of the ins and outs of it
They're having meetings with everybody and their dog about massive scores. It turns out they're counting everything for the last year, possibly back to last January (they're being cagey about the exact date).

They are including everything.
Sick leave.
Hospital admissions.
Accidents.
Emergencies.
Leave for dependants.
Basically all types of leave apart from annual.
Everyone is terrified they are going to get the sack as nobody understands it.

They already take away pay for soms Christmas holiday days off for certain numbers of unbooked time off days using a formula they don't let on about. No matter what the cause. Now they're threatening people with undefined other punishments for high scores.

There's people with disabled kids and partners who they are sole carers for. There are those who are disabled themselves. There's a lot of single/two day off absences when caring for very sick relatives and these people are getting massive scores. The whole place has turned toxic over this. The management have not a single thought towards the fact the workers are human beings with human problems. It all feels wrong and I don't know what to do. Several colleagues have somehow amassed over 4,500 points and nobody is explaining how they got them. The managers don't care one jot if their employee's loved ones die if it means they get perfect attendance.

I'm basically asking AIBU to be very worried.

I can't say where I fit in all this as the MD's wife is on here somewhere and I don't want to give the management ammo seeing as they like sacking people for speaking about the company online in any identifiable way. Small company with a very large ego.

It’s a method that measures employee absenteeism, based on the premise that frequent short absences are more disruptive than longer less frequent ones. The formula is:

(number of absence instances) squared multiplied by the number of days absent.

examples:

1.an employee had 3 separate absences for a total of 3 days, their Bradford score would be 27 (3 squared which equals 9 multiplied by 3).

2.an employee had 12 separate absences for a total of 32 days, their Bradford score would be 4,608 (12 squared which equals 144 multiplied by 32). Bear in mind this would mean that this employee would on average be taking 2-3 days off every month which is a lot.

3.if an employee had 2 absences for a total of 32 days (maybe 15 days sick for a really bad bout of flu and 5 days bereavement leave for example) their score would be 128.

looking at examples 2 and 3, the total number of days is the same, it’s the amount of absences that affect the score.

It’s usually calculated over a year, be that financial or calendar.

The general rule of thumb is that a Bradford score of 100 would mean the employer should conduct an absence review. 200 would be a warning, 700 could be dismissal.

There are certain absences which should be excluded as they are protected by law, eg maternity leave, paternity, disability-related leave. Including these absences would leave the employer open to claims of discrimination.

Unless you have a high number of absences, there’s no reason to be concerned.

hope this helps to explain!

• The Bradford Factor is calculated using the formula: B = S² x D, where:

• B = Bradford Factor score

• S = Number of instances of absence (or "spells" of absence)

• D = Total number of days absent

• Example

• An employee with 3 absences of 1 day each (3² x 3) would have a Bradford Factor score of 27.

• An employee with 1 absence of 3 days (1² x 3) would have a score of 3.

• In our organisation a score of less than 50 in a year was considered to be acceptable. If it was more than 50, the employer may investigate the issue.

It sounds like people are taking huge (unreasonable?) amounts of time off? I say that as a full time working parent of a disabled school aged child. It's no wonder they're bringing in a recognised monitoring system.

Should also add that the Bradford Factor should not be used in isolation, as it doesn't consider the reasons behind absences. It also doesn't account for protected absences disability-related leave. Misuse of the Bradford Factor by an employer could lead to unfair treatment or legal challenges. As an organisation we stopped using it.

It sounds like there’s a huge absence issue in this company- I can see why management are tackling it.

Several people with scores of over 4,500 is hugely disruptive in any organisation. For every person with a huge score crying it’s unfair, there’s a team behind them who are sick of carrying the burden.

Out of interest, OP, what’s your score?

Basically if you are off for short periods, but do this many times, that's a higher score than if you are off for a longer period but for fewer times.

I = incidents
D = days off

Score = incidents squared x days off

So 10 incidents of 1 day off each = 10^2 x 1 = 100

But say 2 incidents of 5 days off = 2^2 * 5 = 20

It's "supposed to help identify people who have occasional days off and who may need more time off to look after themselves" according to our HR person.

It can also identify people who take occasional days off regularly.

"Sick leave.
Hospital admissions.
Accidents.
Emergencies.
Leave for dependants.
Basically all types of leave apart from annual."

It should be for sickness really.

The NHS uses it. Is why I was sacked.
In my case, it was mismanaged though. My final warning was for calling in sick when it was overtime. I was off long term and had a phased return that failed. The new time off was counted as separate sickness.
I was called into the office one time and it was a full on disciplinary meeting. I was given no notice... no chance to get a union rep.

