Our own business new employee dilemma

onlyroz

tomtontom wrote: »

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).

OK, to be clearer, employees employed after 6th April 2012 cannot claim unfair dismissal in the first 24 months of employment, unless they are claiming an "automatically unfair dismissal":

https://www.gov.uk/dismiss-staff/unfair-dismissals

Robisere

Have a Job Description and Contract of Work drawn up, cheap at a solicitors. Give him a one or two month probationary contract. This should give you time for other applicants, if you leave the ad open.

The other side of the employment Sickness coin is this: years ago I was a manager in a small family business, managing a workshop for an old friend. Years before that, an old injury flared up so seriously that I was paralysed and off sick for months, eventually registered disabled. The owner refused to believe that I was genuinely ill, despite a personal visit from my GP. Years of friendship disappeared after he gave 2 verbal warnings (to my wife, on the doorstep) and a written warning, about fictitious episodes which did not take place. This was torn apart by a workmate (one of his family!) who left the business and started his own, disgusted by his dad's treatment of me. I had worked alongside this lad and his brother and they always said that, whilst I asked them to carry out a task, dad told them. It took me many years to recover, training at a disbility college for completely different work and losing a house. I have never forgiven the man and I never will; his actions brought their own reward when his two sons left him and never spoke to him again.

My point is that there are always two sides to every story. What if this guy's former employer has a personal grudge?

Savvy_Sue

Jagraf wrote: »

Can't you take him/her on as a contractor?

Doesn't sound like it! Remember, the employer can't decide someone is a contractor / self-employed just because it will be cheaper in terms of paid holiday / pension auto-enrolment / sick pay.

bunty109 wrote: »

However, if you suspect his current role contributes to the sickness then u would: use the references to flag the issue and set out expectations around attendance (written sickness policy is good) and offer a contract with a probationary period of 6 monthS, where you monitor performance and attendance. If he takes odd days here and there as sickness during that period then it will need nipping in the bud.

Re the bit I've bolded, a written sickness policy is not 'good', it's essential! As is a written statement of terms and conditions, and a grievance and disciplinary policy!

OP, do you give any company sick pay, or is it SSP from the start? Because if he's been used to CSP then not having any (if that's your policy for all staff) should concentrate his mind.

SandC

Colds are contagious before symptoms start and for up to a couple of weeks once you do start the sneezing, coughing and feeling generally lousy. In reality, most people have a couple of days off sick when they have a heavy cold because they feel dreadful, if it's because they're worried about spreading germs, well that job's probably already been done. You can't have a week or two off when you have a common cold, it's as simple as that.

So far as the OPs dilemma goes, personally I would give him a chance. I understand where you are coming from entirely. And I also think that it is not necessarily the case that this amount of days off are what we commonly know as 'sickies', ie. hangover or not really ill. I honestly believe that different people have different ideas as to how ill you should feel before attempting to come into work. Some would ring in if their tummy feels 'off'. Others would give it a shot and only go home from work if they got worse. 9/10 once you're up and about you feel a lot better. Sometimes you feel sniffly and wonder if you're coming down with a cold - but it doesn't always materialise (you may well have a cold but hardly any symptoms - these are still contagious through touch etc., I think people should worry more about phones and door handles than sneezing personally).... some people might take a day off in that case....

Also, if there tends to be a culture of good attendance it may make an employee think twice about whether they really are too ill to go in or just a bit off colour. And it's correct that in many places of work people see sick leave as an 'extra' if you like.

Savvy_Sue

BTW, we once had a new starter who seemed fine, but then one day early on he didn't appear. And that was the day his reference arrived, which pretty much said "he left by mutual agreement, before we asked him to do so."

He turned up after lunch. He'd had a burst pipe at his flat (in the days before mobiles), he didn't have a phone installed there and couldn't immediately get out to the local call box. By the time he could, he could get to work, so in he came.

HR asked about his reference. He agreed that was the situation, but it was a job he truly hated, and his real passion was playing in a band, but he didn't make enough money from that to live on. He'd gone for our job because although it didn't pay enough to live on it was enough with what he could earn from the band.

And after that first blip he was absolutely fine.

We also had a semi-professional poker player on the team, who would occasionally come to work after an all-nighter. Another one who couldn't earn enough from their passion, but didn't need a very high paying job to supplement it. They got the job done too!

heuchera

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

BTW, we once had a new starter who seemed fine, but then one day early on he didn't appear. And that was the day his reference arrived, which pretty much said "he left by mutual agreement, before we asked him to do so."

He turned up after lunch. He'd had a burst pipe at his flat (in the days before mobiles), he didn't have a phone installed there and couldn't immediately get out to the local call box. By the time he could, he could get to work, so in he came.

HR asked about his reference. He agreed that was the situation, but it was a job he truly hated, and his real passion was playing in a band, but he didn't make enough money from that to live on. He'd gone for our job because although it didn't pay enough to live on it was enough with what he could earn from the band.

And after that first blip he was absolutely fine.

We also had a semi-professional poker player on the team, who would occasionally come to work after an all-nighter. Another one who couldn't earn enough from their passion, but didn't need a very high paying job to supplement it. They got the job done too!

But would you or your colleagues have gone snooping around asking "friends of friends" about a potential employee's health and medical record?

tea_lover

Sue - I bet you had great company nights out!

Savvy_Sue

heuchera wrote: »

But would you or your colleagues have gone snooping around asking "friends of friends" about a potential employee's health and medical record?

Working for a large charity in central London, unlikely to know them!

Actually, I had no business knowing the content of the reference. Fabulously indiscreet manager. :D Although the chap himself was quite open about his previous job and his nightlife.

tea_lover wrote: »

Sue - I bet you had great company nights out!

Not really! We had lots of small depts and didn't really 'do' nights out (see above).

When I started, we were in a new building, not fully commissioned. It was the IT guys (programmers) and us, less than 10 in total, knocking around a massive building. The IT guys were definitely of the 'everyone down the pub at lunchtime on Friday' persuasion, and Monday to Thursday someone would go out and come back with baguettes, cheese, ham, yoghourts etc which we'd spread out in one of the empty offices and all tuck in.

Being friends with the programmers was hugely helpful. They said "if you can break the system, we haven't built it right, so go right ahead." And also "Ask any question!" So we started with "What is the difference between hardware and software?"

Happy days. Best job I ever had, most of the time. Shame it was the wrong side of London when I wanted to move closer to my boyfriend (now DH).

duchy

My husband's first job was a small but beautifully formed company who regarded all the employees as family and although everyone worked hard they were also well looked after - decent pay. bonuses. Christmas do was always somewhere like Quaglinos with open bar and taxis home .

They had a new receptionist start -she had a couple of sick days but then one day didn't show up - Didn't answer her phone, didn't answer the door -after a couple of weeks of this the boss sent her a slightly stroppy letter terminating her employment. A few days later a lady called the boss. She was the receptionist's Mum - and she was calling to apologize she hadn't been in contact before....to let them know her perfectly healthy twenty something daughter had gone to bed one night.....and died in her sleep.

We never knew if those sickies were the forerunner or not-but it just shows it never pays to assume.

Mupette

Person_one wrote: »

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%.

That's the frustrating thing, the attitude of why should i have my sick record marked, and yet selfish enough that they don't care how it screws mine up. I asked for those alcohol foam wall mounted boxes (don't know the name) and was told no, 3 years later someone gets the company to place them, very rare people use them,

People coughing without covering their mouths, rubbing their eyes and noses and using shared equipment, makes my skin crawl,