Colleague constantly ringing in sick

[StuckHurtDone]

And I mean constantly… at least a week per month! Not that age matters but she’s a young adult ~21 and has been with the company for around 9months. She is part of two teams at work, but prefers one team, and strays to the other side even when she’s meant to be working on the other If that makes sense?
for background…. She is part of a wealthy family (who are clients of ours) and has made it clear that she ‘does not need the money’ in the sense that her wages are ‘play’ money, and she also gets an allowance from her partner monthly!
nobody’s financial situation is anything to do with me, I understand that! BUT…. She is having such a detrimental effect on our workload. Managers just seem to accept it… but I have worked myself to the bone the last 2 days and am done in knowing she will now be off the rest of the week, and having to work 2 people’s jobs!
coupled with the sickness she is late EVERYDAY,
something I’ve bought up every single time she’s late… but I just get told ‘it’s noted’ but nothing is done about it. She costs us at least an hour every week in lateness and yet everyone else busts a ball to be on time (early most of the time!).
she has 2 managers as she works cross dept, but none of which want to pursue any complaints…. Do I go to HR myself?

id like to add that if someone is genuinely sick I get it, it can’t be helped, but there’s patterns and preventable in my opinion. I have no problem with someone being off sick, I myself was off sick last year for around 4 weeks, but this was supported by a drs note, and due to a mental breakdown (nothing to do with work). These sickness episodes are for around a week a time, and always trivial….

Don't work two people's jobs. Do your usual workload.

And tell your manager "I cannot cover Sally's job. I am too busy doing my own job."

Make this your manager's problem. If you do the job, they don't have a problem. If you start refusing to cover for her, then they will, and they'll have to do something about it.

It's not her sickness that's causing you a problem - it's the managers' expectations that you will pick up the slack.

The issue and solution lies with your manager and sending your focus there should be helpful. Note the impacts as a result of being short staffed, keep it factual. Tell him/her what workarounds you have tried and explain why they are not working. Ask them if they would like to re-prioritise your work or if they have another idea.

If the answer is ‘you will have to do all the work and I have no further plan’ then you start polishing your CV. Sorry. Been there.

She is irrelevant.

Why are you compensating for her absence? If things don't get done, that's management's problem.

By effectively working the extra, you are masking the issue. Why would they address anything when they don't have a problem - you are preventing any problems but picking up the workload? You are the one with the problem until you start making it their problem by just doing your job and not compensating, it won't be addressed.

BUT…. She is having such a detrimental effect on our workload.

No, that'd be your manager.

This is what it always boils down to. Your manager is letting her take the piss out of the company, while your manager takes the piss out of you.

Stop doing other people's jobs and from now on stick to what you should be doing.

I completely get that I need to stop doing 2 people’s jobs, and I’d like to say I could, but I’m a very demanding job, where things can not be left to another day, so by 12pm I feel like I’ve worked 100hours! I have consistently gone to management, but it’s brushed over, so do I now escalate to HR?

What industry are you in? Unless you are a surgeon performing a life saving operation, then you can just do your job and say you don’t have capacity to do two jobs

I assume she is a peer rather than your junior? If she's a peer, you need to raise the issue of workloads to management (with proposed solutions) and stop voluntarily running yourself into the ground.

Is she employed to keep the client sweet? If so, there's nothing you (or your manager) can do other than give her busy work (like photocopying or creating powerpoints that are never used) and spread the rest of the work throughout the team. If the team isn't big enough to manage the extra workload, then you either need to hire another person, or manage timelines and deliverables with clients in a different way.

If she is supposed to be treated as any other employee, then do so (and perhaps her family want this? They might think she needs a kick up the arse and an employer will have more of an effect than they will). Her manager should be managing by making sure she's aware of roles and responsibilities, has KPIs and accountability etc., then apply coaching/training and, where necessary, enforcing the disciplinary policy.

Edited: Sorry, I see you have repeatedly gone to management and nothing has changed. But what have you said? Have you said the team isn't currently large enough to manage workloads and you either need more people or to extend the timeline for deliverables? What are you hoping HR will do?

So what would happen if both you and coworker were sick the same day?

If you keeping going the way you are, you will be because you'll end up suffering from burn out.

They don't appear to have a contingency plan as you are providing it for them.

She is part of a wealthy family (who are clients of ours)

I suspect there's your answer. The clients have put pressure on your company to employ her but she's just playing at it. Which may be all her family wants her to do too.

But nothing will happen, however much she's off, however late she is, because the company don't want to lose the clients.

It. Is. Not. Her. Problem.

Your work load is between you and your manager. If you can’t sort it out between you then ask HR to help.

How your manager deals with sickness absence of a team member is between them and the team member. You just need to be clear that you can’t pick up the work.

I agree with this.

There's someone like this where I work but I refuse to pick up their role when they aren't here as to be honest I really don't know where I'd find the time anyway. I just do my job, then go home and make it their problem.

It is annoying though op, I get it, people that do this are inconsiderate and lack integrity.

