I think I some proper advice please.

[jobstress]

Started a thread in chat here a week or so ago about issues at work. In a nutshell I am covering two posts, have been for a long time and it has made me ill despite my boss taking some (not all - mostly paperwork related) tasks away from me.

On Friday I received a very formal meeting invite for Wednesday. We sat down and she said they couldn't hire anyone temporary and that she would try to take away more things (no dates have been given for this - I doubt it will actually happen in the next four weeks as I have received an additional invite today to a team meeting in a fortnight to discuss 'urgent resourcing issues', which I imagine to be mine). She was very tense and weird and had been all day - then she said she had asked for advise from HR and they were insisting on me attending a medical as she believes there is an underlying problem with the way I manage my workload. If I do not attend this medical I will have to sign a document stating that I refused to follow advise. She had the medical referral form already filled in with the reasons why she was recommending me.

I don't want to go into too much detail or make this epic, so I think the salient points are:

• I wasn't expecting this and it completely threw me.
• The whole conversation was awful. She was not aggressive but seemed very frustrated with me personally and angry
• The wording in the referral downplays the amount of work I have been given and (IMO) exagerates the amount of support I have received
• It states I have an underlying issue with anxiety/stress that affects my work, which I don't believe I do and has never been mentioned in any of my appraisals or 1-2-1s ever. I have received two performance-related bonuses in the last year.
• DP read the form and said he doesn't recognise me as the person they are describing. He finds the wording very "legal" and weird.
• I don't think I am remotely in danger of being fired/let go, although I have not yet worked there 2 years
• I think they are trying to cover themselves in case I am seriously ill and the thought of that is making me very angry
• At no point do I feel that they have expressed care for me personally (although I believed it existed right up until this weird meeting with my boss when she was verbally frustrated/angry and yet reading out loud a letter that states how much they care about me).

I don't know what to do. I have managed to get a paragraph inserted into the referral (which she wrote) stating that "X believes my assessment to be inaccurate because prior to this additional work she did not feel there were any issues." I have also emailed her back asking for a copy of the final referral form and stating that I am "concerned" that she has this opinion of me, which is contrary to my previous appraisals.

Should I do anything else? Am I missing something obvious in terms of what this might be leading to? The change in tone is so out of character that I am quite bemused and upset. It reads as though this is part of some bigger HR picture, not for support (honestly - I have line managed people before and had to do similar things and we normally approach this in a different way) but for something else, but I have no idea what it could be.

Sorry, so many typos! Am on a very shoddy laptop.

As an example of how weird this was, she asked me what I would do if the new postholder (to start in August) wasn't any good and I still had this level of responsibility and therefore amount of extra work. I said I hadn't thought about it and she said "Hmm." Then she asked what would I do if the company 'repriortised' my team and made all the work we do part of one JD (I said they'd be deliberately provoking someone into a breakdown - usually the work my team does is done by a minimum of four people in our industry). Then five minutes later when I mentioned overtime she got very angry and said "You should NEVER do any overtime". I was like this: as I'm a) on a management contract where o/time is expected and b) she's just implied that at some point I would have to accept extra work.

I found it deeply deeply bizarre and I don't think she handled it very well as she is also under a lot of stress at present.

Well, based on what you said in your other thread, I would say they are absolutely right to refer you for medical advice, presumably to an Occupational Health person. I would have done the same thing. The OH person will be able to advise your employer and you on your health as it relates to your work, and make suggestions on how to minimise the impact work has on your health, whether it be adjustments to workload, or other changes. It's pretty standard and perfectly responsible and normal to do this when someone indicates that they are or may be suffering from work-related stress.

It sounds as though your boss has been advised to follow a process now this has been triggered, and that she finds handling this difficult, but that doesn't mean your employer's actions themselves are wrong.

Use the opportunity of the discussion with the OH person to its full extent. Talk to him/her about the physical symptoms you mention, your workload and other work issues, and how the two relate.

Thanks very much flowery, I was hoping you would reply :)

I am reassured from your response that this is a normal process. My main concern is that the wording suggests it is due to my coping techniques not the workload itself, but I will talk to the OH and explain that.

Is this likely to damage my career? I know the referral has to stay on my HR file and that's the main reason I was upset initially as it felt like I was getting a negative outcome for a situation completely outside my control (my company's hiring processes meaning the post has been vacant for most of a year).

No there is no reason to think it will damage your career. It sounds as though you are valuable and doing a good job under very difficult circumstances, and that even in a rather cack-handed way, your employer are doing the responsible thing and seeking advice about supporting you. Many people see OH referrals as some kind of punishment, and they are far from that. It's a good opportunity for someone other than you to tell your employer what they should be doing to avoid damage to your health and you going off sick, or potential legal claims. Although that might mean it feels like they are doing it to protect themselves, that doesn't mean them doing it is a bad thing, or negative for you.

Having a health referral on your file is not negative, and actually in terms of being evidence that their hiring processes might have serious consequences and need looking at, is also a good thing!

Ooh, I hadn't thought about it that way, thank you :) I had extracted a promise back in February that I could write a business case for more staff in my team - we could accommodate at least one more, up to two and still make a huge profit as our profits go up the more attention to detail you pay and it's relatively easy to demonstrate this... I can use my experience as more evidence if needed.

The whole hiring thing has been torturous. It took a month to get it advertised and two months to get the replacement signed off because it had to go through so many layers of people who only meet at certain time periods. Once you add on their notice period it's now August.didn'

My own post was vacant for a year before I joined for very similar reasons... and they didn't hire me outright, just poached me from another department