Disciplinary over sickness absence!

MissMuppet

Hi All,

I am being disciplined for my sickness absence, I've worked here for 3 years and I have a condition which is exasberated by stress, which they knew about when I did my pre-employment questionnaire.

The department I work in has been under review (I work in education) for the majority of the time I have been there. Some colleagues have been made redundant when the original dept closed, and we were moved to a different dept, which has now been under review for 6 months+. The majority of staff are very stressed, one colleague is currently off for 3 weeks with stress. Another left last year after 3 months off sick with stress.

My absences have been odd days, but most been related to my medical condition. I have made my employers aware right from the beginning that I am stressed, but nothing has been done on their side to improve things. I have done all they have asked such as seek counselling, attend an assertiveness training course, get a doctors certificate for every day I have off sick... but still they have done nothing. They carried out a stress risk assessment some time ago, and nearly all of the actions have not been carried out. I have never had an appraisal or regular one to one's with my line manager, although I have had about 6 different manager's in the space of 3 years.

The meeting has been set for next Wednesday, although I only got the paperwork and invitation on Tuesday of this week. I have asked for them to postpone the meeting as it's vacation time here and I have no-one around to act as witnesses, also I have had trouble getting hold of a union rep and I need time to prepare. I only joined the union this week, and found out today they might not be able to help because I haven't been a paid member for 4 weeks. HR are insisting the meeting cannot be postponed until I come back from leave (wb 23 August), so now it looks like I will need to come in for the meeting while on annual leave.

I guess I am putting this here because I want to know if anyone has been through the same and can offer any good advice. I need my job and I enjoy it, but I do feel as though I am being treated unfairly when it's the stress they have caused that has contributed to my sickness levels.

Thanks

teabelly

I'd raise a grievance before the meeting asking why items in a risk assessment have been ignored for a start.

I used to work in Education. Stress is caused by their incompetent management and poor handling of staff shortages ie they still expect everything to be done with fewer and fewer people. Other people being off sick rarely bothers them. Education management are trained to be brick walls. They will do nothing so it is best to accept this and find another job or be prepared for a long drawn out fight against their stupidity. Their stupidity does tend to triumph as it generally knows no bounds.

SarEl is your lady for advice though.

I'd be very hacked off at them trying to force me to come in during my annual leave. That is a classic sign of a power game as there is no reason why it can't be postponed until you get back.

paulwf

What actions did the stress risk assessment suggest?

Stress is very subjective. You can quantify things like excessive workload as you would be staying late and working through breaks, but stress is harder to measure. Presuming you work set hours and have set breaks then some people might not find it stressful at all whereas others would.

Are the actions required for reducing stress actually reducing workload or is it a better way of working?

mariefab

This 'condition' that you mention in your opening post; do you know whether it would qualify as a disability under the Disability Discrimination Act?

It would usually qualify if your condition has a substantial and long term adverse effect on your ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities.

If this applies to you, then your employer should allow you to have a higher percentage of sick leave than employees without a disability (as a reasonable adjustment) before considering disciplinary action.

SarEl

mariefab wrote: »

This 'condition' that you mention in your opening post; do you know whether it would qualify as a disability under the Disability Discrimination Act?

It would usually qualify if your condition has a substantial and long term adverse effect on your ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities.

If this applies to you, then your employer should allow you to have a higher percentage of sick leave than employees without a disability (as a reasonable adjustment) before considering disciplinary action.

"May" - not "should". The employer should provide "reasonable adjustments" but there is no definition of what this involves, and only where a disbaility under the legislative criteria applies. Which I doubt that it does because the impact on normal day to day activities must be there - and in this case it would appear it probably isn't.

In terms of the OP, the employer is being unreasonable in not allowing a postponement, and you should write raising a grievance as to their refusal on the grounds that you are both on leave, and that you are unable to obtain union or other accompaniment. However, this is only an early stage in the process - if they do not do this there is very little that can be done about it (other than appeal). Capability processes under sickness absence are becoming more and more frequently used, and regardless of the reasons for absence, the situation is that the only thing that really matters in these terms is the absence. You can provide mitigation and/or reflect this cause back onto the employer in terms of their management of the stress at work, but these do not effect the way in which such processes are managed in that they are simply about how many days / periods you have off sick, and whether they meet certain policy thresholds for action.

However, you should be somewhat cautious about the stress argument and how you use it. Stress is, as previous posters have said, hard to define, and hard to pin down. It is very difficult to prove that the employer is at fault. After all, you have mentioned that others are off work with stress - how many aren't off work with stress? You see my point? However, there's a lot of it around now - every workplace is under pressure. Arguing that the job is too stressful and is causing the underlying medical condition to worsen does not necessarily improve your position - it could just as easily be argued that your medical condition makes you less capable of doing the job because you are unable to cope with the pressure.

If you can pinpoint specific stresses which are "unreasonable" then you may be able to evidence risks which fall within the "duty of care" under health and safety. But if it is a case of, "there are fewer staff, more work, worries about job losses...etc.,etc" then I am afraid that the general response (from tribunals too) is "welcome to the club". Picking up the risk assessment is a good idea, and perhaps the fact that it has not been implemented or fully implemented may be something that you (and preferably also other colleagues and the union) can do to try to get the employer to do more in the future. But in and of itself it would not present a cause to be "let off" the sickness absences - although there is no reason why you shouldn't carefully try it out!

