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.

Omg. You need a new job. These people are monsters. Even if they change this particular system they wont fix their appalling management style.

I think it’s discriminatory. In my last job i had to take time off because i have the worst immune system and then I was diagnosed with CKD which meant loads of hospital appointments and time off for blood tests. Sadly it affected my work and was brought up as a reason to extend my probation even though it affected my mental health a lot (the diagnosis that is). I find employers want robots to work for them rather than actual humans.

Thank you. I've just read that. Unfortunately, the place isn't unionised. They won't allow it. They used to recognise the unions years ago but not now. Anyone who has been heard to say the word union has been "let go" over recent years.

The employees are not happy anymore. Used to be a really supportive atmosphere, like a family. That's gone. Now, they put watered down bleach in the antibacterial spray bottles and lock up the washing up liquid and toilet rolls. One worker got a written warning for using a sheet of printer paper to write an "out of order" warning sign on a broken machine.

Pretty much everyone wants to get another job but the local job market is pretty bad. These lot pay a few pence above the local rivals and have been known to sack people who they "catch" going for job interviews. Traitors...apparently! How it turned into a place with such a heavy culture of fear, I don't know. Happened so slowly. I've had enough of listening to grown men cry.

The last organisation I worked for used the Bradford Factor and I loathed it.

If you work in a restaurant, for example, then I’m sure that frequent short absences would be more disruptive than fewer longer ones. But in a large office, where most tasks don’t have to be completed the same day? No, it doesn’t really apply then.

The Bradford Factor penalises people with certain medical conditions (e.g. migraines) who have good days and bad days. It penalises anyone with a bad cold or gastrointestinal bug who stays at home for a few days to avoid spreading it around the office. It penalises anyone who goes back to work too soon after an illness and has to go off sick again. I wish the Bradford Factor had never been invented.

We don’t have it any longer but it was bad for women with menstrual or menopausal problems

It not always bad - I once triggered a review just because of a run of things - stomach bug, abscess requiring GP visit, gynae problems. HR wanted to be sure that a) I wasn't taking the piss because of a drinking problem or something or b) it wasn't a chronic condition that might need reasonable adjustments- and things like migraines might well come under that, if they know; they can't make adjustments if they don't know.

But in far too many workplaces, it's used as a very blunt tool, and just to threaten staff with, not to support them.

In my work place, it would be used as a trigger, possibly leading to a review. It was never used in isolation.

Interesting to learn what the Bradford Factor actually is. We have it on our HR intranet but I've never bothered to look it up before!

This.
What does this mean. 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.
What's a 'unbooked time off day'? Sounds like people taking time off but not recording as a day off, or taking days off without going through manager?

Yes. It's going to go even better than it is already.

It's unsustainable I tells ya.
The chronically ill and disabled must find an immediate miraculous cure. Somehow, from somewhere. Just not the NHS because it's overstretched and underfunded. Also, it has to be free because taxpayer money needs to stay in the government's purse. Workers must pay it but best never need to utilise anything they were told it was supposed to be paying for. I'm not talking about Labour. They're all the same.

I think you're a wee bit muddled re disability related leave - this is usually used to mean leave related to the employees disability whereas carers leave is the term for when an employee has caring responsibilities, for example a disabled spouse.

If an employee has a disability (that the employer knows about) then disability leave (ie if they need time off related to the disability) should be treated differently to sick leave. So including that with the Bradford scores would be discriminatory. I also think as carers leave is a separate thing and laid out in legislation then including that is also dodgy. If they included mat or pat leave that'd also be discriminatory and maybe adoption leave etc too. They don't sound great employers.

We have the bradford factor where I work. I'm not usually off sick, but if I am I don't rush back. Might as well take 5 days off and definitely make sure I'm better rather than 1 or 2 when I'm still rough but able to work.

They can't not recognise a union, that's unlawful. I've been a GMB member for years, it's very useful I consider it the best £14 I could spend each month. Where I worked we used the Bradford Factor very well, Monday's, Fridays and the days before Bank Holidays counted for double also the day before and after a booked holiday. It's an effective tool to manage chronic absence. They need to take into account protected characteristics though.

The OPs workplace sounds awful, but there does seem to a lot of employees abusing the sick leave policy.

Sick leave is for when the employee is sick, not one of their family members. And I've been there as a single parent, using up my annual leave when my DS was sick and off school, and always trying to keep some annual leave for the end of the year, just in case he got a bug.

Disabled workers have protection in law, but time needed to look after a disabled relative isn't the responsibility of the employer - again that's annual leave, and if that's used up, unpaid leave is often an option.

The OPs employers were awful to count your colleague as being out for 4 days when his wife was very ill over the weekend, but did he claim it as sick leave? In my place the weekend days are counted as being sick days, so being off sick on Friday and Monday would count as 4 days sick leave, but for annual leave, it's just 2 days.

Some people do abuse sick leave, which results in systems like the Bradford System being introduced.

