Attendance Review = Bollocks

[Gemm83]

Need some advice please!

Bit of background:

I've just had my mum on the phone in tears. She works for a large supermarket chain (for nearly 20 years) and has just had an Attendance Review meeting. She has through no fault of her own, had a substantial amount of time over the last few years. All completely legit and backed up doctors/hospital. She has also had some dependants leave as she is the sole carer of my nan who has frontal lobe dementia.. Which is currently ongoing. She really has been through the ringer and her stress levels are almost at breaking point.

Anyhoo, she was admitted to hospital last month due to swallowing her dental bridge and it became lodged in her throat. She had emergency surgery and it was successfully removed. She was kept in for 2 days (which she doesn't work) and called in sick on the 3rd day as she couldn't speak. A manager was informed and it was put in black and white in her "welcome back" meeting. Due to her levels of sickness she was required to attend an AR. Most of her sickness is covered under DDA, but she was asked about this one day after her op and that it was unauthorised. My mum said it was and that a manager was informed. Her deputy manager said "Well I've asked her and she doesn't remember a thing about it" He then proceeded to tell her that she is lying about having the operation and then said he was adjourning the meeting because she was becoming too emotional until after Christmas and that she was facing a serious disciplinary/dismissal. My mum said that it was all listed in her welcome back meeting and that he should be calling the manager in to question her (she is at work) and that he should also have copies of her notes from the previous meeting, which he refused to do. She said that he knew about the current situation with my nan and that she didn't need this hanging over her head at Christmas and he refused saying he is following procedure.

Is there anything she can do? I've never heard my mum cry so much and I feel completely helpless 😩

Does she have a copy of the return to work meeting notes? If I was her I would take a copy, send them to the manager with a polite letter confirming that the absence was authorised and that she trusts this will see the disciplinary process cancelled as unnecessary.

If she doesn't have a copy, she should write to the manager who held the meeting formally requesting the notes be handed over. She should copy in this manager and hr too.

She doesn't have a copy herself and has requested to see them but he's point blank refused to do anything until after the Christmas break. Absolute arsehole.

How much absence has she had and for what reasons? It doesn't matter if they're covered by sick notes you can still lose your job if you are absent a lot. Any covered by DDA would usually be referred to Occ Health, be counted separately or be given an allowance or longer time before triggering an absence review, all part of reasonable adjustments ... But she can still lose her job.

Need to separate two things out

1.absence

1. Conduct issue (‘lie’ about calling in sick)

Has she been played on informal management for either?

If no, it’s very unlikely this would go to any kind of disciplinary proceedings even if your mum can’t probe she did call in sick

Sounds like a Manager spouting off before speaking to ER

Your Mum could grab the bull by the horns and speak to HR in store? Explain the situation, being completely transparent?

placed not played

prove not probe

Over the last 6 months she has gone above the 3% "allowed" however not substantially. She has spoken to the manager who conducted the welcome back meeting and she still states that she has no memory of it whatsoever and that my mum is calling her a liar.... Well yes considering you signed off on the meeting!!! She's taking a grievance out on her. She also spoke to the deputy manager who conducted the AR and said that there was no need to do it ontoday of all days and he agreed with her!!!

She's taking a grievance out on her.

If your Mum is going to navigate through this, jumping straight to that (which isn’t likely to get anywhere) isn’t the best way.

So, she’s not been told she’s on informal management for absence or conduct?

And, in 20 years, other than this, there have been no absence (sickness, or non sickness) or conduct concerns?

It’s difficult but your Mum needs to take a deep breath and try to calm down, then think about what she can prove, e.g. hospital notes to show she did have the operation, phone records to show she called in.

If she has a 20 year unblemished record, even 1 day unauthorised (ie she can’t prove anything) absence won’t result in any reasonable firm dismissing.

If she's exceeded her company's trigger of 3% then she should be having an absence meeting. The way it's being conducted doesn't sound great, but we don't have all the facts here. If the compadny feels there's a misconduct issue that should be dealt with separately, however she was still absent.

Absence meetings are perfectly standard if you've hit certain trigger points. The fact that those absences are backed up by doctors notes are irrelevant - you can still be disciplined for poor attendance.

Your mum needs to get herself armed with all the proof she has that her absences are genuine and go into any meetings with a good attitude. Blaming another manager really won't go down well and won't do her any favours.

Okay, attendance monitoring, regardless of whether or not it’s covered by a sick note, is a completely normal, common procedure.

This sounds harsh but she should have got someone to call work when she first went into hospital even though it was a day she wasn’t working. Ideally you should always call yourself but even the most hard-hearted company recognises that isn’t always possible.

All that aside, she should should get as much evidence as possible. Is she in a union?

She has no issue with the meeting. None whatsoever. The issue she has is being disciplined for an unauthorised absence that was authorised (as in called in) and being told she is lying about an operation.

Why shouldn't she take a grievance out on a manager who is quite obviously lying by saying she has no recollection of the event when she signed off on a return to work which explicitly outlines the reason for the absence?

