Sick days off work: how many is too many per year ?

Nasher said:
I think if you took it to a tribunal it wouldn't be seen that way. People have sued and got big payouts from companies for it.
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The way big call centers tackle this is to not take it as disciplinary, but capability. As in, are you actually fit enough to do the job? Although from what I can remember it takes quite a bit to get there .
 
Nasher said:
I think if you took it to a tribunal it wouldn't be seen that way. People have sued and got big payouts from companies for it.

A place I worked at maybe 10 years ago were hounding someone over illness. He brought a union rep in who tore their HR to shreds.
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IANAL but the company I work for is petrified of not doing things by the book, they wouldn't be issuing warnings etc without being absolutely sure that it would stand up in court.

Every time Bradford is breached there is an investigation meeting, the "offender" is allowed to have representation if required.
Then this is passed on to a hearing again the offender is allowed representation.
EVERYTHING is minuted, and signed and filed, blah blah, etc.

We follow a strict Verbal>Written>final Written>dismissal pattern.
And if any of the warnings expire, then the next "breach" would go back to a verbal warning.

And as I said it is worded so that you are not disciplined for being sick, rather "breaching the companies acceptable level of absence"

Look at it from the companies point of view, you are essentially saying that an unreliable employee taking lots of time off work which is disruptive to the company isn't allowed to be dismissed.
Why should any company have to put up with that ?
 
chaparral said:
But if you past it on to someone else at work that person then pasts it onto there family & friends and so on
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Yep, my point is it doesn't matter because it's just a cold and any normal person can function completely normally with a cold all be it feeling a bit rough.
 
bigmike20vt said:
That sounds great and all, however depending on your job, you either have the constitution of an ox, or you have been in work and spread the love on some occasions then. I dunno, its a tough balancing act but i would rather people keep their contagions to themselves rather than spread them around my team. Caught a very nasty virus off someone at work just before going on my hols a few years back. totally ruined half my holiday.
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We don't get paid sick days at my current employer so unfortunately I would probably drag myself in anyway, regardless of what I'm passing on.
 
We have a 3 periods of sick before HR Review but you can self certify for 4 days. The downside of this is were on full pay for our sick with no waiting period to get it so if your off for one day you may aswell take the week off as many do so theres no incentive to come straight back. There is some get outs to this though.. If Doctors have signed you off you must see Ocupational health for a review, If they agree with doctor and deem you unfit to work until next OH review the sick period does not count against your 3 as the company have decided not to let u work for whatever reason.

Every company does things differently, This is the strictest policy iv seen regarding 3 periods of absense but if its genuine your let off basically. So theres a lot of human compassion going for us
 
wingman said:
We don't get paid sick days at my current employer so unfortunately I would probably drag myself in anyway, regardless of what I'm passing on.
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honestly it is threads like this which make me realise how lucky i am. My sick days are all full pay any my boss is very tolerant. It helps that i have been on the same campus for over 20 years i guess but the campus as a whole it would seem has a very fair sick policy.
(the health insurance is bang on as well - tho my pension is not what it was 3 years ago).
 
wingman said:
We don't get paid sick days at my current employer so unfortunately I would probably drag myself in anyway, regardless of what I'm passing on.
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another problem is if there a chance of losing you're job from having to many days off sick then workers are going to come into work sick..
 
MassiveJim said:
IANAL but the company I work for is petrified of not doing things by the book, they wouldn't be issuing warnings etc without being absolutely sure that it would stand up in court.

Every time Bradford is breached there is an investigation meeting, the "offender" is allowed to have representation if required.
Then this is passed on to a hearing again the offender is allowed representation.
EVERYTHING is minuted, and signed and filed, blah blah, etc.

We follow a strict Verbal>Written>final Written>dismissal pattern.
And if any of the warnings expire, then the next "breach" would go back to a verbal warning.

And as I said it is worded so that you are not disciplined for being sick, rather "breaching the companies acceptable level of absence"

Look at it from the companies point of view, you are essentially saying that an unreliable employee taking lots of time off work which is disruptive to the company isn't allowed to be dismissed.
Why should any company have to put up with that ?
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Honestly this is how it should be, A lack of investigation and straight to a warning isnt correct imho.
Our company follows the same setup plus a little more. You can actually be given many final written warnings as long as no two are in the same category i.e Absense, conduct, safety, driving etc.
The biggest and best companies in uk seem to be ahead of the curve with the correct style of disaplinary procedures and how it should be done. We have no unions but full representation is actually recommended by our own HR department to help you have your side heard or if you miss anything.
 
XeNoN89 said:
It's a cold, you're not exactly on deaths bed. Stop being so precious
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I think I took 2 days off ill last year, you don't need to be physically incapable of working to have a few days off sick, your job isn't that important - and if it is you shouldn't be the single point of failure
 
elmarko said:
There is a range of sickness which should be expected based on a number of variables.

