As a line manager can I demand to see someone's Facebook pages?

[MaryMotherOfCheeses]

Because someone who works with me took three days off recently due to "a stomach bug".

I've been told her Facebook pages say she went away for a few days and got pissed with her friends.

Assuming she doesn't own up when I confront her, can I insist on seeing her Facebook pages? If there's no such stuff on there, why would she hide it?

What do you think?

I don't think you can demand to see her facebook pages but I don't see why you shouldn't approach her about it. When she returns to work can you not say something along the lines of 'concerned she is sick so much, is she having problems at work, you have heard rumours she is not really ill'. I guess if she's really determined she will just say she was ill but its got to be worth a try.

Interesting that lots of people on the thread seem to think its fine for her to pretend to be sick

I would avoid though the suggestion of asking another colleague who is a friend of hers on FB for evidence. This puts the colleague in a very difficult/uncomfortable postion (I know I've been there) even if they don't approve of what she is doing.

in the states you don't get sick pay.

You get an allocation of days you can have off either as holiday or sick and anything more than that you don't get paid.

We're lucky in this country.

Responding to the OP only- I think that although you may discover interesting things from your employee's FB pages, the evident prying may damage staff morale. The more sensible option in my view would be to remind the whole team, either during a routine meeting or a specially called one, that abusing sick leave is a very serious disciplinary matter, and leave it at that. Name no names, point no fingers. If she has been taking the piss, she ought to feel extremely guilty and never do it again, and all her colleagues who know what she did (or didn't) will know what the meeting is about, and she will know that you know. That ought to be enough, unless she is a complete psychopath.

WannaBe - I think theres a lot to be said for the USA system. Holiday and sick pay are killing small businesses here.

tbh, I think an american system is pretty undesirable...

We no longer have access to fb at work. Probably a good thing as colleagues of mine seemed to spend their time doing nothing else. Have never seen the appeal personally.

When I worked in the USA I took time off sick and got paid and didn't have to use holiday allowance. I think it depends what job you have. I was an attorney so also had double the holiday allowance of my secretary which I thought was very odd.

Video evidence of someone jogging etc when meant to be sick? Only of RIPA approved and warranted.

Oh gosh poor OP I think we all hoped this had died a discrete death last night.

As a line manager myself I find some of the comments on here unbelievable. If you honestly think that you have a right to take a certain proportion of sick days a year, and that its somehow justifiable to have days off because you don't get on with your manager, then no wonder the UK is in the state it is.

Paid sick leave is for sick people. The OPs member of staff was off getting pissed whilst allegedly sick. This came ot the OPS attention and as a Line Manager she has been lied to. How on earth is it bullying to want to do something about it ?

For the record I hate FB now, it seems to cause so much ructions in real life. One of my team is on it but I haven't asked him to be my friend and I have no intention of looking at his page, because he is a member of staff not a friend and to me the two things need to be kept distinct and separate.

In the days when Ofsted used to give schools a fair bit of inspection notice, we speculated if a certain colleague would be in school (often off Fri/Mon & missed parents eves etc) and predictably she wasn't, causing the rest of the humanities dept extra stress in a very stressful week.

Unfortunately for her, a school party of our students bumped into her at Gatwick. She & her family were were off to Spain for the week!

Wow heated - she was well and truely busted! Did she get the sack?

Yes, she left at the end of the term - having been off much of the rest of it through 'stress' - probably genuine this time, given staff and students were laughing at her. She has family in Spain and said that when she was ill she went home But she had enough chutzpah to come back for her leaving present!

In my last job, my line manager used to call me and say "I've woken up in another town and can't remember how I got here, make something up for me if the main boss visits, and can you pick me up a pregnancy test for me for tomorrow?".

Man, I used to have LOADS to talk about in those days.

We do have the US system here is employers choose it. Any new business or employer can off no sick pay (just SSP which you get after day 3). I know people of businesses I work with who only offer that. It certainly gets your nanny back quickly if she's not paid when she's off sick or any other workers. Soon sorts the sheep from the goats.

sorry what is SSP [dim emoticon]

statutory sick pay

oh right, thanks...

so, it is only initial short term sick, without Doctors notice that is unpaid?

You get three days unpaid and then a low level of money from the benefits.

still kinda shit if you are really ill....

As someone who actually has been off on long term sick - for genuine reasons - I'm pretty shocked at the vitriol directed towards the OP! If you are well enough to go into work then you go in, end of.

People DO take the piss with sick leave.

FWIW I agree with those who've said this stupid girl will trip herself up eventually. Just give her enough rope and let her hang herself.

I have videoed and had surveillance on long term sickie takers - and that was in public sector. And yes, RIPA approved to.

OP - YANBU to ask your question. I think it's a shame that you can't ask for FB access but if there's any way your source could show you the information you seek then I would exploit that.

In answer to those who think I was harsh, fair enough I was maybe a little personal, the ops post touched an extremely raw nerve.

I worked my a**e off for the NHS for years, staying late doing 14 hr days regularly grafting like you wouldn't believe, went from junior staff nurse to senior sister in 18 months working in forensic mental health which is a tough area. Due to me fairly getting promotions over other frankly inept and lazy members of staff I was bullied by management for 2 years at first covertly, then very openly. My social life was monitored I was told not to be friends with other members of staff, lies and rumours were spread about me, malicious gossip and I was given the xmas and new year on-call 3 years consecutively, had annual leave cancelled at the last minute etc.etc.

In all that time I never went of sick, cancelled a shift nothing, because I didn't want to let people down. I evetually got another more senior post again somewhere else, was gutted because i loved that patient group (young offenders) but i had to do it for the sake of my own sanity. Being sick through anxiety on the way into work every morning and weighing 7.5 stone at 5'8" wasn't healthy.

The GP diagnosed me with panic and severe anxiety, I couldn't sleep or eat, was signed off for 2 weeks with stress the end bit of my notice. At some points I was suicidal.

Even though the people I work with are pleasant enough now, the experiene has affected me for life, after every weekend or day off I can't sleep that night due to worry about what I might come into.

The popel who harrass us now are our patients parents on occassion, threatening to complain about us if we won't give them the diagnosis they want, solicitors etc. Everytime someone has a family like this they go off sick for a bit because we get a sympathetic ear but no constructive support with this harrassment. We may well get quite pissed as well, becausee our heads are hammered with stress.

This is the nature of public sector work, the employee may be out of order, but I still feel demanding access to her fb is intrusive and tantamount to harrassment.

YANBU-if she is silly enough to put it on FB then theres a good chance you're going to find out isn't there, I would definately have a chat with heer about it, at least she'll be aware that you know, may be some deterrent.

you couldn't demand to see someone's text messages, so I really don't see how you could demand to see FB.

Well FWIW, I disagree with a lot of posters on ths thread.

A facebook account is nowhere near as private as bank statements or text messages.

While I agree that the OP cannot demand to see this persons' FB pages (a fact that she has already acnowledged), I do think that as long as the correct procedures are being followed, there would be nothing wrong with bringing to her employees' attention that she is aware that she may not have been too sick to not go out socialising during her last episode of sick leave.

I would be interested to hear what HR have to say on this matter!

don't go there, i know the people who work for me have a facebook group i don't look at it!