Employer contacting off sick employee. Allowed?

butterfly72

Asking on behalf of a friend.

So my friend was off sick from work for 4 months due to work related stress and anxiety. This was caused by unfounded accusations pointed at her by her boss which have since been withdrawn.

During her time off she was messaged by a colleague with details of a job in a different company. The colleague was acting on behalf of the boss, even tho she said she'd heard of the job 'on the grapevine'. There is a witness to this. Her question is..is an employer allowed to contact a member of staff who is off sick with details about a job in another company?

Thanks.

John-K_3

Yes, they are.

Why do you ask? It seems like a nice thing to do.

butterfly72

Thank you John-K. My friend really just wanted to know. She didn't think it was appropriate to be sent job information whilst she was off sick. I don't think she ever told them she wanted to leave and thought the message was a bit, well underhand.

She is aware contacting employees is fine...to check how they are (according to the sickness policy) ..not to help get rid of them!! It actually caused her more stress.

Thanks again.

butterfly72

Just done a bit of googling.... apparently no the employer should not contact the employee except for the purposes given... i.e. facilitate return.. http://www.landaulaw.co.uk/stress-at-work/

Les79

butterfly72 wrote: »

Thank you John-K. My friend really just wanted to know. She didn't think it was appropriate to be sent job information whilst she was off sick. I don't think she ever told them she wanted to leave and thought the message was a bit, well underhand.

She is aware contacting employees is fine...to check how they are (according to the sickness policy) ..not to help get rid of them!! It actually caused her more stress.

Thanks again.

Well, even if it IS underhanded surely it is something worth exploring?!

Currently:

- Your friend is not earning any money (unless they still get sick pay, but surely that will be lower than normal pay?). Also, your friend isn't currently getting experience/skills or even moving on with their life (unless they are running some scam like having a 2nd job whilst off sick, or studying etc)

- Their employer is a person down and as such is getting less work done.

- Your friend seems to hate the place anyway to be off for so long, and to think that the company are stitching her up here.

Instead of the tit for tat, why doesn't your friend simply find a better job?

Masomnia

Encouraging an employee to resign just looks like a constructive dismissal.

If anything they should be contacting her to try to facilitate a return to work. If it's work related stress and there's nothing medically wrong then the only way to get her back to work is to discuss the issues with a view to resolving them.

elsien

How do you know the colleague was acting on behalf of the boss? And even if they were, what's your friend going to do with the information which is probably next to impossible to prove?

shortcrust

Les79 wrote: »

Well, even if it IS underhanded surely it is something worth exploring?!

Currently:

- Your friend is not earning any money (unless they still get sick pay, but surely that will be lower than normal pay?). Also, your friend isn't currently getting experience/skills or even moving on with their life (unless they are running some scam like having a 2nd job whilst off sick, or studying etc)

- Their employer is a person down and as such is getting less work done.

- Your friend seems to hate the place anyway to be off for so long, and to think that the company are stitching her up here.

Instead of the tit for tat, why doesn't your friend simply find a better job?

Quite. Energies that could be applied to finding a better job do seem to get diverted to the daftest things quite often.

It's difficult to see how pursuing this would make for a less stressful return to work.

John-K_3

butterfly72 wrote: »

Just done a bit of googling.... apparently no the employer should not contact the employee except for the purposes given... i.e. facilitate return.. http://www.landaulaw.co.uk/stress-at-work/

For god’s sake, that is from a firm of ambulance chasing lawyers, of course they are going to spin it to get people lining up for a compo claim.

Is this the aim here, your friend wants a bit of compo?

TELLIT01

elsien wrote: »

How do you know the colleague was acting on behalf of the boss? And even if they were, what's your friend going to do with the information which is probably next to impossible to prove?

As Elsien says, trying to prove that the boss was involved in sending the information about another job is going to be difficult or impossible. It would be the boss's word against that of the person who actually sent the e-mail, unless there is a paper trail, and the person who sent it is prepared to put their own job at risk.
If involved, it's something the boss should not have done. Either way, as the friend has been off sick for months maybe they should consider seeking employment elsewhere for their own sake.

butterfly72

Thank you everyone for your replies and opinions. I'll show them all to my friend.