Our own business new employee dilemma

Person_one

heuchera wrote: »

Even if you manage to scrupulously do all the above, all day, every day that you have the cold.. (which is unlikely..) you can spread the germs simply by breathing (it's in the tiny droplets of moisture in your breath)

Is that really true though?

From the NHS choices website:

How do colds spread?

• In general, a person becomes contagious from a few days before their symptoms begin until all of their symptoms have gone. This means most people will be infectious for around two weeks.
• You can catch the virus from an infectious person by:
• touching an object or surface contaminated by infected droplets and then touching your mouth, nose or eyes
• touching the skin of someone who has the infected droplets on their skin and then touching your mouth, nose or eyes
• inhaling tiny droplets of fluid that contain the cold virus – these are launched into the air when an infected person coughs or sneezes
• Colds spread most easily among groups of people in constant close contact, such as families and children in school or day care facilities. They're also more frequent during the winter, although it's not clear exactly why.
• A number of different viruses can cause a cold, so it's possible to have several colds one after the other, as each one may be caused by a different virus.

How can I stop a cold spreading?

• You can take some simple steps to help prevent the spread of a cold. For example:
• wash your hands regularly, particularly before touching your nose or mouth and before handling food
• always sneeze and cough into tissues – this will help prevent the virus-containing droplets from your nose and mouth entering the air, where they can infect others; you should throw away used tissues immediately and wash your hands
• clean surfaces regularly to keep them free of germs
• use your own cup, plates, cutlery and kitchen utensils
• don't share towels or toys with someone who has a cold

Guest101

lazywife wrote: »

We run a small business (myself and DH) have 3 employees, one leaving.
We advertised to replace, have found the perfect candidate, but know through a friend of a friend that his previous absence record is poor due to on off sick days in his current job.
Part of me knows that our business is far less stressful and a more pleasant working environment, also if you can't get in you directly let our clients down as there is not enough of us to work a normal day if there is an absence, is that enough to not "pull a sickie"? This suggests you need another employee. What if there was genuine sickness, for a number of weeks? In the previous larger company it would be easy to have a sick day if your not 100% and felt you couldn't cope with a stressful day in work (There's a good sick pay and always someone else to cover)
Am I just making excuses to find a reason to employ this otherwise perfect individual, or am I being foolish thinking he will change?
Couldn't address anything in interview as we weren't really to know detail, could address it after references, but would it be worth it?
Also there's not really anyone else as suitable that has applied.
Hmmmm?
What would you do?
Lazy X

I'd be hiring two people. It's your business, if it fails it would be down to you, not your employees.

tea_lover

Person_one wrote: »

Oh come on, I really don't believe that a large proportion of working age adults are wussy enough or unconcerned enough about their sickness records to be having days off every time they get a cold!

Not every time they get a cold, every time they have a cold (or any other illness) that makes them not well enough to be at work. Some people will have loads of colds but only very minor symptoms. Some people will have one awful cold a year that knocks them off their feet. Some people will be somewhere in between.

Whether it's a cold, a headache or anything else, people who are not well should not be at work. For their benefit and for everyone else's.

onomatopoeia99

Person_one wrote: »

Oh come on, I really don't believe that a large proportion of working age adults are wussy enough or unconcerned enough about their sickness records to be having days off every time they get a cold!

"Wussy?" We know you're a hero / martyr that doesn't care about making co-workers ill already, because no matter how meticulous your workplace hygene is, how fast your reactions to retrieve a tissue and get it to your mouth while sneezing, it will happen. No need to insult the rest of us and suggest that we can't decide for ourselves.when we are so affected that we feel unable to work.

pickledonionspaceraider

I hate work Martyrs. Colds are not so simple to contain and we all know it - or we would never get them - it is so easy to sit on high horses and say this and that however, many of us do not work in an environment where we can carry round boxes of tissues or hand gel, and wash our hands every time we cough as would be back and forward to the toilet more often than at our work station. In many work places this would be a real issue to expect to do this - it would in mine

I hate the Martyrs that come in, and infect you all in the work place, then you go home and infect your family, small kids, elder infirm family members, the lot, all because some butt munch wants to ingratiate themselves with the bosses.

