Sick days

deadybai

How many sick days on average do people usually take ? I'm in a job 3 months and this is my 2nd sick day. Both times im genuinely sick .

Does this look bad or is it fairly normal ? How many sick days would one usually take over 12 months?

I actually hate taking them but when I do I really don't feel well. Also does it count as a sick day if you have to work the hours back the following week ?

deadybai

deadybai wrote: »

How many sick days on average do people usually take ? I'm in a job 3 months and this is my 2nd sick day. Both times im genuinely sick .

Does this look bad or is it fairly normal ? How many sick days would one usually take over 12 months?

I actually hate taking them but when I do I really don't feel well. Also does it count as a sick day if you have to work the hours back the following week ?

Second sick day in 3 months looks pretty bad.

Im not sure I have an average. I remember having a bad flu about 3 years ago and I was out of action for 3 days + 2 days of the weekend.

I can remember feeling under the weather loads of times and being in work.

On the one hand, most companies nowadays don't give you any credit for not being sick. Most places have an accepted number of days you can be sick without them looking for certs or making a note of it, but if it gets abused, it will get mentioned on your record.

In my experience, getting into work and asking can you go home because you dont feel well gets met with a lot more sympathy and kudos than just ringing in sick. Partly because they can look at you and go, yep, you're clearly not well, partly because they admire you making it in when your not feeling the best.

And, if you were out for drinks the night before, under no circumstances ring in sick the next morning even if you are dying of Ebola. It will get out that you were drinking the previous night and everyone will jump to the wrong conclusion.

_Brian

It's common to have no sick days. Last multinational I managed in 7 of my team of 25 had no sick days, 4 had gone 3 years without.
Average for the group was maybe 2-3 days a year. I definitely had someone on a PIP for 5 days in a year.

Truth is if your sick your sick and there's nothing you can really do. But you do have to accept that your employer may view sick leave as a serious negative and it can have consequences.

Certain things send bad signals, Fridays/Mondays, sick after being refused holidays.

Ragnar Lothbrok

I'd generally have 1 or 2 self-certified sick days per year, but I've been working here 20+ years, not three months! I'm also in my 50s, have diabetes, high blood pressure, etc, so my manager and HR know I'm genuinely sick when I take leave.

I'm working in a large organisation, and the attitudes to sick leave vary wildly amongst my colleagues. Some of them would come into work even if they were suffering from bubonic plague, while others would take the p!ss altogether and view sick leave entitlements as additional holidays.

If you're genuinely sick you shouldn't go into work. You won't be capable of performing a proper day's work, and you risk infecting colleagues if your illness is flu etc. However, if you take too many days off you will certainly attract unwanted & negative attention from your boss/HR, so tread carefully!

theteal

Not a clue of the average but I've had 2 since I graduated in 2005 - 1 of those was to bring the mother to the hospital.

I'd be the youngest of the older generation in our place and this group rarely miss a day. The younger cubs are a completely different story, one of the apprentices stared <4 months ago and he's missed over a week already.

deadybai wrote: »

How many sick days on average do people usually take ? I'm in a job 3 months and this is my 2nd sick day. Both times im genuinely sick .

Does this look bad or is it fairly normal ? How many sick days would one usually take over 12 months?

I actually hate taking them but when I do I really don't feel well. Also does it count as a sick day if you have to work the hours back the following week ?

Obviously it doesn't look great, will you miss out being included in projects because of unreliability? Do other have to pick up much slack because of your absence?

Also how sick are you feeling? Is this like Daniel Sturridge injuries?

Yenwod

Ragnar Lothbrok wrote: »

I'm working in a large organisation, and the attitudes to sick leave vary wildly amongst my colleagues. Some of them would come into work even if they were suffering from bubonic plague, while others would take the p!ss altogether and view sick leave entitlements as additional holidays.

If you're genuinely sick you shouldn't go into work. You won't be capable of performing a proper day's work, and you risk infecting colleagues if your illness is flu etc. However, if you take too many days off you will certainly attract unwanted & negative attention from your boss/HR, so tread carefully!

Yes this!!! I hate when I have a desk mate coughing and spluttering all over me, it's unfair...but I know most of the time when people drag themselves into work looking like death warmed up, it's because of the fear they'll be reprimanded over sick leave. A good manager should see that and just send them home ... rarely happens though unfortunately!

Ragnar Lothbrok

deadybai wrote: »

.... Also does it count as a sick day if you have to work the hours back the following week ?

I've never heard of this happening before. How does it even work?

Irish_Elect_Eng

Ragnar Lothbrok wrote: »

I've never heard of this happening before. How does it even work?

I think that it may be illegal not to document staff sick days for EH&S reasonas and social welfare compliance.

