Bradford Factor

[bruffin]

Apparently i have triggered the Bradford Factor threshold for concern. I work 7 days out of 10.
I have had 4.68 days off /4 incidences in rolling year.
half day last week when had to go home with a very sore eye, went to optician and have been referred to hospital, WFH next day.

We moved office last month and wrenched my back moving a box, ended up taking a day off, despite being in a lot of pain for a week.

Bad cold last january where i was off monday to thursday. however this is down as two incidents because i work part time and dont work on wednesdays so my sickness is down for Monday/Tuesday then another day for Thursday.

Am i right in thinking that the cold should not have been classed as 2 incidents?

My DD has also has similar problem where she was ill, got sent home and came back to work when she was clearly not well and ended up taking more time off . This is counted as 2 incidents even though it was one illness

Sickness is usually calculated in calendar days regardless of whether you're part or full time. For sick pay purposes the clock doesn't stop like that if it's for the same ailment. So yes, I think it should be one incident not 2. Check your HR policies though.

Your DD returned to work though, although my employer would link the two periods and treat them as one as it's for the same reason. We don't use the Bradford factor though.

I'm also a bit hmmm that your work included time off for an injury you sustained at work....

I think they probably have calculated your sick leave correctly. Unlike what previous poster said, hurting your back would be a sick day, as it is up to you to ensure you pick up loads correctly, or ask for help if the box was too heavy. I assume you are NHS or other public sector? so you would have had manual handling training.

Counting 2 episodes due to your non working day, I think this may be correct, if you took a day’s annual leave after a sick day, and then went off sick again, it would count as 2 episodes, so I doubt this would be any different.

Thank you both

I dont work for the NHS or public sector. Its a small private company and the HR is outsourced. We use Cezanne HR to report leave etc which i think automatically calculates the score. I just dont think the HR company has a lot of common sense sometimes.
We moved offices that week and i didnt even pick up a box , I just moved it slightly and hurt a muscle as i turned , it was a bit of a freak accident but my Manager was there at the time and saw it happen and it is in the accident book.

The Wednesday was not annual leave , Wednesdays and every other Friday are my non working day. I work 7 days over 2 weeks. I just dont think it is fair that a fully timer would get a lower score than I did for the same incident.

I am going to email HR and query it all

Counting 2 episodes due to your non working day, I think this may be correct

It's not correct. Sickness reporting includes non-working days and treats that as one continuous period of sickness.

If it had been from Friday to Tuesday across a weekend that would have been one continuous five day period of sickness. You shouldn't be treated differently because one of your part time non-working days fell during your absence.

By treating it as two incidents because you're part time and had a non-weekend non-working day during your sickness period, they're treating you less favourably than full time workers. Which is unlawful.

Hopefully it's a simple error with their system and they will correct it once advised.

As a separate observation for both you and your DD - once you're off sick, stay off until you're well enough to return. You only cause more grief for yourself if you go back still unwell and need more time.

One five day absence equals 5 points and one incident on Bradford: 1x1x5 = 5

Five one day absences is 125 points and 5 incidents: 5x5x5 = 125

Both five days absent, but outcomes for sickness measures very different if it's one block versus separate days.

It's better for you and less disruptive for the business to just stay off until you're better instead of taking repeated short absences because you went back too soon.

Don't martyr yourself. They won't thank you for making yourself suffer and you'll just hit absence triggers unnecessarily.