Phased return to work

Lizzybop

Not looking for advice, just interested what you think

Someone is on a phased return to work following a period of signed off sickness. Job is a fairly standard 9-5.30 mon-fri desk based office job - no special travel or manual work etc...

Has been paid full salary throughout period of sickness.

Person wants to book a weeks holiday. They are currently doing 3 half days per week (mon, weds & fri mornings).

Do you think they should have to take 5 days off their holiday entitlement to get a week off? Or if they just take 3 half days should they be able to have a whole week off?

iwilldoitthistime

Where I work they would use 5 days, as they are no longer 'on the sick' and they are being paid full pay

euronorris

Of course they should. They are on a full time contract. Sickness doesn't change that. They are only doing half days at the moment, to ease back in. The intention is that they will work up to full time, no?

As far as I am aware, their sickness does not change their holiday entitlement or how it works.

Sambucus_Nigra

Are they getting paid for 3 half days a week, or for 5 full days?

maman

I'd definitely say they need to use a full week's holiday entitlement as they should be receiving full pay. Time at work should be increasing during the phasing period.

Generally, in cases I'm involved with the phasing only works over about a 4 week period as you need to be very close to 100% fitness before returning. The phasing is to get the person back 'into harness' so to speak as they might, e.g. ,get very tired after being off for a long while.

To go off the point slightly, I think this person is slightly taking the proverbial. What they're doing is interrupting the plan that has been made in good faith to get them back into the work routine. They should have brought this up when they had the meeting to arrange the phasing.

Hopefully they're not needing the holiday because they're not coping. In that case they need to speak up and I withdraw above paragraph!

12sapphire

I concur with everyone else; your colleague would be using up a complete week of holiday entitlement. How long is she being phased in for? A colleague of mine who recently had 3 months off work returned to work the first week for 50% of her hours, second week for 75% and back to 100% by her third week.

Your thread reminded me of a colleague I worked with many, many years ago. She was the plant Managers secretary and had worked for him for well over 25 years. She worked part-time 2.15pm - 5.30pm. When she took a fortnight off in the summer everything was fine (10 days holiday entitlement used up); however, the rest of her entitlement she used up in "half days" so if she wanted 2 days off she would ask the manager if she could have 2 half days off thereby extending her remaining 10 days to 20 days. He never cottoned on!!!!

podperson

I think they should have to take the week - if they only needed 3 days off then presumably they could work different days of the week? They are being paid full-time and I'm assuming their holiday entitlement is still full time so that's how it works.
If they were offically part time then they would only have to take 3 days holiday but they would be a lower 'pro-rata' holiday entitlement so they would still be taking off the equivalent of a full working week for them.

hamsterfan1

I had this a few years ago & if I wanted a weeks leave I lost 5 days as that was what i was being paid for even though I only actually worked 3 days

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Of course, there is the danger that if she is refused, that she then relapses and needs a further six months off on full pay.

Janepig

podperson wrote: »

I think they should have to take the week - if they only needed 3 days off then presumably they could work different days of the week? They are being paid full-time and I'm assuming their holiday entitlement is still full time so that's how it works.
If they were offically part time then they would only have to take 3 days holiday but they would be a lower 'pro-rata' holiday entitlement so they would still be taking off the equivalent of a full working week for them.

I was struggling to get my head around it, but this makes perfect sense to me. And yes, if they only needed the three days off then they should swap their days.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted wrote: »

Of course, there is the danger that if she is refused, that she then relapses and needs a further six months off on full pay.

I was talking to a colleague today who works in our main office, and she was telling me that she's having to cover another colleague who wanted four weeks off during the summer holidays (because she "always" has four weeks off) but her manager refused, so she went sick for the first two weeks with "exhaustion" and had the second two weeks as leave. I've worked with so many people over the years who you know, if they don't get their own way when it comes to leave, they just go sick, and if they've got a sick paper from their doctors (lucky them, my doctor would just tell me to bog off) then there's nothing anyone can do.

Jx

tea_lover

Does it really make any difference to anyone else though? Even if you're covering that person's work and they take 3 days AL instead of 5, that would only be an extra 2 days to cover during a whole year.

Forgive me if I've got the wrong end of the stick but the OP seems almost bitter in tone, over something that doesn't really matter.