But in some companies, they will allow staff to work up time where sick pay is not being paid, so that they do not lose out.

Del2005

deadybai wrote: »

How many sick days on average do people usually take ? I'm in a job 3 months and this is my 2nd sick day. Both times im genuinely sick .

Does this look bad or is it fairly normal ? How many sick days would one usually take over 12 months?

I actually hate taking them but when I do I really don't feel well. Also does it count as a sick day if you have to work the hours back the following week ?

The bad news is that you are on probation and regardless of the reason ringing in sick twice before you complete half of it doesn't look good for you, at best it's an extended probation and the worst is good bye.

macchoille

I'm on my second too, difference is I started 12 years ago.

I think one was 2005 and the other was 2006. Since then I've had none. If I am ill I either work from home or take annual leave if I'm really bad.
The only times I've needed to use annual leave were for minor day surgeries.

jimba

Life is too short to be taking annual leave for sickness.

Ursus Horribilis

It depends what your employer's attitude towards sick leave is. I had a bad run of it one year and ended up being out for a week on a sick cert and has to take two other uncertified sicks. I was permanent though and didn't have a track record of taking lots of sick.

In your shoes, the best thing you can do is avoid taking any more such days if you can at all. I'd not usually advocate taking annual leave if you're ill but seeing as you're on probation it isn't a chance to be taking. Employers are looking out too for patterns. If you complete a year with only two sicks and are otherwise fine, you should be grand. Keep your nose clean otherwise though.

witchgirl26

I think it depends on the situation to be honest. If you're taking a Friday or a Monday off - it can look a little less than genuine. However if it's clear on your return that you haven't been well (pale face etc) then I think most would let it lie. Half the people in my office have been off a day or so recently with bad colds that floored them for a day or so. I'd prefer if people stayed off when they were sick rather than battling into work and infecting others. You don't know what underlying conditions them or their family have and you could be putting that at risk trying to get a perfect record of attendance.

OP if you're worried about how it looks, maybe do an extra hour here or there in the next week to catch up on things that happened while you were off. It's not making up the time officially but shows that you care about the job.

mcko

My boss pulled me up once on my sick days , I told him if I am sick I won't be in and if I am not I will be in, couldn't say much more really, he got a bit annoyed till I threatened him with the union,that stopped that.
Moral of the story join a union.

Mehapoy

A lot of heroes on this thread! Nothing worse than someone coughing and sneezing germs everywhere cos they think the place will fall apart without them, if you are sick you are sick, for the OP maybe bring a doctors cert for the second sick day, just to show you are genuine...

Pawwed Rig

macchoille wrote: »

If I am ill I either work from home or take annual leave if I'm really bad.

That is crazy. I don't take too many sick days but there is no way I would be sacrificing my annual leave.

Del2005

Mehapoy wrote: »

A lot of heroes on this thread! Nothing worse than someone coughing and sneezing germs everywhere cos they think the place will fall apart without them, if you are sick you are sick, for the OP maybe bring a doctors cert for the second sick day, just to show you are genuine...

As an old boss of mine said "A sick cert explains your illness not absence", a sick note is easy to get once you pay the doctor. There is a big difference in ringing in sick if you are permanent, it might be brought up in reviews, and when on probation where they can tell you good bye for no reason.

Puibo

A guy working with me has had 12 sick days this year so far!! Can't remember the exact number for last year but it was probably up around the same mark.

I saw him out shopping on a Monday evening in which he proceeded to call in sick for the remainder of the week. Not sure if he saw me but he did look a bit embarrassed, as in when I saw him again he was red in the face. I'm not saying he should be at home in bed but if your well enough to be seen buying pizza with your girlfriend well I think your well enough to go to work!!

This is quite a small company too. I said it to my boss that I had seen him and nothing was done about it.

whippet

in the last 15 years i reckon i've had about 4 sick days .. where I didn't go in to the office.

Probably about 6 or 7 days where I went in to the office and realised that I should just go home .. of these i'd say 4 I spent the day working from home ... I was well enough to work but just not in the office and didn't want to be annoying / infecting co-workers.

I did have a bad knee injury years back from a football match and spent a week at home .. working full time; just couldn't drive or actually commute to work.

theoldbreed

Puibo wrote:

This is quite a small company too. I said it to my boss that I had seen him and nothing was done about it.

Why would you say it to your boss? Surely it's for employers to deal with not colleagues. I have a colleague similar to that but I wouldn't go to my boss because while we all roll our eyes about him it doesn't directly affect us to such an extent we feel the need to run to management.

dev100

_Brian wrote:

It's common to have no sick days. Last multinational I managed in 7 of my team of 25 had no sick days, 4 had gone 3 years without. Average for the group was maybe 2-3 days a year. I definitely had someone on a PIP for 5 days in a year.

