Colleague off sick for five weeks. Has Doctors note. Is currently in Ibiza.

There’s a colleague at my sister’s work is off sick. There’s nothing wrong with her, it’s her husband with his ill health (unsure what his illness etc). Been off for 3 months now. Plus getting full sick pay

Is this normal? Sister’s colleague has family around her.
Some colleagues are getting a little tedious with her. As when they needed time off to look after partner or children after illnesses or surgery, etc had to either take annual leave or unpaid leave.

Even customers stopped asking my sister and colleagues when she’s returning. None of them know.
 
cheesefest said:
There’s a colleague at my sister’s work is off sick. There’s nothing wrong with her, it’s her husband with his ill health (unsure what his illness etc). Been off for 3 months now. Plus getting full sick pay

Is this normal? Sister’s colleague has family around her.
Some colleagues are getting a little tedious with her. As when they needed time off to look after partner or children after illnesses or surgery, etc had to either take annual leave or unpaid leave.

Even customers stopped asking my sister and colleagues when she’s returning. None of them know.
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family comes first ??? surley.
 
Its an impossible situation really. I do think that we have/are creating a generation of people with the mental resilience of a fainting goat but there are also legitimate reasons for people to take sick leave and perhaps go on holiday. Its a bit like smoking was back in the day though. You get the short end of the stick if you are mentally tough and can deal with life. My partner has some ridiculous stories from working at the NHS about what people have gone off stressed for. Things that you would think a 5 year old could deal with without throwing a fit. Unfortunately the words "mental health" have become so powerful that people are using them as a weapon to get whatever they want and to avoid having to do anything hard.
 
cheesefest said:
There’s a colleague at my sister’s work is off sick. There’s nothing wrong with her, it’s her husband with his ill health (unsure what his illness etc). Been off for 3 months now. Plus getting full sick pay

Is this normal? Sister’s colleague has family around her.
Some colleagues are getting a little tedious with her. As when they needed time off to look after partner or children after illnesses or surgery, etc had to either take annual leave or unpaid leave.

Even customers stopped asking my sister and colleagues when she’s returning. None of them know.
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Yes. I have a colleague whose niece is a suicide risk. She is off frequently talking her down from the ledge. I wouldn't want to be in their shoes.
 
robfosters said:
As Tom says, if the doctor says he has the likes of stress or depression, then a nice holiday could be considered as treatment or recuperation.
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during lockdowns and covid? yea must be really stress free..... especially the travelling and multiple covid tests
 
tom_e said:
Depends what they're off for, if it's stress or something along those lines then that doesn't really stop them going on holiday.
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This ^^^, it might well be legit.

I mean given he's got images of it on social media then perhaps it is more likely to be something like stress or depression etc.. as things like recovering from a major operation perhaps wouldn't be so likely to lead someone to book a holiday to Ibiza!

MissChief said:
We don’t know why. We suspected Covid initially but not so sure now. He’s very much not a team player, does the bare minimum for anyone else yet expects us to pick up his slack which we have done for five weeks now. We work on a ticketing system, so far he’s an average of thirty tickets less than we have and some of us have 100 each.
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You wouldn't likely get 5 weeks off for Covid unless you were perhaps in hospital etc.. and if he's been discharged from hospital recently and has a week off before returning to work then again that's not necessarily him pulling a fast one. I mean it's pretty easy for him to back up - "I was in hospital for 4 weeks, here is my discharge documentation, they told me to take a week before returning to work, here is my fit note backing that up" etc..

Re: the ticketing thing - perhaps you ought to flag that up, that's got little to do with this sick leave/holiday thing though. figure out some system of allocating them, like as they come in etc.. person A take the next one, then person b, then person c etc.. Or have a team leader allocate some, or indeed re-allocate. If someone has a big queue of tickets that aren't being cleared then distribute them to others.

I've had to manage something like that in the past with a team of developers, whether you're a support person with tickets or a dev with change requests, they're going to have different priorities, differing levels of complexity - some are pehrpas best carried out by particular people given their skillsets, some can be done by anyone - but if you've got a team member regularly not picking stuff up etc.. then, rather than that casing bickering among other people with tickets to do & conflicting interests it's perhaps better to have someone else keep an eye on that and re-allocated stuff.
 
