Bradford factor

[ditzygeorgia]

Hi,

I have a couple of questions about the Bradford factor score as I cannot find any rules about them anywhere

Someone has just returned to work following a long term sickness (sick notes provided). She was told that before she went off she was in the "counselling" stage but she was never officially told this and there was no session held. They have no jumped her to stage 3. Can they do this or would they have had to hold the stage sessions before?

My second question is someone called in sick on a day that would have been overtime for them as they are not rota'red to do that shift. Can employers class this as sickness to add on the Bradford factor?

thanks in advance

The LT sickness scenario - presumably one continuous period of absence? Under such circumstances, it's reasonable to have a Return to Work meeting when the line manager checks the person is feeling better, check if they need support to get fully back to their duties (eg if their Fit Note recommends a phased return). It is not reasonable to leap forward to a phase 3 if this is the first the employee knows about it.

The employer should be using their Absence policy to objectively justify the stage of the process they have reached, not fast forward to suit themselves.

The 2nd scenario - if the employee wasn't due to work contractually, then it shouldn't officially count as sick leave. However, it sounds like if they are using the Bradford scale it could mean the person is taking a lot of odd days sickness and the employer is trying to establish what the pattern of absence looks like, and they are using this latest absence to add to other days taken. Did the person say they would work the overtime and then called in sick at a late stage, leaving the employer without cover?

1. check the policy, they should be following it

2. yes

”They have no jumped her to stage 3. Can they do this or would they have had to hold the stage sessions before?”

That’s not a Bradford factor thing, that’s a case of looking at the employer’s absence policy to see whether doing so is possible within that policy.

”someone called in sick on a day that would have been overtime for them as they are not rota'red to do that shift.”

It’s not clear from this whether the person was due to work or not. If they weren’t due to be attending work anyway, why did they call in sick?

Lots of people have very low contractual hours , or zero contractual hours, but if the only sickness absence which ‘counts’ is where it is part of basic contractual hours rather than planned overtime, significant absence problems might never be picked up or dealt with. If the person was due to attend work for a shift and didn’t because they were ill, that should be recorded as sickness absence.

Hi everyone, thanks for the reply. It's hard to find any actual policies for sickness at our work as they seem to do what suits them at the time.

In the second scenario, the person is contracted to work 40 hours monday to friday, so the day in question was a Saturday that he offered to do but told the manager on Friday that he didnt feel well and would not be working the extra shift as he was already worn out from doing 6 days a week for the last few weeks as a favour

If he offered to work then couldn't because he was tired, I think that's not particularly helpful to the employer. Surely as an adult the person will know their tolerance for working 6 days, several weeks on the trot? I certainly wouldn't volunteer for that, it would wear me out so not surprising he's knackered! That said, as an employer, I probably would have asked "are you sure you won't be too tired." out of concern for the employee