Manager on long-term sick leave

[OrmIrian]

The dept manager has been on sick leave since last March. Yesterday it was confirmed that this will continue for the foreseable future and that if he does return to work at some point it will be in a different role.

He has not been replaced, another manager has taken over his role in addition to his own but has nothing like the same sort of expertise or ability.

Since he left all of our team have taken on a great deal more responsibility - it's been a very stressful time due to various projects coming to fruition and the business changing a great deal. He is a really nice man, and very good at his job, and we all miss him, but TBH we either need a new manager to help us out, or another member of the team to take up some of the slack. But neither of things are likely to happen while we remain in limbo.

What is the legal position of the company? Are they obliged to keep him on the payroll indefinitely?

All depends on their policy.

How much contractual sick pay do they offer? Do they make any exceptions (I once kept an employees post open for a year due to special circumstances while they were ill, although they did go down to ssp and I got month to month cover in).

They can decide to keep his post open to him as long as they want.

They could instigate capability procedure if they wanted to encourage him to finish after his contractual sick pay ends.

I don't know their policy I am afraid - never had need to look into it. Thankfully.

But the situation is pretty bad for the rest of us. And we were told in veiled but unmistakable terms that he won't be back.

It's common these days, due to budgets, to not replace staff when long tern sick arises (or just general resignations). Co's are looking to save money where poss and if you as a team have been covering without negatively affecting the business they'll ask themselves if they need to replace. When others are picking up parts of the role here and there, and not complaining, then they won't change anything.

I'd therefore advise for one of you to put something forward to senior management about how much more you are doing than your job descriptions (ie additional roles not in jd, additional hours which are unpaid, missing lunch breaks, feeling stressed, etc). Obviously, if one person speaks for all of you, you will have more influence to change things.

As for the manager, it could be that eventually they dismiss him on the grounds of capability, but this is a lengthy process (occ health/GP Report etc) and they wont e able to tell you what they're doing or when due to capability and until then, they will need to keep his position open (in theory his position or a suitable alternative).

Def need to speak to senior mgt so that they are aware that you are all struggling as they might not even know i you are all covering the role so well. Could you email? Or have you got an employee council or union rep to voice it through?

not tell you due to confidentiality* not due to capability!