DH has been at his current job doing IT support for nearly 5 years now, and over that time his support team has gone from 18 people to 8 people with redundancies and not replacing leavers. The company he works for though has increased in size from 1800 people to 2600, and now has offices in 6 more countries than before. In other words, the workload has increased massively, and not just the physical load, but the complexity as well.
DH is almost at breaking point with the stress of it all. He was meant to get a promotion in April, but this never officially materialised, although he now does all the work that the promotion entailed. He doesn't have to do this, but he's been told that the promotion will come in the future (no date set though) if he keeps up with his responsibilities, but also if he doesn't do it, the whole place will fall apart.
His line manager and director are sympathetic (it wasn't them that vetoed the promotion, apparently there wasn't any budget for it although the rest of the company all got payrises/bonuses), but essentially powerless. They can request additional staff or salary increases, but these are just being ignored.
I suggested that DH get signed off with stress as the whole situation is becoming ludicrous - he's coming home absolutely drained and exhausted, gets anxiety attacks when he thinks about work. He's not sleeping properly, is snapping at me and the kids all the time and is just miserable to be around. He's been looking for other jobs, but there isn't really anything that wouldn't involve a pay cut or moving house.
If he gets signed off for 2 weeks with stress, how will this affect his "record" as it were? Is it something that could affect his chance of getting another job?
What can we do?