Resignation Woes!

electribem

Would appreciate some good advice on this.

I handed in my resignation about 2 months ago. This week my sister was taken seriously ill and I have had to take time off to look after her. I have contacted work daily to update them. I have about 13 days leave accrued left. I have informed payroll at the company I work for that I have had to take emergency time off. I have asked payroll and my line manager to have my leave accrued adjusted so my final pay packet will reflect this. No response yet. Payroll has informed me that my termination forms have been received and processed. My final leave date is next Tuesday. At present I am very stressed/anxious and not getting much sleep at night. In my current mental state I do not feel I can return to work to finish out my notice period. I am going to try to get an appointment to see my GP asap. Will filling out a Self Certification form be ok for an employer anyway? However I will not be paid for sickness as all my sickness entitlement has been used up. Some more questions are:

1) will my employer penalise me for this unfortunate turn of events in terms of withholding my final pay due seeing it as a breach of contract? What should I do if this happens?

2) will I get a bad reference?

3) how would be the best way to inform work?

Really stressed out about the whole situation.

monty-doggy

You should receive statutory sick pay.

It's illegal to withhold pay they shouldn't do this.

Inform them via phone call and in writing, they can't argue a sick note.

As for a reference, it's unlikely the will give you a bad reference for being off sick. They can only be factual so all they can say is you were off sick! And there's no crime in that.

I hope you feel better soon x

somethingcorporate

Make going to see your GP a priority - it'll give you piece of mind and they may be able to help you with your issues which means you can do a better job at supporting your sister.

Good luck.

electribem

Would like to get some more views on this.

Just to update. I went to my GP and and he totally understood what I was going through. He gave me a doctors certificate which I have emailed a copy to my boss on Friday notyfying that I will not be returning to work. I have recieved no reply yet which is a bit worrying. I am on medication as well.

I was wondering that if termination papers have been sent in and final salary has been calculated, then obviously that payout will not take into account the events of the last week (I should get my final salary paid at the end of this week). So will I be getting a letter from my former company asking to pay money back? I have no sickness entitlement left. Should I contact HR in the meantime to get this information?

dancingfairy

I would assume that your pay has probably already been finalised for the end of the week. Yes, it is likely that there will be an overpayment due to recent events. If you have taken a week off then you may be overpaid by a week. You need to speak to HR about it. With payday so close they wil be unlikely to be able to do anything about it at the moment. They will probably have to sort it out next month. I understand you are very stressed about things at the moment but it will all get sorted out in the fullness of time.
Keep work updated (if you are still meant to be there). Your priority at the moment obviously has to be your sister though. Wait until you get your paycheck through and you can phone them/email them to sort it out next week.
In terms of a reference it's not great timing but there is nothing you can do. Hopefully your work will stand for itself and they will already know what sort of person you are (whether you throw a sickie at a moments notice or whether you are genuine). Whatever the case, they can't write an inaccurate reference. They can state that you were off sick during your notice period. It's all going to come down to who's writing the reference anyway. Your company may have a policy where they merely state that you were employed for x amount of time between such and such a date and that your duties were such and such. They may state you had x days sick/absent in that time.
On the other hand your actual line manager/superviser may write you a reference? It's impossible to tell from here.
Do you have a new job to go to?
I'm pretty sure everything will fall into place for you so try not to worry unduly and I hope you/your sister makes a full recovery.
df