Route to retirement

JoeCrystal

Exodi said:

That's absolutely bananas, I don't think I could ever have the audacity, though I guess if one really loathes the employer one may be motivated to do such a thing. That said nope, not for me, I could never do it, I think I'd just leave.

The most insane policy I have seen at work is the childcare policy. Initially, it was six months, but for a while, it did not take into account that both parents may be working for the company, so it ended up having both parents off for six months or having one parent off for six months and then switching over to another parent for another six months. The start of the six-month full paid leave was available for both parents within a year after the birth of a child. This is on top of maternity leave, by the way, which also includes full six-month pay. So, generally, the mother would be off on full pay for a year, and the father would be off for six months. They quickly tightened up the required proofs and restrictions two years later once the actual costs vastly exceeded their forecasted budget.

There will always be someone who takes full advantage of any allowance made by their employers, and I get very annoyed when I find out about such occurrences at work.   

Fortunately, sick leave at work is not like that. Otherwise, some will use it in full! The staff is permitted only five working days per holiday year to be 100% paid as sick leave.

pterri

“There will always be someone who takes full advantage of any allowance made by their employers” work is transactional, if you are entitled then take it. You can be damn sure that the employer will use the contract of employment, ‘reasonable overtime’ I regularly work beyond my contractural hours for free. Faking illness is not cool or ethical, using maternity/paternity leave is. 

Bravepants

onjon said:

Hello,

Hypothetical scenario.

If someone went off work with stress,  can they stay off, (if their doctor writes them a repeat fit note) say for 12 weeks, then on their next review meeting with HR, they suggest that the don't feel able to do the job anymore and they will retire? 

They will be on full pay and pension contributions over this period and are already over 55.

Thanks for any advice

You will have to jump through hoops, including Occupational Health assessments before they assess whether you qualify to apply for early medical retirement. Occupational Health will also suggest to your employer that they perform a Stress Risk Assessment to see what can be done to reduce your stress levels in your role. They will likely try to offer you an alternative role within the organisation if not. Once you aply for early retirement you will then also have to satisfy the pension scheme administrator, who will also require an independent Occupational Health screening. It would then be up to the Occupational Health medical professional to recommend you for early retirement or not. If not, and you are determined to leave and you can still obtain sick notes, and you have the money to suport you, you could wait until they dismiss you on grounds of capability. In this situation they might give you a payoff as compensation for "losing" your job. This all might take 3 years or so. 

Exodi

katejo said:

Exodi said:

Bit harsh on the hypothetical employer.

Full pay for 3 months on sick is pretty generous, I'll expect they'll swiftly water down that policy for newcomers after this stitching up. As they say, no good deed goes unpunished.

I am fairly sure that my employer pays full for 6 months and half for 6 months but I don't know of anyone who has needed it. 

That's kind of the point, it will only take someone like the OP's 'theoretical' example, or the people molerat describes to exploit the policy before they may re-consider it.

JoeCrystal said:

Exodi said:

That's absolutely bananas, I don't think I could ever have the audacity, though I guess if one really loathes the employer one may be motivated to do such a thing. That said nope, not for me, I could never do it, I think I'd just leave.

The most insane policy I have seen at work is the childcare policy. Initially, it was six months, but for a while, it did not take into account that both parents may be working for the company, so it ended up having both parents off for six months or having one parent off for six months and then switching over to another parent for another six months. The start of the six-month full paid leave was available for both parents within a year after the birth of a child. This is on top of maternity leave, by the way, which also includes full six-month pay. So, generally, the mother would be off on full pay for a year, and the father would be off for six months. They quickly tightened up the required proofs and restrictions two years later once the actual costs vastly exceeded their forecasted budget.

There will always be someone who takes full advantage of any allowance made by their employers, and I get very annoyed when I find out about such occurrences at work.   

Fortunately, sick leave at work is not like that. Otherwise, some will use it in full! The staff is permitted only five working days per holiday year to be 100% paid as sick leave.

Oh yikes, I guess it could be even worse than you describe as it's common for mothers to have 9 months off as maternity leave (with 3 months at SMP) followed by 6 months provided by the childcare policy you describe, followed by the accrued holiday over the 15 months (just over 1.5 months) = 16.5 months plus 6 months for the other partner followed by the accrued holiday over the 6 months (just over 0.5 months) = 23 months, and that's not even considering the commonplace practice of making sure you first go on maternity with maximum holiday entitlement already built up, or taking the additional 3 months unpaid in maternity leave. Could easily have a situation where you are missing staff on account of a child over two years after the event.

Bravepants said:
If not, and you are determined to leave and you can still obtain sick notes, and you have the money to suport you, you could wait until they dismiss you on grounds of capability. In this situation they might give you a payoff as compensation for "losing" your job. This all might take 3 years or so. 

Sorry but could you provide some insight into why you think that?

My company has unfortunately dismissed several people that were on long-term sick (who had exhausted their SSP entitlement), of whom were happy to stay on the books ad infinitum unpaid as you suggest (their motivations being that they were aware it would be much harder to find a job after a long period of sick or unemployment, whereas staying on the books would allow them to walk straight back into their current job should they recover). In a lot of these cases their expected return date was unknown.

