Colleague abusing stress leave - what to do?

LegacyUser

Hi, I work for a small company in the private sector and help out the hr manager from time to time.
We have a situation where one of the employees is having a difficult time in their personal life, and while I'm not a doctor, I think there is a big possibility that the person is depressed.
Tbh, I don't think it is work that is causing a problem (or at least, no more than anyone else gets a little fed up or stressed at work from time to time), I think it is the personal problems.
Employee is frequently out sick from work, for which they do get paid (if it's less than a week, our policy is to pay). Lately, I've been talking to the person and they have indicated that they feel they need a month off work to try & deal with everything, and that they may ask their doctor to give them a cert for time off/stress leave.

From a hr/employes perspective, what should we do in this situation? The stress is not caused by work (I don't think), the company has already given this person a lot of leeway with days off and not putting them on the rota for weekend work etc. If the person rocks up with a sick cert from the doc, do we have to pay them? Or if we don't, will it be seen as somehow discriminating against them? For the future, if the person continues to take very regular sick days and weeks then in my opinion they are not up to the job and we'll have to go down the disciplinary hearing road.

Anyone have thoughts/ideas/opinions on this? I suppose my gut feeling is that this person is abusing the system, getting paid for being off to try & sort themselves out but never actually doing much while they are off to make themselves feel better. We all have problems, but we don't alll bring them in to work with us.

Am I being too harsh?

Eoin

First off, "stress" is not an illness. It's a symptom which needs to be examined to find the underlying problem.

If it's depression, then it's classed as a disability, in which case the employer is obliged to be more accommodating than if it were an illness. But that's only up to a point; if it turns out to be an unreasonable burden on the employer, then you can go down the disciplinary route, or look at alternative arrangements (change of roles, reduction of hours etc).

You are not obliged to pay sick leave; it's completely discretionary. You could also set a maximum number of paid sick days a year. Honestly though, these policies should already have been in place.

Your HR manager is not doing their job if these policies are not in place and doesn't know how to proceed. Or if you are doing this off your own bat while the HR manager is happy to leave it be, then maybe you need to step back a little in case you're overstepping your mark. It's a delicate area at the best of times.

You can have the employee meet a doctor of your choice, and mention that neither sick pay nor their position is available indefinitely, but again - it's really not good that these policies haven't been nailed down by now and the company seems to be playing it by ear.

wmpdd3

I dont think you are being harsh.

HAve a look at the person's contract and see exactly what way is sick leave dealt with. Also have there been any other cases int he past year that the cmpany paid for, the employee could quote these if you dont pay. If you do pay, do you get the person to apply to the SW and take the cheques? If not, the company should look into doing this.

Even if you dont pay the employee will get paid from the SW anyway.

If you do go down the route of absence management, get advice.
Make sure you set achievable goals for the person.
Review them when you are supposed to and only imposed measures based on goals not reached, not the overall problem.

If the persons contract says nothing about any consequences of high absenteeism, you could be in trouble.

LegacyUser

Thanks for the replies.

The policies are in place, they state that a person will not be paid for more than x number of uncertified sick days in any one year. There is also a long term sickness absence policy, where a person is paid for the first few weeks and then on a sliding scale for another few weeks.
This employee is getting the doctor to give them sick certs, so the uncertified bit doesn't come in to it. We do also say in our policy that the company has the right to send an employee to the company doctor, but in 10 years I've never heard of anyone being sent to the company doctor.
My main issue is that whilst trying to be supportive to this person, as they have had a difficult time of it in their personal lives, I/hr/the company does not want it to seem as though we are favouring this person. Which it does look like at the moment, other employees are making snide remarks about them 'getting away with murder' etc.

We've only ever had 1 case of someone being out sick long term, the person was out for 6 weeks. Amazingly, they managed to recover just as a reduction in pay was about to kick in......surprise surprise.

If we bring this person in to have a talk with them, then the person will most likely flip out and say we are not being supportive, that it's not fair that they get picked on (to be talked to about absence), that they can't help it if they are sick etc. etc. The person can be fine & fiesty when they want, have seen them in action before, always challenging authority. If we say that we can't continue to pay them due to the high number of days they have been out, they will say it's discrimination/not fair on the grounds of them being sick/depressed.
If we sit back & do nothing, its only a matter of time before others cotton on to this cushy number and start taking more and more sick days, cos shur, why wouldn't you when X got paid the whole time?

Unless we change our policies to show a max number of paid certified or uncertified sick days per year (and we'd have to do away with the long term sick pay scheme then), then I cannot see an easy way out of this.

And the problem with changing policy is that it's not fair on the hard grafters who put in long hours in the place to be treated the same way as the clock watchers.

It's very frustrating

Eoin

It sounds like you have everything in place to back yourself up. It's not reasonable for the employee to think that things can continue as they are at the moment.

I would not consider "stress" a valid reason for a sick note. You have a responsibility to the employee as well as to the business to find out what the underlying problem is, so you can accommodate them as required. So that doesn't mean questioning if they're sick or not, but finding out what the causes are.

If we say that we can't continue to pay them due to the high number of days they have been out, they will say it's discrimination/not fair on the grounds of them being sick/depressed.

That won't stand up for the reasons I mentioned. Accommodating someone with a disability means adapting their role or the working environment etc. It does not mean a blank check for when they're off on sick leave.

Anyway, I know you help out the HR manager, but this is his or her job to deal with. If you are this person's line manager, then you should be involved, but from what I can gather so far, it does not seem fair that this is up to you to manage.

wmpdd3

I would just like to add that if you end up having that conversation with the employee, make sure you distinguish at the start that you are there to discuss absenteeism, not sickness.

Once you separate these it can defuse a heated situation.

Eoin

wmpdd3 wrote: »

I would just like to add that if you end up having that conversation with the employee, make sure you distinguish at the start that you are there to discuss absenteeism, not sickness.

Once you separate these it can defuse a heated situation.

That's a very good point.

Though I'm still a little confused about what the OP's role in the organisation is, and why the HR manager isn't taking the lead on this.

Mrs OBumble

OP, your HR manager should be taking proper legal advice about this, not asking what folks on boards think! Or the HR manager should be consulting whatever advisors are retained by the employer organisation (chamber of commerce, small business association, etc) that the company belongs to.

Among other things, it's quite possible that your employee is reading this (sure they might have started one of the threads about being bullied by management!)

IMHO, unless you're the HR manager, then leave it alone. If you are the HR manager, seek advice from the right quarters.


PS I'm not unsympathetic: I've had a staff member tell me his wife was undergoing cancer treatment ... but from later events I'm 99% certain that she wasn't, he was just using it as an excuse to cover poor performance 'cos he'd been promoted well past his level of competence. But to get things right, you need the right advice.