Greebo said:
That says the opposite and the employee uses their holidays......
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"An employee must report their sickness to their employer if they want to take any holiday as sick leave.

In this case the employee can:
  • get sick pay for the time they were sick (as long as they are entitled to sick pay)
  • keep the time they were sick to use as holiday another time"
Pretty clear.
 
MikeTheNative said:
On the other hand you have the 'hard working' older workers who seem really busy all the time. When you actually look at what they are doing it's so arse backwards it can easily done in half the time but they will not change as 'that's how it's always been done'
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If that truly happens in your workplace, then there is something really wrong with your performance metrics and reviews. :)
 
dowie said:
This ^^^, it might well be legit.

I mean given he's got images of it on social media then perhaps it is more likely to be something like stress or depression etc.. as things like recovering from a major operation perhaps wouldn't be so likely to lead someone to book a holiday to Ibiza!



You wouldn't likely get 5 weeks off for Covid unless you were perhaps in hospital etc.. and if he's been discharged from hospital recently and has a week off before returning to work then again that's not necessarily him pulling a fast one. I mean it's pretty easy for him to back up - "I was in hospital for 4 weeks, here is my discharge documentation, they told me to take a week before returning to work, here is my fit note backing that up" etc..

Re: the ticketing thing - perhaps you ought to flag that up, that's got little to do with this sick leave/holiday thing though. figure out some system of allocating them, like as they come in etc.. person A take the next one, then person b, then person c etc.. Or have a team leader allocate some, or indeed re-allocate. If someone has a big queue of tickets that aren't being cleared then distribute them to others.

I've had to manage something like that in the past with a team of developers, whether you're a support person with tickets or a dev with change requests, they're going to have different priorities, differing levels of complexity - some are pehrpas best carried out by particular people given their skillsets, some can be done by anyone - but if you've got a team member regularly not picking stuff up etc.. then, rather than that casing bickering among other people with tickets to do & conflicting interests it's perhaps better to have someone else keep an eye on that and re-allocated stuff.
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I have the most junior member of the team pick up all tickets, he re-allocates ones he cant do to a more senior member, if they cant do it then up it goes again, anything that gets past the fist two levels ends up with me and are what I use to train team members. It works!!
 
Einskis Nokkur said:
no.

The op hasnot said that she has images of him on social media. someone else suggested it might be the case and it seems to have been taken as fact but the OP hasnt confirmed it.
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Fair one, perhaps that should have read that given he's not kept it quiet - i.e. presumably has told people or posted about it etc..
 
Einskis Nokkur said:
no.

The op hasnot said that she has images of him on social media. someone else suggested it might be the case and it seems to have been taken as fact but the OP hasnt confirmed it.
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Well, I’m a he (easy mistake to make from username, but you did assume my Gender!) and while I don’t personally have photos or social media with him, he HAS posted on social media that he’s in Ibiza. I don’t use Instagram where he posted but others in the team do, and follow him. And he knows this.
 
Jim99 said:
"An employee must report their sickness to their employer if they want to take any holiday as sick leave.

In this case the employee can:
  • get sick pay for the time they were sick (as long as they are entitled to sick pay)
  • keep the time they were sick to use as holiday another time"
Pretty clear.
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No thats what happens if you come down sick while on holiday. The first bit of your link covers the situation perfectly

An employee can take holiday (annual leave) while off sick. For example, if they:

  • are not physically able to work, but physically able to take a holiday
  • have a mental health condition that might be helped by a holiday
  • are off sick long term and a holiday might help with their recovery
It's up to an employee to request holiday while off sick. An employer cannot force an employee to take holiday while off sick.

If the employer approves the employee’s holiday request:

  • sick leave can be paused while the employee takes holiday
  • the employee should get holiday pay while they are on holiday
After the employee has taken the holiday, sick leave can continue if they're still not well enough to return to work.
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So yes while you are off sick you can request and take holidays but you get holiday pay and it comes off your allowance.

You can't (and shouldn't) just go on holiday while off sick.
 
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