We've used BF for about 12 years although we are about to introduce a new absence tracking system. Our trigger is 90 in a year for an absence review meeting, 99% of the time there is no further action although if someone has an ongoing issue as a manager I would arrange a meeting with occupation health and once ongoing problems are reported by occ health we do not count these under the BF. It has worked well for us but is a bit dated now.

I'm not denying that there are people who abuse sick leave policies for extra time off when there's nothing at all wrong with them, but schemes like the Bradford Factor - as well as the Red Tories' 'encourage disabled people back to work' plans - are the epitome of privileged people who assume that anybody who doesn't share that privilege (even if the privilege is 'just' generally good, reliable health and non-disability) is clearly somehow lazy, lying, a scrounger or probably all three.

They're grown adults who are acting with the exact same immature mindset of a toddler who just cannot possibly understand why their parent or carer wouldn't want to listen to Baby Shark or watch the same episode of In The Night Garden for the 100th time in one day.

Call me a cynic, but I agree with PP that the impending introduction of the euthanasia laws has come at a very convenient time for the government and some employers - as it can then turn it into a 'you problem' whilst they just mutter platitudes and shake their heads at how terrible you are.

Meanwhile, the actual liars and abusers will just learn the 'rules' and make sure they score a free fortnight rather than just a day or two here and there. They won't suffer one bit.

They can't not recognise a union, that's unlawful.

They don't have to formally recognise a union unless at least 30% of the employees are members - if a union is "recognised", then they have to be involved in pay negotiations etc and can put out ballots to strike in the case of disputes.

What they can't legally do is prevent someone from being a union member, or bringing a union rep to disciplinary meetings etc. My union rep was external to my employer's company, becausethe union wasn't recognised - but because they did it full-time, they were excellent at what they were doing when I was wrongly involved in a disciplinary, and I was very glad of their support.

I explained that really badly. I will have another try but I'm not sure it will be any clearer. They like to invent novel ways to keep their money and the language that goes with doing so is intentionally opaque. Hard to translate to more generally understood terms. Once it's in your head, it's hard to shift. You ought to see how they explain Statutory Sick Pay rules to avoid paying it. I'm not even going to attempt that one because my freaking brain will melt and so would yours. Let's just say my best friend who has worked there 25 years has gotten a grand total of 3 SSP days actually paid out, in 25 years. There's always some requirement they forgot to mention until the time limit has passed.

They are the same days off that get Bradford scored. Unplanned absences. There's only booked days off and unbooked days off. With this company those are the only two categories.
Absences of all types, any days not booked in advance. Good reason or none, same consequences.

Absence means lost pay for those days when they happen. But also, X number of absences over the year = the company keeps a day of your Christmas holiday pay. Y = they keep 2 days. Z = they keep 3 days of that holiday pay. And so on.
You still have to take the days off because the place is shut down but you don't get paid for those days. Nobody apart from the woman who does the wages knows what x, y and z actually are. There's not one employee getting their full Christmas holiday pay though.

All that are not booked off in advance are absence days.

There are fixed holidays the company chooses and some floating days you can choose to book in advance, as in annual leave.

You can't use floating holiday days to cover an absence. You can ask. You will be told to "fuck off".

Any day not booked off in advance means...
1, Loss of pay for the day.
2, Loss of a portion of your Christmas holiday pay.
3, Is Bradford scored.
4, Will result in a documented "interview" upon return to work where you must explain your/your dependants illness in enough detail to satisfy the MD's wife.

Here is an example, from the work's rules book, of one of their absence policies. (Not 100 percent exact, not digging that thing out, but it's close enough)
You can have time off for an emergency. However, if you have a disability/chronic illness or a disabled/chronically ill dependant, you are fully aware you/they are ill. Hence when you/they have any episode of illness requiring care you may not have time off. You can not claim it as an emergency when you already knew in advance that you/they were chronically ill or disabled. As you were already aware of any illness, you will be expected to have made sure alternative care was arranged in advance.

Boils down to:
You can have time off for an emergency but there is no such thing as an emergency so no time off.
So...
If a cancer sufferer has a heart attack, you should have known they'd have a heart attack because you knew they were "ill".

If that doesn't explain it, I can't do any better. I've developed a migraine of my own and feel sick now. Good thing it's Friday.

Don't be off more than 3 times a year.

If you're gonna take a day off then try and come back....you're better off taking 2-3 days because it scores similarly. Worse is the take Monday sick, work Tues, then take Weds sick etc.

It sounds like a way to push mothers who do not have a support network out of the workforce.

Well, actually, it can be considered discrimination against women given they are predominantly primary carers for children and relatives. Our work excludes (unpaid) leave for caring responsibilities on this basis.

It sounds awful- the whole culture. I think you need to get out

This is a thousand shades of illegal...

Do you not have a number of days that also triggers?

We have either 3 occasions or 10 working days.

Has anyone ever tried suing them?