Sick leave help!

[Shesnotelectric]

Husband had day off Saturday sick as youngest and myself (chronic illness) were really unwell.
Today he went back (Sunday was scheduled day off) has now said he has to come in on his day off to make up for it as it left everyone in the lurch as he was the only trained staff on duty other was trainee made things difficult for them
Are they allowed to do this?
He is salaried if that makes a difference.

It probably depends on what his contract states but he can’t call in sick unless he is actually sick

Sounds like he's 'volunteering' to go in to catch up, whoever they are probably can't make him. I always ended up bringing work home for a few days after I was off sick to get back on top of things otherwise work just piled up which is more stressful, and we had external deadlines to meet a lot of the time.

So he actually pulled a sicky when he wasn't sick, he may be allowed a few days self certified, but not a good look and he should catch up the hours really.

Why do companies insist on running on the bare bones of staff and then expect things to just trundle along anyway? This is such bad planning and dare I say business acumen. It's a buyer's market right now, too. There are loads of people desperately looking for work.

Unfortunately your DH likely has no recourse on this and will have to go in, but to prevent this from happening again, it's probably time to get back into job hunting.

I'm sorry, OP, and I hope you all get better soon xx

Did he actually call in sick (was he sick?) or did he ask for the day off to look after you/his child? If he's asking for a day off, it makes sense for him to work another in its place.

You think businesses can afford to employ extra staff just to cover for sick leave? How expensive do you think everything would be if all wage costs went up 10% or 20% to employ people with nothing to do most of the time just in case.

He should have taken annual leave or carers leave. He wasn't sick himself.

He called in and explained they marked it as sick leave

He called in and explained they marked it as sick leave

I think he needs to clarify their policy with them and who's telling him what. There are 2 problems here:

• they shouldn't be making him make up time when he's had sick leave
• he shouldn't be being allocated sick leave when he isn't sick

He needs to ask about what their dependants leave policy is, because that's what he should have taken. He should be able to take some dependents leave without having to make the time up, but it may be unpaid. He might be able to choose to take TOIL (time off in lieu) and them make the time off, if he doesn't want unpaid leave and the company don't offer paid dependents' leave. It sounds like he's been given a mixture of two things!

I know they can't. Businesses are shrinking because they can't grow in this climate. But that's not what I'm saying. What I am saying is that it's insane to me that there are little to no failsafes, that's all. If an employee falls on a tough situation as described in the OP, the employee's family ends up on the backburner because someone dropped the ball at work.

My company has just suffered a huge blow right on the coattails of Christmas because a 6 figure deal fell through AND (the unexpected part) the client has given three months' notice. We're already thin on the ground from a major restructure in 2023 and there hasn't been the capital to fully bounce back.

I'm due to give birth in March 2026 and the company now cannot afford a temporary replacement for me, and as it is, my boss is a total ballache when it comes to staffing numbers to the point of making people swap out days off to cover things. We already have someone who's gone down to 3 days from 5 potentially due to stress.

Work is a lot of give and take, but the moment one party starts dictating to the other how they should run their own lives, the rapport starts to crumble and before long you get people walking away.

Management have confused things by calling it sick leave when it isn't. It was a request to stay at home at short notice for family reasons, in which case it makes sense to work a different day.

@BadgernTheGarden but that’s the reality of a small business. There’s no slack. I had a bad injury this year and I messaged on Sunday to say I was in hospital - I was expected to arrange to have my laptop in hospital and carry on working. There is no cover for sickness or holiday where I work, none at all.

It sounds like they have entered it as sick leave to enable him to qualify for sick pay, rather than making him take unpaid leave. Under those circumstances, it isn't unreasonable to ask him to make up the time.

To clarify, are you saying it was an ongoing/previously known and diagnosed illness (chronic) - or a sudden unknown (acute) malady? And that it only affected you and your daughter, not him?

As pp say, his employer was wrong to mark time off as sick leave if he himself was not sick, and that has muddied the waters. That notwithstanding if it is a chronic condition, then I think there are certain conditions that must apply for it to be emergency leave (unexpected severe flare-ups etc), vs unpaid carer's leave for non-emergency needs.

This is not ok. It doesn't matter that they cannot afford to pay for sickness/holiday cover. You don't work when you are sick or on leave. That is the business owners risk/cost to absorb. Their inability to afford to pay for cover does not trump your basic employment rights. Stop being a mug!

I would ask for the company policy that says sick leave/ dependent leave must be compensated for by additional office attendance and I bet that policy doesn’t exist