How many sick days per year do you think is reasonable?

[Earlybird]

How many sick days per year do you think is reasonable?

I've been following the news of the possible 2 day strike by British Airways cabin crew next week. At this point, BA has cancelled 1300 flights next week in anticipation of the strike going ahead. The dispute is over the policy regarding sick leave policy and pay. The average worker currently takes off 12 days per year due to illness, which is a vast improvement to 15 months ago when, under their old absence policy (and their previous chief executive), the average worker was out due to illness for 22 days per year.

Don't know what I'm expecting people to say, but I'm aghast to think their workforce (accidentally typed "workfarce" ) is so unhealthy - and/or so unhappy - that they have such a large number off work due to illness. Your thoughts?

I think as many sick days as the person is actually sick is reasonable. If it runs into extended periods (months of recovery after an accident, or a serious acute illness, for example) most companies have protocols to follow, and these extreme circumstances are also covered in law.

Otherwise I don't think employers have any right at all to restrict the number of days somebody is sick - it's illness fgs, you can't schedule it. One of the hazards of employing human beings, I'm afraid.

whatever the number that is deemed reasonable, some people will swing the lead, some won;t and some will have to take many many more due to unforseen circumstances. some people take a day off with a snuffle, where as others will go in with raging illness !

as greeny says, tis the nature of employing human beings !

It's porbably not as straightforward as tihs as just looking at the numbers.

Are cabin staff encouraged or discouraged from going to work if, say, they have a heavy cold? Would you want to be served by someone who is full of the cold and blowing thier nose all the time?

Add to that the re-cycling of air in the plane's cabin, then the cabin crew could be passing on/catching things regualrly.

That could be the reason for the increased absence.

How does it compare to other airlines? Do they have similar absence rate for cabin crew? if so, it could be a function of the environment.

Well, that depends very much on the job, doesn't it?

While I could certainly attend a desk job with a heavy cold (and I get 5 or 6 of those a year) I wouold not dream of turning up at a SCBU as a nurse.

I can well imagine cabin crew on airlines have more sickness than average

1. every time they fly they are breathing recycled air with every passenger's potential viruses swirling around. It's a really unhealthy workplace IMO
2. long-haul is known to be bad for the health because of repeated jet lag and alterations to body clocks
3. flying is stressful full stop. Drunken passengers, BA's shocking recent form, post 9/11 anxieties - I bet their stress levels have soared.

I suspect cabin crew have to take more time off sick than most of us, after all, these are people in a very confined space, sharing the same air, who are off on holiday. I'd be v v pissed off to get a d&v bug or streaming cold from the cabin crew. Also, you can't get on a plane to work, thinking, 'if I get any worse, I'll go home'

By raging cold I mean sweating, fever, and an inability to speak.

x-posted prettybird. I bet they are not permitted to work with the snuffles/conjunctivitis etc, which some of us office workers might carry on with

I think 12 days is pretty high - I seem to remember when I last worked that anything over 5 was deemed to be high and warrant keeping an eye on (I think that meant 5 days here and there self-certificated - not something serious where you were genuinely off ill and had a doctors cert).

Some people were never off sick, others had the odd couple of days a year, others were always taking time off for the merest snuffle...

I really hope that they don't encourage sick staff to come into work and spread the germs round the plane! It is the same in hospitals where you don't really want people to come in if they are geniunely ill.

I thought there were stricter rules though about things like colds which many of us would work with, but it is different when you are in a pressurised cabin. So not as straightforward as that. I can tell you that I have not had a day sick since before I went on maternity leave with my DD who is now 2 1/2. Now in one way I have been lucky to be healthy, but in another way I have been unlucky to have fallen ill on the four days I do not work but have to look after my children. Because there have definitely been days when I would not have worked but they have fallen Fri-Mon.

The most I have ever had off in over 10 years is 5 days when I had a kidney infection. Now I know I am lucky in that.

I think greeny is right. It is impossible to set targets on this. Although we all know that some people take the day off more readily than others.

The problem is that airline staff are not allowed to come in and work on days when most of us office drones would soldier in.

Why?

Because of the closed air space work conditions and EU restrictions on how employees can work in such settings when they are ill.

Colditz brings up another point. In some professions, an employee really can't come in w/a heavy cold, because they are working with those who are already ill and vulnerable.

Consequently they'll have more sick days.

Only read OP but 12 days a year is a lot isn't it? 22 is just ridiculous!

Obviously there will be individuals with specific health issues and reasons to off for a length of time, but it seems like a high 'average' to me.

But I can see why you wouldn't want cabin crew sneezing all over passengers or a pilot flying if he was feeling a bit fluey....

Colditz I have worked when I have had trouble talking on the telephone and avoided answering, leaving as many of the calls as I could get away with to my colleague. Obviously with a 2 1/2 yo in nursery and a 5yo in Y1 and a certain susceptibility I have had my fair share of colds over the last 3 winters.

Can't find it now (will keep looking), but there is a list of about 12 illnesses that BA will now not accept (but did previously) as a reason to be off sick. The one that stuck in my mind was an outbreak of herpes...

it's 12 days where dh works too, but if they take four consecutive days off sick they must produce a doctors certificate.
Dh works shifts so works four days and has four days off.

I anyone takes over a month off it's up to the manager's discretion whether they get paid that month or not...I'm assuming they can ask for ssp though.

outbreak of herpes, would that include cold sores on the lips??

Depends what the policy is saying.

12 random sick days is terrible. 12 consecutive days due to one illness is not.

It would be more interesting to know what the problem is with the propsed policy rather than number of sick days IYSWIM?

Don't know fuzzy. Here's something I found on Sky News site....

'The union denied reports it was seeking to exclude a series of conditions such as colds, cold sores, blocked ears and even ingrowing toenails from counting as sick leave.'

I think 12 days per year is about average for most sectors. Yes 22 is high.

If you look at the median sick days, it is much less, but long term illness tends to skew the average.

So the average person probably only takes about 5 days off, and then you do get people with long term health problems who have a much bigger total.

YOu wouldn't want anyone w/blocked ears working in a pressurised cabin.

If you had an ingrown toenail and had to work on your feet for hours at a time, that'd be sore.