Employment issues

naaads_xo

General_Grant said:

naaads_xo said:

LightFlare said:

naaads_xo said:

I’m going to explain the situation very briefly. I was off sick last year a few times, after having a welfare meeting and another meeting to discuss my contract, occupational health, my manager has said that moving forward I can only have one sickness occurrence every 3 months, is this a rule that an employer can put in place? 

just to get some context -- how many days and how many occasions over exactly what time period  ?
(apologies if this has been asked and answered)

5 separate occasions, 3 occasions was a 1 day absence, 1 occasion was a 10 day absence and the last absence was 21 days (was recovering from complications from a medical surgery)

Was that in a 12-month period, eg the calendar year of 2024?

Yes it was

naaads_xo

Update: They have sent me the organisations full sickness policy. However, there was a point where I triggered stage 1 before going into stage 2. The policy says your line manager needs to carry out an informal meeting once you’ve been placed on stage 1 which never happened. I wasn’t aware until recently when I was told I was placed in stage 2. In this case is this fair as a meeting was supposed to be held when stage 1 was triggered but my line manager never mentioned anything until now?

Undervalued

naaads_xo said:

Update: They have sent me the organisations full sickness policy. However, there was a point where I triggered stage 1 before going into stage 2. The policy says your line manager needs to carry out an informal meeting once you’ve been placed on stage 1 which never happened. I wasn’t aware until recently when I was told I was placed in stage 2. In this case is this fair as a meeting was supposed to be held when stage 1 was triggered but my line manager never mentioned anything until now?

Any well drafted "policy" won't be a hard an fast contractual entitlement but more a guide to how the firm normally aims to handle such matters.

You presumably were given a copy of the policy, or at least one was available to you?

You have had a significant amount of sick leave in a one year period, enough to trigger some formal action from most employers. Yes, some would be more lax / generous but other would be significantly tighter.

I would suggest working with your employer on this rather than trying to fight on technicalities. 

LightFlare

Somewhat agree - however Inwould argue that it’s not reasonable for an employer to pick and choose which bits of a policy they want use and which to ignore.

They have the ability to change and update. A policy if they choose to.

As above - have a good discussion with your manager and see how that goes first.
See how the land lies before picking any battles. 

Can’t recall- are you in a union to get some advice ?

naaads_xo

LightFlare said:

Somewhat agree - however Inwould argue that it’s not reasonable for an employer to pick and choose which bits of a policy they want use and which to ignore.

They have the ability to change and update. A policy if they choose to.

As above - have a good discussion with your manager and see how that goes first.
See how the land lies before picking any battles. 

Can’t recall- are you in a union to get some advice ?

So far we’ve had 2 meetings to discuss my sickness absence. However, since returning from my sick leave because of a surgery that I was recovering from, she has changed my working arrangements from working remotely from home coming in once a week for the past 3 years to now wanting me to come in 3 times a week because apparently me working from home has had a negative impact on the team despite it never being an issue previous to my last sickness absence. I have also had a colleague confirm that it is something personal and that she is trying to micro manage me. On the other hand my other colleague who has the same role as me is allowed to fully work from home due to not being able to be given her own office at the workplace, whereas I asked for my own office and they have said that it is not possible but still want me to come in 3 times a week now.

I am part of a union I’ve heard no response from them yet 

Savvy_Sue

Chase your union. If no response from local rep, phone branch.

magpies79

Well again appreciate every workplace Is different our work policy is that you have to have a back to work interview within 2 weeks of making yourself right for work.

In that meeting you’ll fill a form out on why you was off if any help is needed regarding your ability to work or if there required to send you to occupational health.

In That meeting they also let us know if you have triggered an MFA stage but one thing that they can’t do is skip stages we have had a few union reps sit in some MFA meetings in the same situation and try and put them on a stage 2 when no letter or meeting took place to even confirm they were on a stage one.
can only go off the People I work with but they have always ended up going a stage one when they’ve tried to say a two.

letters are always sent out with the results of your MFA meeting and will confirm if you’ve been put on stage and the date it starts from as ours lasts for a year a copy is sent to HR and one is posted to our home address.

magpies79

Savvy_Sue said:

Chase your union. If no response from local rep, phone branch.

This is the route you should really go down as I’m sure they can clear it all up for you.

EnPointe

naaads_xo said:

magpies79 said:

Like most have mentioned check your contract and employee handbook it should all be in there so one would assume they are just quoting what’s in there as they can’t just plunk a random number in the air.

my contract which it states in my employee handbook……if i take more then 4 days within a 13 week period or 10 days in a rolling year or more then 4 separate absences in a rolling year I’m subject to a meeting for a potential MFA stage one.

One of the crazy things with our sickness policy is 
If I trigger MFA stage one by going off for 5 nights it’s the same as taking 3 months off you go onto stage one so you can guess what most people do once they have gone off for 5 nights!!!

This is the thing neither my employment contract or handbook go into detail about what happens if you take more xyz number of days and the different stages. Regarding sickness, my contract only says how much you are entitled to be paid when off sick. To summarise in the handbook it says, the company’s policy states that while sickness is an acceptable reason for absence, excessive or repeated sick leave may not be tolerated as it impacts efficiency. The company will assess all absences. In a meeting, I asked HR to clarify their sickness policy, HR said they can
send me a snippet of the policy and my line manager told me to google it.

I am currently placed on Stage 2 of the sickness policy, but without a clear understanding of the criteria or full policy. I therefore would like to have context on how this decision was made. 

what does the SIckness and absence, Attendance  and /or capability  policies and procedures  state  ? 

it;s typical that  Sickness and absence arrangements are  referenced by the contract   or employee handbook to the specific policty  as  this can change  and  as to not  require  other documents to be changed  the other  documents reference the policy

naaads_xo

EnPointe said:

naaads_xo said:

magpies79 said:

Like most have mentioned check your contract and employee handbook it should all be in there so one would assume they are just quoting what’s in there as they can’t just plunk a random number in the air.

my contract which it states in my employee handbook……if i take more then 4 days within a 13 week period or 10 days in a rolling year or more then 4 separate absences in a rolling year I’m subject to a meeting for a potential MFA stage one.

One of the crazy things with our sickness policy is 
If I trigger MFA stage one by going off for 5 nights it’s the same as taking 3 months off you go onto stage one so you can guess what most people do once they have gone off for 5 nights!!!

This is the thing neither my employment contract or handbook go into detail about what happens if you take more xyz number of days and the different stages. Regarding sickness, my contract only says how much you are entitled to be paid when off sick. To summarise in the handbook it says, the company’s policy states that while sickness is an acceptable reason for absence, excessive or repeated sick leave may not be tolerated as it impacts efficiency. The company will assess all absences. In a meeting, I asked HR to clarify their sickness policy, HR said they can
send me a snippet of the policy and my line manager told me to google it.

I am currently placed on Stage 2 of the sickness policy, but without a clear understanding of the criteria or full policy. I therefore would like to have context on how this decision was made. 

what does the SIckness and absence, Attendance  and /or capability  policies and procedures  state  ? 

it;s typical that  Sickness and absence arrangements are  referenced by the contract   or employee handbook to the specific policty  as  this can change  and  as to not  require  other documents to be changed  the other  documents reference the policy

They made no reference to the full sickness policy in either my contract or handbook. They only sent me the full sickness policy discussing the different stages now that I’ve asked for it. The full sickness policy mentions the Bradford scoring point system and that the line manager needs to carry out a meeting with the employee to discuss sickness, provide additional support. However, this wasn’t the case, a meeting was never arranged when I was on stage one at one point, no warning or heads up were given, only now they have informed me I’m suddenly on stage 2