1. Age (older people tend to be ill more)
2. Health (over-weight people tend to suffer from more conditions)
3. Exposure (public transport, contagious illnesses)
4. Office conditions (another factor of exposure)
5. Pre-existing conditions
6. Ability to resist illness/immunity/natural defense.
7. Gender (women tend to be sick more than men due to issues related to reproduction, more can go wrong)

Pending on where somebody is, they could range from 1 to 20 days off per year on average - I'm in the far lower end due to factors outside of my control mostly.

The Bradford factor which is often used doesn't take into account any of the above & is often used by organisations where multi-day absences are more impact-full than single days anyway. (like my role). Saying that being above average is meaningless for sickness, as by definition 50% of your staff will be above average.

It's just another case of HR using statistics badly.
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There is also things like do you work with the general public
Do you work with the general public who are sick
Do you work shifts.


IIRC the London Ambulance service used to use the same factor for deciding if someone had too much time off for back office 9-5 staff as for the ambulance crews.

With the result that Ambulance crews whose immune systems were weakened by their shift patterns (night shifts and alternating shifts have been shown repeatedly to mess with your immune system), constantly exposed to people with infections, constantly doing things that risk back problems were being dealt with the same as staff whose job was to sit in an office away from the public doing a nice routine job.

One of my friends is a baker and his workplace has a very sensible rule (IIRC enforced by HSE/Food safety people), if he's had any sort of stomach issue be it diarrhoea or vomiting he's not allowed back on the premises for something like 72 hours because of the risk of spreading it, a risk that is also there in most office jobs to a lesser degree but because he's working specifically with food there are legally enforceable rules to follow (as opposed to everyone in an office going down with norovirus because someone came back in too work whilst still infectious because of some inflexible and stupid rule on absences).


For those that say 3-4 days off a year, or absences is a lot you've obviously either got a very good immune system and are generally quite healthy, or are going into work when you really shouldn't (IE when ill enough to spread it or make yourself worse whilst probably not being very productive).
 
Werewolf said:
There is also things like do you work with the general public
Do you work with the general public who are sick
Do you work shifts.


IIRC the London Ambulance service used to use the same factor for deciding if someone had too much time off for back office 9-5 staff as for the ambulance crews.

With the result that Ambulance crews whose immune systems were weakened by their shift patterns (night shifts and alternating shifts have been shown repeatedly to mess with your immune system), constantly exposed to people with infections, constantly doing things that risk back problems were being dealt with the same as staff whose job was to sit in an office away from the public doing a nice routine job.

One of my friends is a baker and his workplace has a very sensible rule (IIRC enforced by HSE/Food safety people), if he's had any sort of stomach issue be it diarrhoea or vomiting he's not allowed back on the premises for something like 72 hours because of the risk of spreading it, a risk that is also there in most office jobs to a lesser degree but because he's working specifically with food there are legally enforceable rules to follow (as opposed to everyone in an office going down with norovirus because someone came back in too work whilst still infectious because of some inflexible and stupid rule on absences).


For those that say 3-4 days off a year, or absences is a lot you've obviously either got a very good immune system and are generally quite healthy, or are going into work when you really shouldn't (IE when ill enough to spread it or make yourself worse whilst probably not being very productive).
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Yeah, good points those.

Really those all need to be factored in along with the above list to create a reasonable view to what an expected sickness rate should be. Being 1 or 10 days off a year could be great or terrible pending on your individual exposure/health & other circumstances.
 
Got caught out by the Bradford factor earlier this year, had flu over Christmas, started getting better before the end of the holidays, so only took a half day off and worked from home for a couple of days. Then ended up developing pneumonia and spending a week in hospital :rolleyes:

So 2 periods of illness totalling 5.5 days = Bradford Factor of 22

If I'd stayed off the whole time it would have been a single 8 day period = Bradford Factor of 8.

I know what I'll be doing next time (hint, it won't be getting back to work when I'm only feeling "mostly" better!!!)
 
chroniclard said:
We didnt get sick pay at the last place and boss tried to strongly offer us it off as a holiday instead.....
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As in gave you a bonus days holiday to get around the companies terrible sickness support (in which case good on him)

or as in trying to pressure you to take off from your own holiday entitlement (in which case, what a ******!)
 
bigmike20vt said:
As in gave you a bonus days holiday to get around the companies terrible sickness support (in which case good on him)

or as in trying to pressure you to take off from your own holiday entitlement (in which case, what a ******!)
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The latter. In some ways he was tight as hell in others quite generous. Very strange. :)
 
Guys how many sick days off per year do you think is too many ?

And can there really be too many days off as if someone sick there sick and there nothing anyone can do about it
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Ask any self-employed person, especially somebody who is a sole trader! :p

(You will probabally get much the same answer to the question "How many days Holiday should I take each year!" :D
 
Never had a problem with sick but i get 6 months paid sick per year allowance

Not coming in if you have a cold (sometimes hyped up by wusses and called the “flu”) deserves a disciplinary tbh
 
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