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Is it legal to warn workers not to be ill
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My husband works for a well known parcel delivery firm.
One of my hubbys friends was really ill at the beginning of the week but continued working until wednesday, he literally couldnt stand up and was sweating and shaking and said his headache was so bad he felt sick, he had no choice but to go home.
Thia was last week and on Tuesday he returned to be given a letter from the boss saying that if he had any more time off sick he would get a written warning followed by a verbal warning . Now the guy in question does not swing the lead in any way, he hardly ever has time off, and he lost money from no sick pay for first 3 days so he wasn't gaining anything.
Is it legal for them to do this when they saw he was very ill anyway? They are talking about doing it to anybody else who is sick too, i just cant believe this is allowed but cant find anything about it on the net. Any advice or links would be appreciated
. ty
One of my hubbys friends was really ill at the beginning of the week but continued working until wednesday, he literally couldnt stand up and was sweating and shaking and said his headache was so bad he felt sick, he had no choice but to go home.
Thia was last week and on Tuesday he returned to be given a letter from the boss saying that if he had any more time off sick he would get a written warning followed by a verbal warning . Now the guy in question does not swing the lead in any way, he hardly ever has time off, and he lost money from no sick pay for first 3 days so he wasn't gaining anything.
Is it legal for them to do this when they saw he was very ill anyway? They are talking about doing it to anybody else who is sick too, i just cant believe this is allowed but cant find anything about it on the net. Any advice or links would be appreciated
. ty 0
Comments
And if they said written warning followed by verbal warning then isn't that the wrong way around?
In future he just needs to produce a doctors note and they can't say a thing.
My husband had his pay rise cancelled due to sickness and will face a dsiciplinary if he is off again this year.
I understand these companies have hours they need filling and work needing to be done but they treat you like a criminal for having time off that you can't help. Can you imagine at the moment if someone had time off for swine flu, went back and got a disciplinary? There would be an uproar.
I know some people abuse sick days and they are often easy to spot, but punishing people for being genuinely sick is disgusting in my opinion, legal though unfortunately.
That is incorrect, a doctors note isn't worth anything.
It's harsh for those who are genuinely ill but we can only blame those who have abused the system for the situation we're in now.
And the swine flu situation is being treated exactly the same as any other absence would be. Personally I think it's irresponsible on the part of the company, it will only force people with swine flu to come to work and spread it around rather than take time off and face the consequences.
For the benefit of the staff and the customers.
How else are companies suppose to operate efficiently? Somebody needs to keep track of who is off sick once or twice, who is never off sick, or who is always off sick.
Also. a lot of employees get confused and use the wrong wording for these interviews. Just because they have had a return to work interview, does not mean they have had a warning.
Some employees will have had warnings, but usually that is because they have not followed "procedures" by either not reporting their absence correctly, not supplied the needed certificates (self/doctor) or are known to swing the lead.
Is it really so bad when a company actively tries to reduce absence?
As you say there is a monitoring system that can lead to dismissal but I expect only if they think the system has been abused by an individual. If for instance you had already had 10 days off sick, two days at a time on a Friday and a Monday, then another 5 days off for swine flu then it may trigger the threshold for disciplinary action. If you only took the time off for the genuine swine flu case then the threshold may not be reached.
after all we are human and do fall ill now and then....
tell him not to feel bad about it and not to take the scaremongering too seriously and to begin to write a log of his sick days, who he spoke to and who said what...never know when he might need it..
Nope, I don't think it's bad at all that the company is trying to reduce absence. If I was the boss I'd be doing exactly the same. My point is that I've NEVER worked anywhere before where the system has been so badly abused. If the monitoring process was set up from the start this level of abuse would never have been possible. The company have only started monitoring effectively since the level of sickness became untenable.
They have gone from almost no monitoring at all to monitoring very harshly, which means a lot of genuine people are feeling intimidated into coming to work when they really shouldn't. Our 'trigger point' works out at 2 days absence in any 6 month period. So anyone unfortunate enough to get even a cold will probably hit the trigger point - let alone swine flu.
If you hit one of the trigger points, the 'absence improvement plan' is put into place. There's no realy plan of any sort - nothing to help me not get sick, its just an even more rigid set of triggers - this time the trigger is kicked off if there are 2 instances of sickness in the next 6 months. again that can be only 2 days. So already the qualifying period of time has doubled.
And then, when you have got through that 6 month period - they do it again! No more that one instance of 'Absence ' (the dirty word 'sickness' is never used) in the 2nd 6 months. So that's a year of an 'improvement plan'.
When it happened to me, I had had 2 indivdual days off, (migraines due high BP) and hadn't been sick for the previous 3 years.
The irony is that I had high BP due to the friggin stress levels at work (Once the project ended, and I had some unpaid leave, BP returned to normal).
Being on a year long 'improvement plan' just made the stress even worse.
Result- people come to work when they are sick, as they cannot stand the year long stress.
If you continue to hit the triggers, the chances of hitting them get even higher as the bar is raised. After you've hit 4 triggers, there is a disciplinary, with a view to termination of the contract.
My managers know my view on the whole thing - it was brought if to cut the 'duvet days' as the levels of casual sickness was ridiculous. but instead of the managers managing that problem properly, everyone gets hit with the same big stick.
I absolutely hate it.
No that's rubbish. I have had the flu and although it is very difficult to get up and move around, it is possible - I had to go to the loo after all! It still doesn't mean that you are fit for work and these accusations of "swinging the lead" are outdated and ridiculous.
Although it was abused a lot, to be fair. One of my colleagues was in hospital for a week and a half for psoriasis (It got infected, and she was still coming to work, although the management ended up taking her to hospital themselves!) and got a warning, whereas a supervisor was off for three consecutive weeks due to his house being burgled, and the stress he faced, and wasnt given any warning, verbal or otherwise.
I used to try keeping being off to a minimum, as I only received basic wage, but it was weird as someone could be off for five weeks, a week at a time over a period of time and someone else could take 5 different, single days off over a period of time and they would be reprimanded in the same way. What counted was the amount of times you took time off, not the amount of days you were off.