Back to work form ….. but wasn’t off?

[AngelsandAliens]

Just a quickie as I’m slightly baffled

Ive been asked to complete a back to work form (usually used when you are off sick )
however I wasn’t sick.

we work from home 2 days as week and 3 In the office , I had Covid but felt well enough to work , I contacted the 2nd on command in my office (they are the highest person in my office based in uk) and they said to work from home .
I contacted them to advise ,as I didn’t mind going in the office but didn’t want to be blamed should others get sick .

I contacted them as my manager was on holiday .

Now I have been asked to fill out a “return to work form “

I don’t see why I should , I wasn’t off I just worked the week from home - which both managers know .

Any opinions of this is normal

Thanks

No there definitely hasn’t , the 1st time my manager asked , I said why I wasn’t off sick and they said because …. They (the manager above) wants to ensure I am fit to work after having Covid , but they were the one to confirm i should work from home . It’s most definitely not missed communication .

so i didn’t fill it out , and my manger requested it again yesterday (1st request was over a week ago )

I just find it a bit fishy …..

We wouldn't go down the form route, but we definitely have a chat with a member of staff who has not worked their normal pattern due to illness. So if you were supposed to be in the office for three days and weren't, even if working from home, we would certainly follow that up.
(a) because people shouldn't feel that they need to work (whether from home or not) when ill
(b) because we do want to ensure that people are well enough to return to normal working, and
(c) because there is sometimes an observed convenient frequency around certain individuals who need to isolate for the sake of everyone else but are well enough to work from home (which, to be fair, I haven't had in my team, but I do know someone in another team who needs to isolate about once a month, and it's becoming tedious - her management are not as thick as she thinks).

Thank you for that reply , that’s very helpful .

I totally get what you are saying and i think we would do the same .

I think i was confused and not to sound like a jobsworth but I’m never off sick and have never had to do the isolate thing (apart from very early Covid days when the rules were 100 percent you can’t come in with Covid ) now the lines are still a little blurred at my work place - as mentioned I would have gone in , but one of the ladies when I was I’ll the Friday before was moaning about me coughing as she didn’t want to get unwell - hence why I did a test and contacted management just really to advise , now i feel like I’m in the wrong …. Just from the push of the back to work form ….. strange .

There should be somewhere on the form that you can comment that although you had an illness no sick days were used so that it is recorded.

We're very flexible about working from home where that is possible - but to be fair we were even before Covid, it's just got even more so since then. But we have always also encouraged people to not spread germs of any sort around the office is avoidable - but tbf that is very much a thing our service does but not everyone is the same. But then not all employees are the same either.

On all the return to work forms I have seen, there is a space for number of days off and dates. So complete the form and put N/ a for dates ( no absence) and 0 for number of days off. In the box where it asks for ' reason for absence' put 'not absent.'
They are being ridiculous, but obviously you need to comply with they are formally asking you to do.