In a nutshell the underlying assumption is that the number of occurrences is the concern.
It can be a way of ensuring that everyone has their sickness absence managed well.

This system sounds clearly discriminatory against parents of young children, carers and people with chronic health issues or disability. Amazed it’s allowed.

Your workplace also sounds completely toxic besides that. No wonder people are off all the time. Are you looking for another job?

Edit:

This is how 10 days off can vary:

So 10 incidents of 1 day off each = 10^2 x 10 = 1000 (because you've had 10 days off in total)

But say 2 incidents of 5 days off each= 2^2 * 10 = 40

Unison has a view on it

https://www.unison.org.uk/content/uploads/2014/09/TowebFact-Sheet-on-the-Bradford-Factor2.pdf

Sickness absence can be a tricky thing. I know someone who's employer used this. They had a mental health condition for which they were doing all they could. They struggled into work even when feeling terrible. Only on their very worst days would they call in sick. This pattern, as opposed to just getting signed off for weeks at a time, made their Bradford score higher and triggered absence meetings. HR seemed to have no discretion, it made no sense. It was like they would prefer them to go off long term sick than try to work as much as they could and only take sick days when absolutely needed.

God how utterly dystopian 🤢

I’d get signed off until it was all over/I found a new job 😎

There is no such thing as discrimination against parents, under the Equality Act. Parents can't just have unlimited time off work.

Me? Zero.

A lot of the people who are worried are friends, good talented workers who just got dealt a bad hand in life, who are being affected by having disabled family to care for alone. I just don't know what to say to them when they express their fears about their role as carer to a disabled spouse or child while trying to keep the company happy at the same time. They talk to me because they know I'll listen and will keep it to myself.

The company employs a lot of older workers. There's a lot of carers of disabled spouses, mostly. They don't really attract many younger workers. They don't pay very well and like to hang on to those they've payed for the training of. It's a quite niche production environment and that's as much as I can say without it being potentially outing. They want maturity and experience but appear to think the workers will maintain youth and vigour forever.

I'm worried for my friends.

I'm concerned this scoring is being used as a blunt instrument and will lead to my friends being discriminated against because of a spouses disability. Nearly all of them would have scores of zero without disability causing time off.

And who said learning maths at school wasn't useful 😁

I work for the NHS. In our trust 3 periods of absence in a rolling 12 months put you on the trigger system. So I could have three separate days off and they start absence management, but my colleague could have 9 months off on full pay and be fine. It doesn’t make sense.

The person having 9 months off clearly has a long term condition that requires that length of time off and so I don’t think they should trigger absence management but neither should someone who has had 3 separate days off and has attended work the rest of the working year.

I am interested to know, legally, how much leeway an employer has to give to an employee with a disabled child or spouse.

Apart from anything else, your employer's policies should be transparent and accessible. Are you in a union?

Here you go! https://www.acas.org.uk/carers-leave

One important thing for employees who sign under this system is to make sure you don't go back to work until definitely well - if you struggle in but it was too early and you are off again, you'll be punished for trying. So stay off until sure. Urgh.

Thank you for that information.

The thing is they are using it for disability related absences. They are definitely cunting all absence apart from annual leave. One friend had to take his wife to hospital on a Friday, where she had a heart attack. He stayed by her side while she was unstable until the Monday night before coming in on the Tuesday. They marked him four days absent, and scored him for it, even though they don't work weekends. He showed me his planner and it's marked as four days unexplained absence. Another friend, they were busting his balls because he had a few days off as his mother lay dying of cancer. That was before they started using the system though.

Not one of the managers recognises dealing with disability related emergencies as a genuine reason to be off.

The reason I mentioned the high scores is because they are only high because they are counting absences accrued in the (at least) 9 months prior to announcing the Bradford Factor was being initiated. In effect, including absences in scoring for a period in which employees didn't even know it existed. It's like passing a brand new law then prosecuting people for doing it last year while doing it was still legal IYSWIM. That's what doesn't feel right.

Interesting to read this thread alongside the proposals to get disabled people back into the workplace.

Its clearly going to go swimmingly.

You list all those types of absences as though it's unreasonable to include them all but for very many people, those would be 0. In places where absence isn't managed, some people do seem to take vast amounts of time off with little awareness it would not be tolerated in other workplaces. It is a shame for people who have genuinely difficult circumstances but some people's poor attendance is very much a choice and puts an unfair burden on their colleagues.

Edited to add: I've only worked in places where chronic conditions are managed separately.