The team I'm in is experiencing a massive issue with an employee who is off sick around about 33%-40% of the time. Very rarely will she be well enough to work a full week. She's now in her second trimester. Not being an expert on the subject of pregnancy, I've heard morning sickness should settle down after the first trimester.. but no, this girl's sickness is apparently only getting worse.
The big kicker here is, everyone on our team works from home except for one office day per fortnight.
The person who got this girl her job with us (her best friend since childhood) is also massively ****** off, and is openly stating to us all her sickness is 'not genuine.' This girl apparently can't face her work-from-home workload, but she's perfectly capable of face-timing and chilling out on social media all day while she's off sick.
I've only been with this company for a few months, but I've already suspected this particular girl of narcissistic personality disorder, a complete lack of being able to take responsibility, and a general superiority complex and hostile undiplomatic attitude. I think I can add to this list her being of low moral character going by her willingness to fake illness in order to chill out, throwing everyone else in our small team under the bus (she's not bothered if someone else is off on holiday, she's taking her precious fully paid sick time if works looks a bit tough, and if everyone else goes under the bus due to that, then sod everyone else
'
We've got two women in our small team of five who've been pregnant before, and working from home they never missed a single day due to pregnancy-related sickness.
It's apparent our team is now incensed by this girl's actions and the evidence her sickness is not genuine. Yet in this country we and our management are absolutely terrified of her ever picking up upon our displeasure at her faking her sickness given her protected status of being pregnant. Off the record, the words we exchange are along the lines of "I hope she takes her maternity leave ASAP and never comes back". But this is discrimination and ill-feeling, for which all hard working people in the team must hang and the pregnant woman faking sickness must be compensated for any perceived discrimination she feels.
So, here in the real world between regular people, how do we actually deal with this sort of scenario? Or do teams like this just suffer a slow death as everyone left looks for jobs elsewhere, and its left for management to redesign the jobs under them with a more versatile high-turnover workforce?
I've previously worked for the NHS, and it seems to me females of low moral character have sickness going for them all the time. There was one who had a senior position in a team but claimed issues with sarcoidosis. Instead of officially calling in sick, she'd declare herself off as a day in lieu. Eventually higher management finally reached the compromise of her taking a six month sabbatical, where she was suddenly well enough to go travelling abroad. In the meantime the other two full time colleagues transferred to elsewhere in the NHS, leaving one woman who worked 3 days a week PT and a bunch of lowly paid/no security temps to take over the wrecked team that'd been burnt out in the wake of her fake illness.
Another female colleague also played the system where she takes 6 months off with depression/anxiety/stress every two years or so, and then return for just enough time to keep her eligible for another 6 months off at full pay. So repeats the pattern.
Meanwhile the younger generation are living in massive precariat economy times and have no protection whatsoever despite busting their nut for their employers. Makes me wonder if the US system of no protected status whatsoever for employees is actually correct.
Not to exceed the scope of this post, but seriously, what practical steps should we be taking when we have problematic illness (especially fake illness) amongst employees who have a protected status of some sort? Is there anything else that can be done but abandon ship or stick it out and do massive amounts of unpaid overtime to compensate?
The big kicker here is, everyone on our team works from home except for one office day per fortnight.
The person who got this girl her job with us (her best friend since childhood) is also massively ****** off, and is openly stating to us all her sickness is 'not genuine.' This girl apparently can't face her work-from-home workload, but she's perfectly capable of face-timing and chilling out on social media all day while she's off sick.
I've only been with this company for a few months, but I've already suspected this particular girl of narcissistic personality disorder, a complete lack of being able to take responsibility, and a general superiority complex and hostile undiplomatic attitude. I think I can add to this list her being of low moral character going by her willingness to fake illness in order to chill out, throwing everyone else in our small team under the bus (she's not bothered if someone else is off on holiday, she's taking her precious fully paid sick time if works looks a bit tough, and if everyone else goes under the bus due to that, then sod everyone else
'We've got two women in our small team of five who've been pregnant before, and working from home they never missed a single day due to pregnancy-related sickness.
It's apparent our team is now incensed by this girl's actions and the evidence her sickness is not genuine. Yet in this country we and our management are absolutely terrified of her ever picking up upon our displeasure at her faking her sickness given her protected status of being pregnant. Off the record, the words we exchange are along the lines of "I hope she takes her maternity leave ASAP and never comes back". But this is discrimination and ill-feeling, for which all hard working people in the team must hang and the pregnant woman faking sickness must be compensated for any perceived discrimination she feels.
So, here in the real world between regular people, how do we actually deal with this sort of scenario? Or do teams like this just suffer a slow death as everyone left looks for jobs elsewhere, and its left for management to redesign the jobs under them with a more versatile high-turnover workforce?
I've previously worked for the NHS, and it seems to me females of low moral character have sickness going for them all the time. There was one who had a senior position in a team but claimed issues with sarcoidosis. Instead of officially calling in sick, she'd declare herself off as a day in lieu. Eventually higher management finally reached the compromise of her taking a six month sabbatical, where she was suddenly well enough to go travelling abroad. In the meantime the other two full time colleagues transferred to elsewhere in the NHS, leaving one woman who worked 3 days a week PT and a bunch of lowly paid/no security temps to take over the wrecked team that'd been burnt out in the wake of her fake illness.
Another female colleague also played the system where she takes 6 months off with depression/anxiety/stress every two years or so, and then return for just enough time to keep her eligible for another 6 months off at full pay. So repeats the pattern.
Meanwhile the younger generation are living in massive precariat economy times and have no protection whatsoever despite busting their nut for their employers. Makes me wonder if the US system of no protected status whatsoever for employees is actually correct.
Not to exceed the scope of this post, but seriously, what practical steps should we be taking when we have problematic illness (especially fake illness) amongst employees who have a protected status of some sort? Is there anything else that can be done but abandon ship or stick it out and do massive amounts of unpaid overtime to compensate?
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