AIBU to be fed up with colleagues repeatedly off sick?

[IngridsLittleToe]

I'm going to get my arse handed to me and I don't care. Sick staff....I'm so over feeling sympathetic. I'm not talking really sick staff...I'm talking repeated back ache/gynae problems/migraine/back ache/sore throat/cold/depression/back ache/sinusitis/cold/sore big toe....

They have been on repeated sickness absence management and pull it back from the brink each time. Only to start all over again. Years and years of this. The rest of the team have to pick up the pieces, cancel their jobs to cover someone else's and the sickie doesn't have any loyalty at all.

The whole time they are sick they manage to socialise and do a voluntary role. Any attempt to manage the sickness is met with claims of bullying and then they go sick with anxiety.

All on full pay.

AIBU to think they are shamelessly playing the system and should be sacked

Sorry to hear that but do you think it’s fair that your employer (or the tax payer if public sector) has paid for you not to work for years? That your colleagues have had to pick up the slack and have not been able to hire a replacement because they’re still employing you? How is that fair?

As a top rate tax payer who never takes a day off sick my blood is boiling at some of these stories. Sorry for anyone genuinely sick but at some point you need to do the decent thing, and for shirkers like the OP has described I hope karma bites them hard and fast.

I hear you OP. Absolutely dreading next month when the sick pay is paid from day one, at the moment there’s a three day waiting period and that does stop people from taking the random day off because they’ve been out the night before. Also doesn’t help when they are due to start at 3am and phone in, there’s no way we can cover at that time so everyone else picks up the slack.

This sort of problem will always exist and never be resolved. It sounds like that this is a job where it takes this sort of toll on staff like you OP, who mask their annoyance and disdain due to staff’s medical issues . Maybe it’s not the right role to be in anymore.

Sounds like being sick has become her job!

Nobody can afford run a business for long if they're constantly paying for staff who aren't there and hiring in temps to do the work of absentees.

We're not being asked to judge whether OP is telling the truth or whether the employee she refers to really is swinging the lead. We're being asked what we'd do IF that situation were the case.

You mean HR won’t deal with an individual that’s putting pressure on their colleagues and causing them issues. That seems like bullying!

I knew someone who played the system like this. Off all the time for 6 months then back when the time for full pay ran out. Was certificated but used to brag how they used to pull the wool over the docs eyes. Got the sack and a few people said that it wasnt fair, they were sacked after loads of warnings. I was surprised it went on so long. I think the person was surprised when their job was terminated which made me laugh.
Just do your job and tell management that as they don't pay you to do a two man job tell them you will just be doing your quoter.

I have a chronic health issue and have had multiple surgeries, but I don’t take the p with absences. Let’s be honest, there are many people who are off frequently, like this person, for a whole variety and mix of reasons which don’t appear genuine. That’s different than someone who is off now and then with a genuine illness. Sickness does impact on colleagues.

I have dismissed someone for sickness, and I didn’t feel bad as we found out she was moonlighting at a popular event, doing something that would have been impossible if her back was as bad as she said. She played the system for years (also public sector) and eventually it caught up with her and she was escorted off the premises.

Yes, as they never completed their plan. I’d re-start it after they returned.

SSP is a travesty for the genuinely ill but it'd sort these grifters out in a flash.

I work in construction and get paid well (although no better than a lot of middle management office jobs) but I'm on SSP so get nothing for three days then a princely £100ish a week.

If I sprained my ankle etc I'd probs try and hobble in and just take it steady rather than lose the money. It'd take a lot for me to sacrifice a grand to sit in bed.

I used to get wound up about it and now I don’t. It’s just the system. Maybe they are the smart ones and I’m the mug.

There is an easy way to quantify genuine illnesses vs shirkers and it’s the difference in absence rates in organisations that pay full pay and those that are nil pay/SSP. Of course there will be some people who are going to work when they are really too ill to work but not enough to count for the difference.

The only solution appears to be set absence tolerance points that strictly cannot be exceeded without losing a job. Maybe over a rolling 2-3 year period. would be very unfair for those with genuine illnesses but there’s no other way that would work. And work is not a charity to support sick people beyond what is reasonable. People would still use the absences up to the tolerance point but it would be a clear way to deal with the people who manage decades of part time work in the public sector whilst taking full time pay and affecting their whole team.

Frankly the OP and whoever agrees with them need to f off, so offensive and no idea what it's like living with a chronic condition.

Well lucky you. But things can flip on a dime.

I was in the public sector. The HR teams are a joke they enable a lot of sickness issues as they have no backbone. I was told I should adopt a more trusting attitude towards habitually sick staff.
I managed a lot of staff and tried performance managing several so called ‘sick’ people like the one you described OP.

They would go to Occupational Health Assessments and self diagnose with no medical input whatsoever.
So just on the staff members say so we would put in all sorts of supposedly ‘ reasonable’ adjustments ( imho totally unreasonable) such as starting work at 10, having regular breaks, not having to do certain tasks within their role that may cause anxiety. It was a joke and so demoralising for those who do not have the gall to behave in a similar way.
im no longer doing that role and i can say my mental health has improved tremendously since being away from there.