Just concentrate on your workload- email at start of day to manager
I have these three tasks to complete A, B and C. There are two outstanding tasks D and E that are colleagues. I will not be able to cover all of this today and will do it in this order ABC and E then D - this means D only being done next week.
Let me know if you want me to change the priority.

But it's not your problem if things have to get left to another day because she's off sick. It's your manager's.

Work at your usual pace and when things don't get done on time "that's because Sally was off sick".

You're letting them brush it over by martyring yourself to do all the work. Make it their problem.

You are making this woman’s absences your business when they really aren’t.

Just do your own work and nothing else. If you carry on bitching to management about her, you are going to make yourself very unpopular. Nobody likes a grass.

Head down and focus on your work and nothing else.

Unfortunately, or fortunately for me… I work In the veterinary industry. We obviously have daily tasks that need to be completed, but we generally work on a day by day basis. We are currently in our busiest season (large animal… spring… lambing….) so if a vet (or a director more important!) calls in demanding certain drugs be ordered or researched then we have to jump to it! So it’s not a case of saying tomorrow I won’t be able to do X, as we simply do not know what X is! For example I spent 75% of my working day assigning a certain vaccine to farmers, (that has been out of stock for a month and is detrimental to farmers!) ensuring they have the correct amount of doses, the right route of administration and that we have the enough storage for said medicine! So my ‘usual’ day to day jobs has gone out of the window!! And no capacity to do anything else! Once the manager appears, it’s a question. Of why x,y,z hasn’t been done and then blame for prioritising things that NEED to be prioritised?!

yes, technically she is ‘junior’ in terms of length of service, but we are both on the same pay, we have the same responsibilities, we have the same managers.

in respective of her family and my company… they are long standing clients prior tk her being employed, and I know it will continue so no loss of business. Her being employed doesn’t have any effect on the relationship with client and us, except she can transport medicines back to her base, without the farm having to spare someone to come and collect them if that makes sense?

Be careful OP - if you keep making waves by complaining to management and HR you'll become the problem to them rather than her. I totally get your frustration but you need to be careful how you express it as it could look like bullying if you keep up.

As others have said , you need to just do your own workload and nothing more.

You have a managerial problem if your not her manager I wouldn’t go to HR. Go to your managers make it their problem. It’s not your place to comment on those who are late or off if you are not their direct manager. It does sound annoying though. The managers should be dealing with it.

So what’s the problem? You can account for your time. It’s managers responsibility to reallocate duties.

If there is too much work that’s not your problem. You just do your hours and leave.

Is this in the UK. If it is a large business then they have HR in place already to deal with this. When a person comes back to work they conplete a fit to return form. After 3 occassi9ns or sickness more then 7 days HR eill call a meeting.

She may have disclosed a sickness or disability at interview or upon acceoting the rooe and HR and Managmebt have acce9ted the condition. I used to work for HR and there are special allowamces for l9ng term health issues depending on JD and HR discretion.
You might not know the whole picture and it isn't for you to go snooping. You may get in massive trouble.

Have others on your team raised these issues? If enough of you have provided feedback then perhaps they might take action. It is also possible there is more to this issue than you are aware of.

I have a similar situation at work. I and my colleagues find it really stressful as we don’t have the kind of job that you can catch up on. So the stress of a particular colleague always calling in sick does impact our day and workload and is very stressful. We are effectively a healthcare call centre so when we’re one person down, the impact is on us and patients that are waiting for us to answer their calls/queries and we have to take the frustration of patients, due to her absences causing the phone queues to be even longer than they already are when fully staffed. It’s been going on 18 months. She’s not done a full week in those 18 months.

aside from other person being off sick, the other 2 are managers. They constantly tell me that it’s ‘noted’ and will be discussed with her, but it never is, and if it is it’s clearly not made any difference (based on her lateness!). I’d like to think that this latest ‘sickness’ will trigger something but based on experience I don’t think it will. In regards to those saying it might be a long term illness that has been divulged to hr and management, this is not the case. Reasons for sickness vary, always‘minimal’ issues… and the reason I know is because in order to report our illness we report via WhatsApp to our manager/team so therefore the reason is there for everyone to see

Start asking your manager to help, on a regular basis, if she is off sick.

"Hi Fred, I'm really sorry to ask this but is there any chance that you can come and give us a hand at base A today? We're trying to distribute the x vaccines urgently but we're short staffed".

"Hi Fred, I've got 15 emails from vets this morning asking for drugs to be distributed but I have only got time to get 10 out. Would you be free to help for a couple of hours or do we send these late? So sorry to put this on your plate but I'm the only person in today"

"Hi Fred, Just a quick message to see if there is any chance that we can get some sort of temp in tomorrow to stand on the counter and sort people as they come in? I know that's expensive, and normally Sophie and I would manage this between us, but she's been off all week and we're massively behind"

@simpledeer grass? You sound like a 10 year old. Grow up darling.

Until you turn your attention to the managers and your own actions in response to being short staffed then this won’t get resolved. Who she is, her age, her connections and the nature of her illnesses are have no bearing on you getting this fixed.