Absence Management Plan - Unfair?

chrisvaldez

Hi all, just after a bit of advice.

After two bouts of work related stress at the end of last year, my otherwise helpful line manager put me on an absence management plan. I voiced my objections, saying the absences were work related, and an agreement was made that any other absences would be judged on a 'case by case' basis.

In June, in the last week of the plan, I got kidney stones and had to take two days off of work.

My absence management plan was then extended by another 8 weeks by my manager because of this. I again voiced my objections and was hit with the usual "it's here to support you, not to punish you" rubbish.

Last month, I ripped the cartilidge in my knee, and then a week or so later witnessed someone get squashed quite nastily under a tube train in London. The physical pain of my knee, combined with what I saw, has really affected my sleep and at the beginning of last month I got signed off by my GP for a month (the whole absence is medically certificated, and backed up by occupational haealth.) At the moment I am looking at going back next week on a phased return, as I cannot walk for long periods of time and am still in a lot of pain. However, my line manager did tell me on a catch up day that my absence management plan has been extended AGAIN and that I will now need to meet with someone higher up the chain! I feel that this is unfair, and, as my contract is up for renewal at the end of January, I feel that they are trying to push me out of the door.

Is there anything I can do to state my case? Will my union be able to help? I'm really feeling like I'm being besieged by my employer even though, on the one hand, they have been supportive in trying to sort rehabilitation, yet seem quite intent on having me as some sort of 'poster boy' for sickness management!

Uncertain

The difficult thing here is to understand, however unfair it may seem, is that the reason for the illness is largely irrelevant.

If somebody is "swinging the lead" then this is a misconduct matter and not absence management. There seem to be no suggestion of this in your case.

You mention work related stress but this is of little real help to you either I'm afraid. Imagine a situation where somebody is off long term as a result of an accident at work. There are two issues. If their absence exceeds the firms normal allowances then they are entitled to deal with this in the normal way which may reach dismissal. Obviously if the accident was the firms fault then the employee has a claim and the value of the claim will clearly go up if they lose their job as a result.

agrinnall

You say that your contract is up for renewal in January. Does that mean you are not actually an employee of the company where you work? If so I think there is a high likelihood that you won't be renewed as you really haven't fulfilled your side of the contract (for perfectly understandable reasons, but not ones that the company has any responsibility for).

chrisvaldez

Thanks for the replies so far. Just to confirm, I am an employee of the company and have been for 18 months. They employ on fixed term contracts only (unless you're high up and/or grovel in which case they make you permanent!)

scheming_gypsy

If they're extending your management plan, wouldn't that suggest they're looking to keep you on? there's very little point working with you if they're planning on booting you out in a few weeks.

agrinnall

chrisvaldez wrote: »

Thanks for the replies so far. Just to confirm, I am an employee of the company and have been for 18 months. They employ on fixed term contracts only (unless you're high up and/or grovel in which case they make you permanent!)

I'm sure SarEl or someone with much greater employment law knowledge than me will be able to tell you definitively, but I suspect that having been employed for 18 months you now have full employment rights anyway and even if the fixed term contract comes to an end they can't simply tell you to go away, if they don't want you they either have to sack you (which they may be able to do using absence as the reason) or go through a redundancy process.

SarEl

agrinnall wrote: »

I'm sure SarEl or someone with much greater employment law knowledge than me will be able to tell you definitively, but I suspect that having been employed for 18 months you now have full employment rights anyway and even if the fixed term contract comes to an end they can't simply tell you to go away, if they don't want you they either have to sack you (which they may be able to do using absence as the reason) or go through a redundancy process.

At 18 months they cannot dismiss unfairly, but that is a long way off not being able to dismiss. And it is perfectly possible and fair in law to "just tell someone to go away" - depending on the conditions and circumstances of how they do it.

But in response to the OP's question - they are doing nothing wrong and appear to be operating by the book. I am afraid that "work related stress" diagnoses are worth less than the paper they are written on, and there is no special dispensation for having a doctor to write "work related" anything on a fit note. This is nothing more than the doctors opinion - they have no actual evidence or knowledge that it is work related, and are basing their opinion solely on what you tell them.

So what remains is that there is sickness absence, the employer has a policy for managing such absence and they are following it. How this may impact on longer term employment prospects is impossible to say since the FTC has not been terminated and we have no knowledge of how that event tht hasn't happened has occured (if you see what I mean). We would have to look at those circumstances when and if it happened. But I would certyainly agree that substantial sickness absence during the term of the term of the contract would be a liability for the OP.

Uncertain

SarEl wrote: »

I am afraid that "work related stress" diagnoses are worth less than the paper they are written on, and there is no special dispensation for having a doctor to write "work related" anything on a fit note. This is nothing more than the doctors opinion - they have no actual evidence or knowledge that it is work related, and are basing their opinion solely on what you tell them.

I know that is the correct legal advice.

I would just say that with quite a lot of employers (who won't have SarEl's depth of legal knowledge) it can be quite effective and have a significant bearing on how the employer handles the situation.

SarEl

Uncertain wrote: »

I know that is the correct legal advice.

I would just say that with quite a lot of employers (who won't have SarEl's depth of legal knowledge) it can be quite effective and have a significant bearing on how the employer handles the situation.

You would be amazed how many employers have grasped sickness absence management more than possibly any other area of law. Which perhaps indicates just how serious a problem many employers are considering this. And I can see from the OP that the employers here are treading their ground quite carefully and quite well. They did not discount the diagnosis, but nor it seems did they discount the sickness absence. They have carefully covered their backs on liability and promised nothing but that future sickness would be considered on a case by case basis. Since this is always true in a sickness absence policy, they actually promised nothing except to follow their policy!

So the sickness attributed to stress remained on record and the sickness management plan remained in place. Subsequent sickness which occured within the timescale of the review period were unrelated anyway. As you said previously, these policies are not about whether the sickness is genuine or not - they are simply about the amount of time off sick.

DVardysShadow

chrisvaldez wrote: »

Will my union be able to help?

Ask your union. Hear it from the horse's mouth.

meer53

I don't think they're being unfair, they have procedures that have to be followed, if they make allowances for you they have to do it for everyone. They can't bend the rules just for you. I was placed on "objectives" when i was off for 4 months when my marriage broke down, i was signed off with depression by my doctor so technically my "illness" was caused by someone else but the procedure is the same for everyone, and i accept that.