We used to have one work Martyr at our place who would come in for the first two days off her cold - pass it to everyone - then go off sick for at least a week. Every time. It became a real obvious pattern


OP you do not know anything. You are hearing rumours from a friend of a friend. I think as an employer you need to act more professionally and stop the gossip mill now.

To be fair it does sound like a very stressful environment if all it takes is one person to be off sick and the whole business come tumbling down. It really sounds quite appalling to be honest. These are the kind of work environments that employees struggle to even book holiday and then when they return to work they know you are heading back into a s**t storm as minimal work or no work has been done in their absence. I would never want to work in a place like that, been there done that where you dread returning to work and in the end begin to hate your job as you are all just merely surviving by the skin of your teeth

I really think you need to get a handle on things - as this seems like a melting pot of stress - you say you cannot afford an extra wage, but what would you do if someone went off long term sick with stress etc

cyantist

heuchera wrote: »

It's far better to take the days off when you're feeling unwell than to come in and not be able to do your job properly, AND risk infecting other people. People who come into work and spread their germs around are selfish and irresponsible, not to mention socially stupid!

But looking at it from the employers point of view, you get people who ring in sick when they've got a hangover, or who ring in sick because there's a football match on telly. How can the employers differentiate between an illness that can't be helped and something self-inflicted (or a non-illness!)

I guess the answer is they can't, which is why they introduce these draconian rules for everybody, only one sick day allowed every 3 months, or whatever.

That's why duvet days are brilliant. As long as you don't have any important work on that day, my old workplace would let you take 5 annual leave days with no notice. There were so few sickness days taken there. Most people would even take duvet days if they were a little ill, to prevent other people getting infected. Though it helped that we had a generous annual leave allowance and the employees really appreciated this and no-one took the p.

How much annual leave do you offer your employees lazywife, and would there be the capacity to introduce duvet days?

How do you cope during annual leave anyway, if there's not enough of you to work a normal day if there's an absence?

Mupette

For those that think its ok to go into work with just a cold,

Your just a cold, makes me ill, in return i go off sick, a cold feels more like the flu and can bring on a relapse.

I have 8 days sick pay a year, the rest is SSP.

my sick record is so bad that i am constantly threatened with the MAP (sickness policy)

I have told my employers before i started work that i have MS, some people with a hidden disability choose not to tell the employer their choice, but i wanted to be open and honest from the start to stop any Chinese whispers, my colleagues don't like me because they think i get special treatment and always off sick, half the time it people looked after their health and personal hygiene my sickness would be halved

onlyroz

Isn't it normal to start new employees on probation for (say) 6 months? In any case I believe that employers are allowed to dismiss staff for any reason at all within the first two years without having to worry about employment tribunals etc etc.

Person_one

Mupette wrote: »

For those that think its ok to go into work with just a cold,

Your just a cold, makes me ill, in return i go off sick, a cold feels more like the flu and can bring on a relapse.

I have 8 days sick pay a year, the rest is SSP.

my sick record is so bad that i am constantly threatened with the MAP (sickness policy)

I have told my employers before i started work that i have MS, some people with a hidden disability choose not to tell the employer their choice, but i wanted to be open and honest from the start to stop any Chinese whispers, my colleagues don't like me because they think i get special treatment and always off sick, half the time it people looked after their health and personal hygiene my sickness would be halved

You can't expect people to stay off work with a cold though, affecting their own sickness records. If they think they can do their job and manage their own condition/hygiene, that's their decision to make. Coming in with actual flu, d&v bugs etc would be different, but colds are common, hence the name!

Maybe some training on how to practice good hygiene with a cold do it doesn't spread would be a good idea in some workplaces. At least it'd be an acknowledgement that the punitive nature of most sickness absence policies encourages people to come in when they're not 100%.

tomtontom

onlyroz wrote: »

Isn't it normal to start new employees on probation for (say) 6 months? In any case I believe that employers are allowed to dismiss staff for any reason at all within the first two years without having to worry about employment tribunals etc etc.

They cannot dismiss for "any reason at all", the reason cannot be related to a protected characteristic (sex, race, disability etc). So if the potential employee has a disability, the OP would need to look into reasonable adjustments to accommodate the employee in the workplace, which may include relaxing the absence procedure (though certainly not scrapping it altogether).