Off sick for years

[BoredandStuck]

Someone I work with has been off work sick for over two and a half years now. That seems a really long time without them being sacked or let go. Has anyone else come across anything similar or longer?

Sorry to hear about your SILs illness but you could imagine what you like about her work being covered by an extra employee but in a lot of cases it simply isn't,which is the OPs point.

The post is filled by the person on sick so the employer often won't take on someone else or can't if the work is too specialised. So usually the rest of the team is expected to cover.

OP I was off long term sick on group income protection when I had cancer. Be very, very grateful your company offers this - not all do. Your colleague will be having regular insurance check ins, constantly reviewing medical records, calls etc so I wouldn’t doubt that they need to be off.

Your issue here is no one is covering workload. I had a temp set up before I’d even left. That’s what you raise to your manager; leave your colleagues illness out of it.

@BoredandStuck My sister got the same in the secondary school she works in. Science teacher has been ill for 6 years- not put a foot in school. They don't have the right to replace her until the beginning of each term which means there is no Science teacher for the months it takes to find a replacement. It's crazy.

10 years!

Why would you not ? Unless you decided to post on a public internet forum about it rather than actually consult with your manager if it was having that much of an impact on your own daily work load ?

One of my best friends was signed off sick for 4 years before eventually dying of cancer. She worked for an amazing company with a truly wonderful insurance policy so was able to get access to all sorts of experimental procedures and such. I think she was on half pay after a year but had full pay for a full year which is amazing.

I don't know how her workload was handled - I assume they had someone in to cover her work, but technically the job was still hers if she'd have been able to return so I don't know how it was managed.

I work at a University and would have nowhere near this level of protection so i was so pleased for her that with everything else she had going on, she wasn't worried about paying her mortgage (her husband quit his job to be her full-time carer)

Ive never heard of employer income protection or anyone being off sick for so long.
But OP what an amazing company benefit, she must be very ill and its great your company have this in place.
What isnt great is that they havent filled her role with at least a rolling temporary contract .
People often say local government /nhs etc have the best sick pay but I work for my local council and believe me noone would be off sick for 5 years , let alone be paid where I work!

In the NHS, employees can get up to six months full pay and then six months half pay ( in a rolling 12 months) and then it is zero pay but their job can be kept open for up to 12 months, after which a plan for return or medical retirement needs to be agreed. No insurance and so for the first 12 months, there may be no cover as the employee is still being paid. This does impact teams of course.
In this case, it sounds as though the company should be employing someone on a temporary basis to cover at this point.

Yes it can happen

Yes but that’s not what the poster I quoted was talking about

If they’re getting the income protection insurance then they’re not costing your employer anything in terms of salary so they should have that money spare to pay someone else temporarily. Sounds like your employer is taking advantage of the situation to save money, whilst you and your team take up the slack. That’s not fair. Raise it with management or HR.

You absolutely can legally sack someone for being ill.

A colleague has had more time off than she’s been at work for 2 years. We are all covering her hours and working so bloody hard. She came in yesterday to ‘say hello’ she said she’s been for a walk, haircut and lunch with her sister! She laughed as she told us that she won’t be seeing us for a while. How she hasn’t been sacked yet I don’t know!

"Girl"?

Not to go all “Communist Manifesto” on you, but this really is one of the situations where bad businesses turn employees against each other. You should be frustrated with your company for not filling with a temporary contract, especially when it’s obviously long term sickness by now, and they have insurance so they won’t be effectively paying two employees, if affordability is an issue. As for your sick colleague, I am someone’s sick colleague who has been off a year. But my bosses have definitely not tried to offload my work to other employees; they sought someone to fill my position temporarily.

In the NHS they would be medically retired if off for so long and couldn’t return to work within their current role. They get 6 months full pay, 6 months half pay if employed for more than 5 years - its tapered up to 5 years. No pay after 1 year other than ssp, we would have OH involvement throughout.

The problem with ‘backfilling’ the role is then your paying the person off sick AND the person backfilling- even if on a temporary contract, you have salary, pension, sick pay for that person to cover as well. I do understand the pressure it puts on the team though, unfortunately being public sector we don’t back fill any posts, even maternity for the above reasons. We simply don’t have the budget.

As already noted the issue isn't so much whether the sick employee remains on headcount as the need for the employer to mitigate for their absence.

Again that's on your management not on her . They ought To make sure there is cover and when there arent enough staff they ought to find ways to reduce workload

Depending on the reason for being off it is not unreasonable to go for a walk or go out for lunch. And we all need haircuts. In fact the more unwell I am the more regularly I have to go to the hairdressers because I might not even be able to manage to wash my own hair.

Oh don’t be so ridiculous. Op needs to talk to her manager . She clearly has an issue with her workload - so she talks to them about it. A colleague off sick is not the talking point- it is the workload she is picking up. For that - you talk to your employer. The colleague being off and whether they’re going to be sacked is none of her business. She has worded her first post very well though to make it look like that - I’ll give her credit for that.
🙄

It’s not really a post for sm. None of us knows the circumstances.

Sounds like they have basically shrunk the team by not replacing the sick person, and if you complain about being overworked they say “But Ethel is SICK” to shut down the discussion.
You should have a discussion again about being overworked and there being too much work for the size of the team, irrespective of someone being out sick.

It boils my piss when people think like this.

Are you supposed to be a bloody hermit when off sick?

My husband has been off sick for two and a half years. There's no way he's going back. He had a stroke and he can barely remember anything, let alone do figures. But he has income protection so he is still technically employed.
They really need to recruit someone else to do the work.

It's one of the reasons the NHS is so fucked.

I haven't come across anyone being off that long - they would normally have been let go on capability grounds by one route or another before that stage, medical retirement might be appropriate depending on age/condition.