Holiday photos on Facebook whilst off sick

[TeaAndBrie]

Really interested to hear opinions on this one.
Staff member off long term sick (fully paid as local gov) due to mental health issues, signed off by GP for 4 months so far.
staff member is friends with manager on Facebook.
staff member has been uploading photos of holiday abroad on Facebook.
i would not expect someone who is on LTS for mental health reasons to never leave the house etc
Holiday photos seem a bit much though - especially when manager and other colleagues who can see these pics are having to pick up all of the work whilst he is away.
YABU - let them have their holiday, it’s good for them!
YANBU - let them have the holiday but would be better to have have pics on SM

Work related PTSD is another. And in fact common in the NHS due to prolonged stress or assault.
I'm surprised this poster can't think of any reason someone would be off for 4 months - it can be much longer given that access to treatments can take years

Morally? And who is anyone to morally judge? If they are having time off due to MH which they are why can’t they go on holiday? I doubt there is anything in their contract to say otherwise.

@TeaAndBrie I should say by disclosing this private information about a member of your staff, especially as a manager you’re breaking GDPR rules by data breach. Information about this employee was given to you privately and you’ve decided to share this in a public platform. Although you haven’t outted the person publicly you’re morally wrong giving out their private health history. If I was this person and found out I would sue you and the company.

I probably wouldn’t post it on SM but only from prev experience
I had cauda equina with emergency surgery and someone saw me in the gym and reported it back to work. I was doing rehab with a PT I had paid privately for in order to try and get some strength back in my leg!
Was also out walking for the same reason so it probably looked bad I was wandering around nice flat walks with a coffee but all advised by the surgeon as recovery (ok not the coffee part)

Why the angry face it isnt a mental illness. Work related stress can cause poor mental health but poor mental health is not the same as a mental illness. Im sorry it makes you angry but it's a fact. The same that anxiety isnt a mental illness but anxiety disorder is.

Not much you can do. Hard to know if they are taking the piss or not. But to share a perspective you don’t see via SM, I have a mentally ill teenage DD and have taken her on holiday during a particularly tough patch. I posted some photos of her smiling on the beach on Facebook and to anyone else, it looked like she was having a great time on holiday. What I didn’t post were photos of her crying all the way there due to her anxiety, photos of her having panic attacks in the hotel room at night due to intrusive thoughts, her shaking in fear and clinging to me as I tried to walk her from the hotel to the beach. After the holiday, she said she knew it had been hard but she was grateful I got her there. There were some happy times in amongst a lot of stress which I managed to capture on camera, but she was very ill a lot of the time. I do still sympathise with how you feel though, stuck at work, covering for her. Personally I wouldn’t have put those photos up in her situation.

I agree with this not professional in my opinion either in fact I am not friends with many colleagues on SM. They are generally not friends but colleagues. Obey a few i class as friends and wabt them to view the few snippets I post about my personal life

Are they proactively doing anything to improve their mental health whilst they’re off? That’s a long time off…

She hasnt disclosed any private information by the sounds of it, reading on here loads of people are going off sick for months and then going on holiday.

But OP has broken GDPR rules by discussing personal employee health history, would you want to work for someone who did that? No, most people wouldnt, they’ve proven themselves to be untrustworthy. And? It comes down to their contract. If their contract doesn’t say anything about taking holidays whilst on the sick the employee can do what they want.

She hasnt said anything. If she said ben Smith from hull is off with depression for 6 months but he's posting pictures with his mates in magaluf. You would have a point. But she hasnt even said what's wrong with him/her. Their is absolutely zero chance of knowing who she is talking about even the op is anonymous.

The fact the op is even discussing the employees mental health status is breaking GDPR, this information was giving to them in confidentially, doesn’t matter if they are using a public forum and not giving a name they are still discussing an employees health history and discussing in detail their time off and holiday activities.

She has not broken GDPR. Re taking holidays when on sick leave employer should be notified of holiday intentions as if still at work.

https://www.acas.org.uk/checking-sick-pay/sick-pay-and-holiday-pay

It depends on your contract sweetie. And the op has broken GDPR rules, look it up. You honestly want a manager making a post about you because you’ve had time off, your lying if you say you would be fine with it. Hope the press pick up on this I’ll be waiting with my quote

Speak to HR.

You are wrong on both counts.

Press pick up on what that a significant amount of people go off sick and then go on holiday. It will just be another story slagging of people with poor mental health and will turn into benefit bashing story that further backs what the government is saying. Their will be zero link to this particular individual as their isnt one.

Take a day off 😖

Well if this thread is anything to go by, posting anything on Facebook while you're off work is fraught with danger.

I honestly didn't expect to see so much ignorance about mental illness, in 2025, particularly on a board which tends to be populated by middle class educated professionals.

It's deeply depressing, frankly.

I've found it difficult not to wish my late husband's breakdown on some people here, who clearly don't have the first clue, and whose attitude to the struggling colleagues that they manage is entirely unprofessional.

OP hasn’t been back either 😏

...relating an anonymized story generally does not breach the GDPR.

• GDPR Scope:
• The GDPR applies to personal data, which is information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person.
• Anonymization:
• Anonymization is the process of removing or altering data to prevent identification of individuals.
• Not Personal Data:
• When data is truly anonymized, it no longer relates to an identifiable individual and is therefore not subject to GDPR.

I’m a teacher. If a colleague is off sick it is down to the other teachers to set the cover work / teach the lessons. It is significantly more work for the other members of staff. There is no money to get cover staff in so we either have to increase our workload or let the kids suffer.

Maybe this is the case in some businesses but not in our school.

I’m not cross at the person for being off, I’m happy to put in the extra work whilst they recover. What I can’t stand are these people then boasting on SM about what a wonderful time they’re having, one colleague recently was putting up posts about how they’d had chance to redecorate their whole house with all their spare time. Whilst I’m too exhausted to even clean mine because of all the extra work of theirs I’ve picked up …

Op didn't say this person was off due to mental illness, she said they were off due to mental health issues.

Plus arguing semantics like this is pointless, because often there's a real interplay between stress and underlying MH issues and even op isn't likely to be privy to the details

I have PTSD but when I got signed off work a few years ago the Dr just put "work related stress" on my notes because he was very angry when he heard the story about how I had been treated at work and knew writing that would focus work's minds. And because that was the primary issue at that moment. But also they both interact with each other.

Don't follow them on social media then. Problem solved.
Unless they are genuinely your friends and you actually like and care about them its best not to follow them on social media.

And also, learn some boundaries and say you cannot do xyz. It took me a while to learn that at work but it's hugely important. And as a manager I need people to tell me if they cannot take on anymore, and then I need to decide what to prioritise

Yes it is better not to look but the actual solution is that people realise how insensitive their posts are and to demonstrate some discretion.

It is fine to post on sm just there are some boundaries and etiquette to observe when off sick. Knowing colleagues will be under more stress should indicate that you'd keep your holiday pics and socialising fun updates to a minimum?