Sick Leave

mimi1234

Hi all,

I've been working for the local government for almost 20 years. Back in the old days, we used to have two people in the team who would call in sick quite often. When they had been off sick 3 times, they would get marched up to employee healthcare because they had hit a trigger.

Roll onto now, we have 3 people in the team who either go off long term sick or are sick almost weekly when they are "on call" making a miraculous recovery the day after. There is no marching off to employee healthcare anymore. 2 of the said people have been off at least 9 times in the last 12 months. Could it be that they are classed as being disabled hence not hitting triggers or do they not do triggers anymore?

Due to people constantly being off sick, my part time workload has been that of a full timer for almost 18 months. Despite bringing it up in my supervision each month and being told it will get better, nothing has happened. I am on the verge of going off sick but feel guilty for doing so but I am not coping. I went to my GP about it and he said I can write you a sick note, I can see you are clearly struggling. He has given me some depression tablets and told me to go back in a fortnight.

As an example, someone who works full time is "on call" once a week and has 4 downtime days. I have one "on call" per week and 1.5 days downtime. A full timer carries a caseload of 30 cases. I have 35 cases. If it was a one off, I would be OK with it, the team have to cover for people being off but it seems like I am the only one who is having to do more, no one else.

I'm not worried about hitting triggers as the last time I was off sick was when I was in hospital with covid a few years ago.

Woodstok2000

Ignore other people, you have no idea about their circumstances. Focus on yourself and do what is right for you.

marcia_

rather than keep mentioning it in supervision make a formal grievance and it should be dealt with appropriately.

Ignore what happens to others. It is non of your business and you have no knowledge of what is said behind closed doors.

LightFlare

don’t burn out doing all the extra work.

Inform your manager in writing about the workload and then just let it pile up

May be easier said than done depending on your job/industry,but it’s the only way anyone will take notice.

As above - try not to be distracted y what others may or may not be up to - time to concentrate on yourself and your health and well being

itsthelittlethings

I don’t know what kind of area you work in but your case load sounds immense for one day a week if the complexity is in any way comparable to your full time colleagues. Take sick leave if you need it and the. Think about how you can raise this - do you have supervision or similar 1:1 meetings?

elsien

My standard comment to my manager - my caseload is too high for the number of days I work, I can do X or Y, I can’t do both- which would you like me to prioritise?

gwynlas

I hope that you are in a union, if not then join immediately,

Keep your own noes of what you discuss in supervision

In time if you still feel like this then you can proceed with a grievance about your unfair treatment re caseload etc.

mimi1234

I work in a housing and social services related job.

The case load is high because you pick up cases each week when on call, and you have all the ones from the previous week and the week before.

I am with a Union but they have not yet responded to my request for help.

If I do a grievance, will they not hold it against me? I need to work out how it works.

You are all right, I should concentrate on myself. I am back at the GP in a week and a bit so will tell him how I feel and take it from there.

Thanks for your responses.

Savvy_Sue

if the local rep has not yet responded, it would be worth contacting the regional office to ask for assistance.

They shouldn't hold a grievance against you, but … would you be any worse off if they did? My thinking is, they're ignoring your needs ATM. If they keep doing that, then you'll move on - so it might force the issue, but would that be such a bad thing?

Just checking - do you end up doing more On Call because others are sick? What happens if you say "I can't do Thursday, I've made plans" or similar? (Had an On Call system at work, slightly different as it only dealt with very rare emergencies, so people had to be at the end of a phone for 5 evenings, no more often than once a month. If you were sick mid-week, it was your manager's responsibility to sort the cover.)