If this is a first stage, then be aware that the only outcome can be a warning about future absence and some sort of review (which will probably already be set down in the policy) period to assess your future absence. Many, many people get such warnings, and they are not, in themselves, a huge issue. The issue is to ensure that you do not get to further stages by continuing higher levels of sickness absence.

MissMuppet

Thanks for the responses, I am preparing my case this afternoon so will come back and respond to some of the questions then. I guess I'm just worried, this is the first time this has happened to me and I want to make sure I prepare as much as possible.

bendix

I work in a high profile law firm. Most of the people who work here work extremely long hours - it's not unknown for people to do 14-16 hour days. We work on billion dollar transactions and sometimes during those time intensive projects, the lawyers have been known to work throughout the night. It's called doing what's needed to get the job done.

I asked our HR manager how many people take sick leave due to stress (after reading this thread). He laughed at me and said none. Nobody would even think of raising 'stress' as a reason for sick leave. Stress is part of day to day adult existence.

But, then again, we are a private sector organisation. I suspect it's slightly different in the public sector. I wonder why.

cazziebo

bendix wrote: »

I work in a high profile law firm. Most of the people who work here work extremely long hours - it's not unknown for people to do 14-16 hour days. We work on billion dollar transactions and sometimes during those time intensive projects, the lawyers have been known to work throughout the night. It's called doing what's needed to get the job done.

I asked our HR manager how many people take sick leave due to stress (after reading this thread). He laughed at me and said none. Nobody would even think of raising 'stress' as a reason for sick leave. Stress is part of day to day adult existence.

But, then again, we are a private sector organisation. I suspect it's slightly different in the public sector. I wonder why.

To be fair, they probably earn a lot more than the OP and her colleagues in the education department. In addition, they knew at recruitment stage that they were going into this high powered environment.

Don't get me wrong, I get very irritated at the "stress" bandwagon and how the employer is to blame for everything that goes wrong in someone's life. I do have a degree of sympathy with people who have hitherto worked in what was "safe" environments and now find everything is in constant change and the work demands have increased. Our public sector (and currently banking industry) is not a good place to work.

Yes, we private sector employees can say "Welcome to the real world" but that doesn't help. The reality is that there are savage cuts being made and they are mostly being made at the bottom levels. Individuals are now doing the tasks previously covered by 2 or 3 people - and all this in an environment of often poor management and sparse resources. It's not a happy world.

OP - from what I read, you are being disciplined because your attendance contravenes the absence policy procedures. This is a very early stage action and there is a long way to go before your job is in danger.

bendix

cazziebo wrote: »

To be fair, they probably earn a lot more than the OP and her colleagues in the education department. In addition, they knew at recruitment stage that they were going into this high powered environment.

Don't get me wrong, I get very irritated at the "stress" bandwagon and how the employer is to blame for everything that goes wrong in someone's life. I do have a degree of sympathy with people who have hitherto worked in what was "safe" environments and now find everything is in constant change and the work demands have increased. Our public sector (and currently banking industry) is not a good place to work.

Yes, we private sector employees can say "Welcome to the real world" but that doesn't help. The reality is that there are savage cuts being made and they are mostly being made at the bottom levels. Individuals are now doing the tasks previously covered by 2 or 3 people - and all this in an environment of often poor management and sparse resources. It's not a happy world.

OP - from what I read, you are being disciplined because your attendance contravenes the absence policy procedures. This is a very early stage action and there is a long way to go before your job is in danger.

I'd have much more sympathy for your views except for two key facts. The cuts that are due to happen in the public sector have already happened in the private sector, and people there have - by and large - just gone on with it without too much whinging and without an institutionalised reliance on sick leave for stress to help cope.

Second: it's a fact that average productivity levels in the private sector are much higher than in the public sector.

We just get on with it.

lynzpower

Do you have a trade union shop steward working on this.

I agree about raising a grievance re a stress risk assessment. SRAs are not always done but are highly illuminating when they are done well.

This should be your first port of call IMVHO altohugh I am not an expert at all

marcowil

bendix wrote: »

I work in a high profile law firm. Most of the people who work here work extremely long hours - it's not unknown for people to do 14-16 hour days. We work on billion dollar transactions and sometimes during those time intensive projects, the lawyers have been known to work throughout the night. It's called doing what's needed to get the job done.

I asked our HR manager how many people take sick leave due to stress (after reading this thread). He laughed at me and said none. Nobody would even think of raising 'stress' as a reason for sick leave. Stress is part of day to day adult existence.

But, then again, we are a private sector organisation. I suspect it's slightly different in the public sector. I wonder why.

And if one of those employees later has a heart attack brought on by the stress of the job will the HR Manager be laughing then?

I don't work in a stressful environment (thankfully) but do understand that stress is a big issue for some people. There is also a big difference between someone saying they are stressed and someone actually suffering from stress to such an extent that they cannot do their job.