I've taken 1.5 days of sick leave in the last ten years. When my Dad died, I took two days of annual leave and then went back to work. (Not recommended, by the way, I might have been slightly better adjusted now if I'd taken the compassionate leave and gone on a very long walk).

But I find it hard to get annoyed about people who make extensive use of their employer's sickness policies without apparently being very sick.

So much work is trivial and insignificant, and our lives are short. I know I sometimes come close to crying with boredom at my desk in the morning.

In my last role, we built a large company intranet to specifications which had been changed at the last minute. Six months later, senior management changed their minds, and decided we needed to go back to the original plan. Nullifying a large part of the work we'd done, including stuff I'd spent evenings and Saturdays on.

I think of Bartleby the Scrivener "I would prefer not to" and the poet Cavafy barely pretending to work.

Why do some people have to take everything so personally? This clearly wasn't aimed at anyone with genuine illness. I had a couple on my team with regular absence from long term conditions and the difference in their attitudes and that of the shirker was night and day. It's obvious when someone is swinging the lead.

It's also hilarious to think that managers know nothing about their team and the reality of what's happening. Not to mention the fact that you can get a sick note these days by just requesting one online at a lot of practices, they often mean nothing except a box ticking exercise.

I don’t think OP was necessarily saying that the illnesses in the list were not valid - just that the system now means that anyone can self-certify that they have them, so they are being used as a loophole by some individuals.

I do think that long term sick pay should only be given where a GP and consultants have diagnosed and signed off - I think self-certification should not be permitted. It was introduced because GPs were inundated with appointments filled by sicknote requesters and were also getting abuse for either being too liberal or refusing to issue them. The NHS/government simply kicked the sicknote ball back into the employers court. It means that people who genuinely DO have illnesses like depression/anxiety are a) having respect and understanding for their illnesses eroded and b) if they are self-certifying they may not be getting the help or therapy referrals they need to scaffold them back into wellness and FT employment.

I agree with OP that we have gone too far the other way. There should be a more reasonable maximum employer liability for sickness - a max of 6m where signed off by a professional and only 5 days per year for self certified illness. Employers cannot afford this any more on top of business rates, NI etc and ultimately it is employees who lose out due to increased workloads, hiring freezes and stagnating pay.

The welfare state and the laws around fair employment practices were about providing a safety net, not to provide a prolonged living arrangement. The staff member OP is discussing should after this length of time be fired and need to sign on for benefits. My DH has found that where he has had a couple of employees like this (just two i think over a 35 year management career), when it gets to the legal process and a deep background check, that they have done the same to previous employers. It is usually a pattern - but employers are not allowed to mention attendance in references or forewarn when approached by prospective employers. [In one case a past employer DID call and have an off the cuff conversation to try and alert a colleague, but HR could not take it into account as it was not officially reported and the job had already been offered.]

All it does is make employers jaded and less supportive to future employees who warrant empathy. We should all have a vested interest in making the system better and ensuring genuinely sick people get the best and fullest support by the NHS and their employees.

I think it sounds exhausting for all of you but her too. I can’t imagine life being all about whether I feel I can make into work to talk to people about how I don’t feel able to work- and I am exhausted and do push myself into work no matter what. Sounds like a depressing existence

You flip between she & they - are we talking about multiple people on your team? Because that would be even more annoying.

And if one person is taking the piss that’s unfair both on the people picking up the slack & on anyone on the teak who has genuine health problems & is getting tarred with the same brush.

Oh well have one of these too and yes, it's infuriating and has a massive impact on everyone else.

It pisses me off immensely as this person is supposedly full time but has so much going on in their life (not related to work and some of it their own choices) but even when not sick they never work the hours.

Meanwhile I pick up the slack only being paid part time because I have caring responsibility that makes full time work impossible. I know it can't be fitted into my life, that's why I get a much lesser wage and yet this person is allowed to carry on year after year collecting a much larger wage for a fraction of the work.

Had the same but in teaching. He’d be in for a day then self certify himself off for the maximum time, then would get signed off with stress, whilst undergoing competency procedures and clearly trying to avoid being let go.

Took a year and different management to oust him. Meanwhile, I juggled groups to ensure exam classes didn’t suffer. It was a nightmare, I had to set/mark all work for his groups and mine.

I am a manager in private sector and I have several of these. It’s really demotivating the rest of the team as they see nothing being done about them either. It’s a massive problem which affects the whole team.

More fool you then. It's up to SLT to sort this out, not you as the class teacher. The school would have been collecting insurance money as he was off long term, which they should have used to pay for a decent long term supply.

That's good, I feel like lots of posters are able to identify this behaviour as part of a wider poor performance, and could be effectively managing people out of the business based on these other factors. But I know its a long process and could be gruelling for managers.