How do employers view the odd day off sick?

TrikerAndBiker

I'm the Personnel manager (amongst other things... isnt it wonderful being able to multi-task! lol) for the company I work for and I have to say that absence is a real issue unless it is properly managed.

We have a system in place to monitor each case of absenteeism and are careful to ensure that we follow up on any regular cases taking in to account the reasons for the absence. We also have a return to work interview following any period of absence which includes a request for information about any medication that may be taken which might have a detrimental effect on the employee (by this I mean anything that might affect their ability to carry out their normal work duties which might result in harm)

I would say that if you were genuinely feeling unwell then please stay at home, I, for one, don't want what you got! lolol :rotfl:

SkintMonkey

Well, I've just been to check my sickness record/history (we can access it on our secure personal file online) and it hasn't all been recorded. In fact in the last year it seems I've only taken two days off sick and that includes the day yesterday. Very odd, but not complaining.

Kaz2904

We use the bradford system where I work and it's a nightmare. I have had a formal warning for having had 8 or 9 days sick in a year (I forget) despite the fact that I am the ward joke because I am at work until I can't physically work any longer. I had been on 3 courses of antibiotics over the year and my manager wasn't questioning whether or not I was really ill because she knew I was. It is taken out of her hands and you are interviewed by two matrons. When I had my meeting they looked for a pattern to my sickness and told me that half of my sick days had been taken at weekends and that the other half had been either just before or just after days off. I got really worried about this until I came out from my meeting and spoke to a junior sister who pointed out that as I worked every weekend and only did 2 shifts together I was statistically going to have that issue anyway. The night before my disciplinary meeting I spoke to the night sister and he pointed out that our work policy and our code of conduct state that we are not to come into work if we are not capable of doing our job and that if we decide we are fit to work then we accept liability for our actions. In short if I go in sick and make a drug errorr which kills someone, it's my fault and the hospital won't protect me if the family decides to sue. Because of this the unions feel that the hospital will never dismiss a nurse for a poor bradford score. If they wanted to do it they would have to go to our governing body the NMC and question our fitness to practice. So we all just ignore the scoring and carry on as we did before. It hasn't affected anyones sickness levels apart from encouraging more long term sickness because if you are off for more than 28 days it doesn't affect your Bradford score.

badgermonkey

Hay wrote:

P.S....PLEASE don't take this the wrong way...BUT if you are ok to sit and compose a perfectly coherant post on here...you are ok to go to work!!!:p

Not necessarily true - I'm having a (rare) day off today and I am perfectly capable of posting coherently. But I have lost my voice, and as a teacher, that makes doing my job pretty much impossible. If I did go in, I'd end up straining my voice and causing more problems in the long run.