My mum is a 60 year old woman who has no issues with being a "problem" employee

I had to smile wryly at the "Welcome Back" meeting. Hmm yes....

He then proceeded to tell her that she is lying about having the operation and then said he was adjourning the meeting because she was becoming too emotional until after Christmas and that she was facing a serious disciplinary/dismissal

This is easily resolved. You DM needs to get some documentation from the hospital where the procedure took place, perhaps via her GP if not directly. Then absolutely hold that manager's feet to the fire for calling her a liar, and discrediting her after such a long service history. That's disgraceful.

Why shouldn't she take a grievance out on a manager who is quite obviously lying by saying she has no recollection of the event when she signed off on a return to work which explicitly outlines the reason for the absence?

If the return to work was signed off by a manager, there'll be evidence of it on file at HR, surely?

She should speak to her Union rep in store.

Did she call in on her mobile? If so there should be a record of the call on her phone bill, or her provider should be able to get it.

1. Speak to union rep

2.get proof of illness from doctor

1. Put in a subject access request seeking every bit of paper they have on her. Believe me, you’ll find it very interesting to read the results.
2. Look up dignity at work policy and complain about manager acting like this on today of all day’s then refusing to do anything until after xmas, thereby intentionally causing stress and upset over entire holiday.

Do not back down. arseholes need to be brought to account, hard.

Why shouldn't she take a grievance out on a manager who is quite obviously lying by saying she has no recollection of the event when she signed off on a return to work which explicitly outlines the reason for the absence?

How does she prove the manager is lying, rather than forgetful?

Do not back down. arseholes need to be brought to account, hard.

Slowly slowly catchy monkey.

get proof of illness from doctor

She is being threatened with a disciplinary due to a perceived conduct issue not sickness absence. This advice is useless

If you’re going to get the OP riled up, better come from a place of knowledge rather than giving useless advice.

Unless I am massively mistaken this is Tesco's SYA (Supporting Your Attendance) policy. The trigger always was-and I'm ten years out of their employment but was a personnel manager for them for some time-3% absence or three separate instances of absence in a rolling 26 weeks. Each absence will trigger a welcome back meeting which is a supportive measure (or should be) to ascertain if any ongoing support or adjustments are required. They will also, at this stage, remove any absences from the 3% that are considered 'mitigating.' This is detailed very clearly on the front of the AR form. If the removal of the mitigating circumstances takes the absence % below 3% then the AR does not happen. If it remains over 3% or there are no mitigating circumstances the AR will take place. This should be, again, to support the member of staff. If the absence policy was not followed (I appreciate that it was but they are saying it wasn't so....) then if it's the first time that's happened, the simple outcome for that should just be a reiteration of the policy. The AR itself can have the outcome to be referred to a disciplinary-sounds like this is what they have done-based on absence % or occasions. If the absences are covered by the EA (DDA has been superseded) they should be viewed as mitigating anyway. If not, and your mum hasn't been disciplined before for attendance then it would, at worst, go to a verbal warning which is a kick in the face but kit career ending.

For the call, does your mum have a call log that shows it? That should be enough. The line manager will be covering their own arse as they clearly forgot to write it in the SYA log and can't put it in retrospectively. A grievance would be asked to be resolved informally first anyway-I would wager it would end up with a 'agree to leave it' as neither could prove it either way.

Overall, to a staff member I can see how this feels awful and like the end of the world-the policy is called (or always was) Supporting Your Attendance not Kick you for being Down so it would be interesting to hear how they feel they gave supported your mum in her difficulties. It is honestly just line managers thinking they're far more important than they are and trying to prove their dick is biggest. If your mum pays her union subs tell her to relax, get USDAW on it and forget about it until after Christmas.

She is being threatened with a disciplinary due to a perceived conduct issue not sickness absence. This advice is useless

It isn't useless advice at all. In addition to the accusation that the DM didn't adhere to the sickness process, and despite the DM having spoken with the manager, @Gemm83 clearly states He then proceeded to tell her that she is lying about having the operation

it is an unacceptable state of affairs to be accused of lying about admission to a hospital for a medical procedure and the OPs DM needs to clear her name as soon as possible by producing evidence that will discredit that manager's unwarranted accusation.

daisy

She needs to prove she called in sick as well...

In fact, she should be able to self certify for one day off sick, so him saying she’s lying about the op is neither here nor there unless he decides to try to take that further which he’d be stupid to do given he can’t prove it.

Anyway, OP sorry to derail...

Your Mum needs to try to gather as much evidence as she can... phone records, medication (ie bottles with dates), then either wait to see what happens (ie whether it goes further... doubtful), or speak to someone in HR to understand next steps.

Good luck... completely unreasonable manager to land this on her at this time of year, unless there’s an enormous back story

@WTCT Surgery, under their policy, would usually count as a mitigating absence whereas an ad hoc sick day would not. Manager is just being a twat, frankly.