sickness absences - long!

[namechange5]

I work part time in the public sector/charity area. I suffer from quite bad insomnia which has lead me to have more than 5 sickness absences in the last year. The policy is that we must see the CEO after 5 absences and I have a note to make an appointment.

This time last year I was sent to Occupational Health for the same reason - OH wrote to CEO to say I had a health problem and to expect more time off till problem solved. At that time I was under the hospital respiratory clinic who have subsequently found no physical reason why I am not sleeping. All my GP offers is sleeping tablets which don't work and my GP clinic has been a general let down. I started paying for my own counselling/hypnotherapy recently and things are slightly improving though it looks like it will take time.

My work performance is at least average despite my sick absences. I achieve 90% of my targets (and my targets may be more challenging than others due to the area I work in). Some of my colleagues achieve less of their targets without sick absences. However the emphasis seems to be on how often you are at work rather than what you do while you are there. None of my line managers have informed me how I am performing, I have checked for myself. Tbh I don't think they even know. The amount of targets we achieve is directly related to how much funding the group receives.

My 5 absences relate to exactly 5 days. The nature of my insomnia is that it comes and goes and one day can be fine the next not, after a number of days tiredness can accumulate. I frequently come in to work feeling exhausted but do so not to let clients down and also because my work accumulates if I don't causing me stress. My job is stressful as I deal with a stressful subject but also in terms of volume of work.

I may be worrying about nothing here but if not I'd like to approach this appointment in the right way. We had a number of redundancies last year and I was in the pool but luckily some colleagues volunteered. We are expecting more this time next year.

If my work capability is not greatly affected by my sick leave can my sick leave be used against me e.g., in redundancy?

Does the fact that I am having no official treatment go against me ie. nothing diagnosed?

I can see the point in monitoring 'absences' rather than 'days off' but am I right in thinking the absence policy discriminates aginst my kind of sickness, where I only have occasional days off rather than blocks of days?

if there are any HR people out there would be grateful for your input, if you've got this far! Would appreciate complete honesty (but be gentle with me!)

Sickness can be one of the criertias applied when working out fair redundancy and is usually one of many aspects. I dont think its related to performance as all sections are usually treated separately.

Odd days do look worse than chunks of time, particularly if no known medical condition. Most employers monitor sickness by number of times off and as long as everyone gets monitored the same its not discrimination.

If you have already seen OH and they have told the CEO that you have a condition and to expect more time off, then I think you probably have nothing to worry about.

It looks like you have hit an automatic trigger and this appointment will be just a formality.

I agree that absence policy doesn't allow for your condition, but for the rest of the workforce it is to stop people taking Friday or Monday off rather than taking time off for genuine illnesses.

Your sickness absence probably can be used as a criteria for redundancy unless it counts as a disability under the disability discrimination act.

I agree with trixy, if it is a known condition and they are already expecting you to have time off, and it's only 5 days, I wouldn't worry.

Sickness absence policies are often rigid which is for a good reason but inevitably means that someone who really doesn't have an absence problem gets caught up in a trigger system. When that happens appointments like this will more than likely be a formality as trixy says, it's just a mechanism to make sure they pick up genuine problems, and also an excellent deterrent for those with a tendency to have headaches on a Monday morning....

In terms of redundancy selection, yes attendance rate at work is often used as a criteria, but it would usually only be used in conjunction with things like performance, disciplinary record, skills and experience, so if your attendance record is mostly good (which yours is), and your performance is good, I wouldn't worry.

thanks for the reassuring messages, I am a bit of a panicker!