Nonetheless, when they were eventually dismissed on capability grounds, they were certainly not given a wheelbarrow of money for the inconvenience. Realistically in some cases (such as the circumstances the OP describes for their 'hypothetical' friend) the employer may be feeling quite cyncial or frustrated about the employee on long term sick (especially as SSP is paid by the employer, not the government as some may believe) so will have little motivation to suprise their absent employee with a big bonus bonaza

MX5huggy

Local Government and other public sectors I expect is 6 months full pay followed by 6 months half pay (you may require 5 years service to get the full entitlement). 

People regularly take “advantage” of this from the employee with 40 plus years service who has planned their retirement date gets offered a slot for the hip replacement so delayed retirement until after the hip was done so they got sick pay. To the staff that that make sure they are off just the right amount so they don’t get dismissed year after year, then do the 6 months off before retirement. 

barnstar2077

Exodi said:

katejo said:

Exodi said:

Bit harsh on the hypothetical employer.

Full pay for 3 months on sick is pretty generous, I'll expect they'll swiftly water down that policy for newcomers after this stitching up. As they say, no good deed goes unpunished.

I am fairly sure that my employer pays full for 6 months and half for 6 months but I don't know of anyone who has needed it. 

That's kind of the point, it will only take someone like the OP's 'theoretical' example, or the people molerat describes to exploit the policy before they may re-consider it.

JoeCrystal said:

Exodi said:

That's absolutely bananas, I don't think I could ever have the audacity, though I guess if one really loathes the employer one may be motivated to do such a thing. That said nope, not for me, I could never do it, I think I'd just leave.

The most insane policy I have seen at work is the childcare policy. Initially, it was six months, but for a while, it did not take into account that both parents may be working for the company, so it ended up having both parents off for six months or having one parent off for six months and then switching over to another parent for another six months. The start of the six-month full paid leave was available for both parents within a year after the birth of a child. This is on top of maternity leave, by the way, which also includes full six-month pay. So, generally, the mother would be off on full pay for a year, and the father would be off for six months. They quickly tightened up the required proofs and restrictions two years later once the actual costs vastly exceeded their forecasted budget.

There will always be someone who takes full advantage of any allowance made by their employers, and I get very annoyed when I find out about such occurrences at work.   

Fortunately, sick leave at worpress,not like that. Otherwise, some will use it in full! The staff is permitted only five working days per holiday year to be 100% paid as sick leave.

Oh yikes, I guess it could be even worse than you describe as it's common for mothers to have 9 months off as maternity leave (with 3 months at SMP) followed by 6 months provided by the childcare policy you describe, followed by the accrued holiday over the 15 months (just over 1.5 months) = 16.5 months plus 6 months for the other partner followed by the accrued holiday over the 6 months (just over 0.5 months) = 23 months, and that's not even considering the commonplace practice of making sure you first go on maternity with maximum holiday entitlement already built up, or taking the additional 3 months unpaid in maternity leave. Could easily have a situation where you are missing staff on account of a child over two years after the event.

Bravepants said:
If not, and you are determined to leave and you can still obtain sick notes, and you have the money to suport you, you could wait until they dismiss you on grounds of capability. In this situation they might give you a payoff as compensation for "losing" your job. This all might take 3 years or so. 

Sorry but could you provide some insight into why you think that?

My company has unfortunately dismissed several people that were on long-term sick (who had exhausted their SSP entitlement), of whom were happy to stay on the books ad infinitum unpaid as you suggest (their motivations being that they were aware it would be much harder to find a job after a long period of sick or unemployment, whereas staying on the books would allow them to walk straight back into their current job should they recover). In a lot of these cases their expected return date was unknown.

Nonetheless, when they were eventually dismissed on capability grounds, they were certainly not given a wheelbarrow of money for the inconvenience. Realistically in some cases (such as the circumstances the OP describes for their 'hypothetical' friend) the employer may be feeling quite cyncial or frustrated about the employee on long term sick (especially as SSP is paid by the employer, not the government as some may believe) so will have little motivation to suprise their absent employee with a big bonus bonaza

I do know of a couple of people who were given a few thousand extra when they were dismissed on capabilty grounds.  I assume it is to make it less likely that the ex staff member causes them any trouble, especially bad press, which my company tries quite hard to avoid.  I'm pretty sure it wasn't done out of the goodness of their hearts, as they also have forced overtime and a practically illegal performance management system.

Bravepants

Bravepants said:
If not, and you are determined to leave and you can still obtain sick notes, and you have the money to suport you, you could wait until they dismiss you on grounds of capability. In this situation they might give you a payoff as compensation for "losing" your job. This all might take 3 years or so. 

Sorry but could you provide some insight into why you think that?

I'll leave the answer to your question to your imagination. Note that I used the word "might" in my post.

However, general legal advice is to NEVER RESIGN in such situations. 

LinLui

Brie said:

LinLui said:

Hypothetical question - does your pension allow you to retire that early and draw it down? Because many schemes wouldn't unless you were unable to do any work at all. 

depending on the type of pension there may be a lesser amount to be paid if taken at 55 rather than 65 or whatever but 55 is the current minimum age so that should be fine.  

Yes I'm aware of that. But on the very bare "hypothetical question" is impossible to know if they can retire early,  or even if (whatever they are avoiding) they will be allowed to.