NHS conditional job offer withdrawn

Polarbeary

Thing is, one person acts like they are a saint, comes in with a heavy cold and spreads it. I have asthma and colds go straight to my chest. I have had bronchitis and then have to go to my GP and get signed off. At least my employers know I'm actually sick but it's not great having a lingering cough and breathing problems for another couple of months.

Nick_C

tomtontom wrote: »

If your work dries up they'll make you redundant.

ohreally wrote: »

At 18 months service I would doubt it.

Whyever not? Plenty of people with 18 years service get made redundant. Cheaper to get rid of the people who have been there the shortest time. Especially if the workload is genuinely declining.

Although dismissal on the grounds of capability could be just as likely in this case.

ohreally

Nick_C wrote: »

Whyever not?

Terminate employment and bump out the door with little prospect of being in the firing line, job done, zero redundancy, quick and painless from employers perspective.

Nick_C

ohreally wrote: »

Terminate employment and bump out the door with little prospect of being in the firing line, job done, zero redundancy, quick and painless from employers perspective.

Possibly. Although there is the possibility of a discrimination claim when you go for capability. Redundancy can be a safer way of getting rid of someone. You just have the inconvenience of not replacing them for a few month until you reorganise again.

Manxman_in_exile

I used to monitor sickness in the NHS trust I worked for.


As another poster has mentioned the Bradford Score system is quite common in the NHS and anybody with 6 separate periods of absence in a year would almost certainly (depending on the trigger threshold used) raise managerial eyebrows. Monday and Friday absences were also looked upon negatively although I personally think there are good statistical reasons for Monday absences.


Also as others have pointed out, there is no such thing as a "permanent" contract. Anybody who said this in my trust was instantly corrected!

xapprenticex

Yeah, six 1 day sickies are worse than one 12 day sicky.

TBH 6 individual 'occasions' off in a year is a lot imo. I'd say one per season is acceptable, basically no more than 4 occasions within the last 365 days.

And i bet saying you had 6 occasions off but there is no underlying medical issue that caused it didnt help.

TELLIT01

With my last employer it was a case of 4 periods of sickness or a max of 8 days sick in a rolling year, whichever was lower, to trigger 'action'. e.g. 4 x 1 day would trigger, as would 2 x 4 day.

Sanne

A previous employer changed over to Bradford which taught me not to do the best for the company anymore but think of myself.

Basically, I was struggling with dizziness and a huge amount of other weird symptoms like incredible exhaustion - this was later diagnosed as a vitamin B12 deficiency but, thanks to an incapable doctor, took a while.

During this period I tried all I could to work as much as possible, sometimes this meant working from home in the morning and taking the afternoon off sick, working the next day as a half day, then working a few full days etc. My manager was fine with this - I couldn't manage more at that time, had doctor appointments to work out what was going on (which we were supposed to take as sick leave) etc.

Then they changed over to use the Bradford score and mine was really high as they had entered each of those half days (or sometimes only a couple of hours) as individual instances of sickness. Great. I said to my manager back then, should have just taken three weeks off sick (would have got full pay) - the company wold gave struggled as there was nobody who could cover my work but I wouldn't have been flagged up on the system. (I had been with the company for more than three years with not a single sick day beforehand)

Shows that, sometimes, it would be better if businesses didn't just use scores like this (I agree though that they are a useful tool in showing patterns of absence) but used their common sense as well. It certainly taught me that it's not always better to do the "right" thing.

Leo2020

Polarbeary wrote: »

Thing is, one person acts like they are a saint, comes in with a heavy cold and spreads it. I have asthma and colds go straight to my chest. I have had bronchitis and then have to go to my GP and get signed off. At least my employers know I'm actually sick but it's not great having a lingering cough and breathing problems for another couple of months.

When I came into work with a heavy cold its not because I was a saint. It was because I knew if I was off sick for every heavy cold I would end up in trouble at work. Also I would lose out on bonuses and payrises. Of course that is not fair on someone like you but most people can't afford to lose their job.

nimbo

Sanne wrote: »

A previous employer changed over to Bradford which taught me not to do the best for the company anymore but think of myself.

Basically, I was struggling with dizziness and a huge amount of other weird symptoms like incredible exhaustion - this was later diagnosed as a vitamin B12 deficiency but, thanks to an incapable doctor, took a while.

During this period I tried all I could to work as much as possible, sometimes this meant working from home in the morning and taking the afternoon off sick, working the next day as a half day, then working a few full days etc. My manager was fine with this - I couldn't manage more at that time, had doctor appointments to work out what was going on (which we were supposed to take as sick leave) etc.

Then they changed over to use the Bradford score and mine was really high as they had entered each of those half days (or sometimes only a couple of hours) as individual instances of sickness. Great. I said to my manager back then, should have just taken three weeks off sick (would have got full pay) - the company wold gave struggled as there was nobody who could cover my work but I wouldn't have been flagged up on the system. (I had been with the company for more than three years with not a single sick day beforehand)

Shows that, sometimes, it would be better if businesses didn't just use scores like this (I agree though that they are a useful tool in showing patterns of absence) but used their common sense as well. It certainly taught me that it's not always better to do the "right" thing.

At this point I would argue they were the same episode. Number of days should still be counted but it was the same thing - with my old bosses there would a very been a 50/50 chance they'd go for it.

I hate the Bradford factor. Where we used to work we were all governed by it. My pet peeve would be people coming in with colds / tummy bugs etc so they didn't get 'in trouble' and then spreading them round the office. I NEVER go In to work with a bad tummy - it's over an hour on the train and if I'm sick like that I need to be in my own home - not working with clients who often have low immune systems.

Makes me mad how the system breeds incidences where people feel they have to drag themselves in when they are actually sick. And then give it to others.

There was also one guy who had one week off sick every - 12 months almost as extra annual leave. Made me chuckle as he took his annual 'sabbatical' and then One of the women in his section of the office came in with the s@"£s and he had to have another week off - wrecking his Bradford factor score. Haha