Once we are 'back to normal' what needs to happen about employees being absent because of covid

[StealthPolarBear]

Have seen a rumour, nothing substantiated, that London underground will treat covid absence like any other and staff will be subject to disciplinary.
This seems really short sighted, as it will lead to infected people lying and coming to work anyway.
But I do have some sympathy with employers who do need people at work.
What's the answer? Suppose the answer is to not open up, which I personally think isn't an option at this stage.

@Ifitquacks

I asked my boss if we would hire a non-vaccinated person at work. We are a small team, 8 people all on their way to double vaccinated

Will you be asking the vaccination status of everyone who applies? Is it just the Covid vaccination you’re interested in, or will you be asking for their full vaccination history? MMR? HPV?

We’ll be able to take a guess.

You joke, but I’ve had to proof vaccination for Hep B to work with blood samples.

Prove* eugh

Coming into work doesn't spread hpv! Unless you're a government minister

@Ifitquacks
It’s fairly unlikely they will be ill with Covid repeatedly. Especially if vaccinated.

Unfortunately, regardless of how unwell or vaccination status, currently if positive with covid, you cannot attend work. So if this element continues, there could be repercussions as there could be the possibility of someone in theory catching it every 4 months. Off for 10 days, straight onto performance management due to sickness absence. Add in that this could be on top of the usual conditions they suffer and typical seasonal bugs, this could be really significant. Especially, when you add in that if they've been working from home, so may well have suffered less health issues due to being distanced from people and working with illnesses they may not have managed if in the office/commuting.

@SpiderinaWingMirror

People will come in and spread it. That's exactly what will happen in my air hanger of an office. Although its financial services, there is zero company sick pay. And no intention to change that. Also lots of first jobbers. No way are they just going to stay at home and not get paid.

This is what worries me about social care. Unless the government introduce some kind of payment to care workers above SSP permanently for care workers who test positive for covid, then many will continue to go to work because they cannot afford to be off, because the majority of care workers don't get sick pay above SSP, and can't afford to put their jobs at risk, but the group they work with are very high risk, even when vaccinated.

How do people feel about that scenario, considering the large public support for mandatory vaccination for covid?

I really hope people don't lay that at care workers feet too, basically expecting that they get pushed into debt or financial hardship because of 'duty of care'. I suspect it'll be the case though, as it's always been the case before covid with other things like colds and flu.

I’d really hope that our attitude to sickness improves. I’d like to see SSP start from day one and be 100% for 5 days and cover the self employed.
I’d like for as many people as possible to WFH if they have a cold.
I’d like absence rates to stop being used to judge schools where it relates to sickness.
I think we had a fairly crap attitude before.
But when I was teaching we basically were expected to be on death’s door before ringing in sick, I memorably recall being sick into a bin, popping to the loo to clean it and myself up leaving the TA in charge and continuing teaching.

People being off work through covid has impacted our entire team negatively. Essential retail, physical job and open all the way through

Customers are snarky rude and actually abusive when we haven’t got enough staff to cover or can’t get our stock on the shelves due to isolating/testing positive/jab side effects. They actually say ‘ don’t you dare quote covid as an excuse’

Our mental health is in a bad way from this. And we have had to work in a physical capacity wearing masks all the way through. Parents off for isolating children doesn’t tend to go down well as we all have to work extra hard unfortunately

@Myrrfect

Covid has left several people I know (and me) with some persistent symptoms, not “long covid” but not right. What about those cases? People who don’t recover immediately and show symptoms for several months...

If I'll enough to not be able to work they will be signed off work by the doctor.

I was signed off absence for 7 weeks. As I was able to work from home part time my doctor agreed to me having a phased return. Then the next lockdown happened and schools went online so I worked from home anyway (my job meant being home to do it was the best option plus I am CV) - had those not be possible I would have possibly be signed off for longer.

It was still treated as a normal absence by my employer in many ways.

For the initial 10 days I was directed to the online Covid isolation absence note that you download - email I got when testing positive directed me to it.

@StealthPolarBear

Yes I think I agree I wouldn't go out of my way to spend time with someone who has covid but I accept its inevitable.

I'd keep my distance the same as I would of someone I knew had a heavy cold or other virus. I don't want any heavy cold, flu, tummy bug, etc if I can avoid it.

But if they are well enough to work, especially if can't work from home, I suspect it will be the norm to continue working.

Tbh we probably do need an overhaul of the expectation to work when feeling ill to an extent. Ideally no one should be in work spreading their bugs about when ill. Now that many places have managed to figure out wfh when that ought to be an option for people feeling ill, with monitoring if it is happening 'too much.'

I work for London Underground and luckily it looks like they have backtracked on this idea. In my opinion it's too soon.

It's a fairly strict attendance policy anyway, in that two 'items' of absence in 6 months will trigger a disciplinary with a 'warning' (usually a 6 month warning) and if you are absent again within that time you go onto a higher level of disciplinary. The thing is, is that they don't differentiate in the length of the absence so even one day off will trigger an 'item'.
You could have a day off with a dodgy stomach and then a day off with toothache and you would trigger the first level. Likewise you could have 3 months off with stress and then a week off with a cold and trigger the same level of disciplinary.

Any items of absence related to covid or vaccine side effects have so far sat outside this policy but this has been extremely difficult for staffing levels. One driver/controller testing positive can cause several colleagues who were in the same control room/canteen/messroom to have to isolate. That's life, but obviously TfL need to run as full a service as possible to enable social distancing of passengers (and secure bailouts).