Pip is an awful term ....

Would you reward someone who works an extra 5 days over the year in hours above and beyond their normal working hours if they were on salary and not getting anything extra for it ?

kirving

I've had one in three years, just been lucky I guess.

What a lot of employers use to gauge sick leave is called the Bradford factor.

This is calculated by squaring the number of times you were sick, multiplied by the total number of days.

ie: Occurrences x Occurrences x Total Days = Bradford Factor

So if you have one occurrence of 5 days, then your score = 1x1x5 = 5

5 occurrences of one day each = 5x5x5 = 125

I'm not sure what the number has to get to before each employer might take action, but I think it's a pretty good way of gauging it.

jive

_Brian wrote: »

It's common to have no sick days. Last multinational I managed in 7 of my team of 25 had no sick days, 4 had gone 3 years without.
Average for the group was maybe 2-3 days a year. I definitely had someone on a PIP for 5 days in a year.

Truth is if your sick your sick and there's nothing you can really do. But you do have to accept that your employer may view sick leave as a serious negative and it can have consequences.

Sorry but that's ridiculous. If you're sick, you're sick. I haven't missed a day in over 5 years of my current role but if I was sick tomorrow I wouldn't be worried about it; if that illness lasted 5 days then so be it.

Just because you can go in doesn't mean you should as well - "I'm great, I'm here feeling like absolute shíte, getting no work done and infecting my colleagues in the process. BUT IM HERE!!!"

o1s1n

dev100 wrote: »

Pip is an awful term ....

Would you reward someone who works an extra 5 days over the year in hours above and beyond their normal working hours if they were on salary and not getting anything extra for it ?

Yeah a PIP for 5 sick days seems incredibly extreme. Normally businesses would use something like the Bradford calculator and put people on a PIP if they go over a certain score.

If they had 5 separate sick days off (the worst way of having sick days with Bradford) they'd still only have a score of 125 as their maximum.

I know different companies have different trigger points, but that seems over the top to be putting someone on a PIP. Verbal warning at most.

kirving

I doubt that was the situation though.

5 days in a row - no problem.
5 single days - not the worst, but unusual.
5 Fridays - your Thursday drinking is affecting your work.

Puibo

I would say it to my boss because he is the senior most manager of the company branch in this country.

Saying it doesn't effect us is wrong. As I said, we are quite a small company and when one member of staff isn't pulling their weight it effects production, which in turn effects my job. So that's why I would report somebody pulling a sicky for a week!

As well as this i have to cover his workload when he can't catch up.

Senna

Puibo wrote: »

I would say it to my boss because he is the senior most manager of the company branch in this country.

Saying it doesn't effect us is wrong. As I said, we are quite a small company and when one member of staff isn't pulling their weight it effects production, which in turn effects my job. So that's why I would report somebody pulling a sicky for a week!

As well as this i have to cover his workload when he can't catch up.

So you told the boss what? You seen your colleague in town?

Is there a doctors in this same town? Could he have been visiting the surgery earlier?
Is there a chemist (or even a shop) in this same town? Could he have been buying meds?
Was your colleague not feeling up to cooking so went into town to get some food?

There is a number of reason you should not have said anything, mostly because you do not know why your colleague was in town and by you telling your boss, you are implying wrong doing when you have no way of knowing.

Luckily your boss didn't do anything about it, obviously because he's smart enough to know that you seeing this person means nothing, I'm gussing that's why he is the boss and you are not.

Manach

The OP's number of sick days seems ok, especially when not factoring in any issues like say flu outbreaks or the like. Given that there is an onus on the employer to ensure as much as possible a healthy and low-stress environment, then having genuinely ill people within a workplace would be a dubious outcome to say the least.

Del2005

Puibo wrote: »

I would say it to my boss because he is the senior most manager of the company branch in this country.

Saying it doesn't effect us is wrong. As I said, we are quite a small company and when one member of staff isn't pulling their weight it effects production, which in turn effects my job. So that's why I would report somebody pulling a sicky for a week!

As well as this i have to cover his workload when he can't catch up.

You reported someone who was shopping after work hours. Unless they rang in sick with a broken leg then what they do in their own time is their business, even sick people need to leave the house occasionally.

_Brian

jive wrote: »

Sorry but that's ridiculous. If you're sick, you're sick. I haven't missed a day in over 5 years of my current role but if I was sick tomorrow I wouldn't be worried about it; if that illness lasted 5 days then so be it.

Just because you can go in doesn't mean you should as well - "I'm great, I'm here feeling like absolute shíte, getting no work done and infecting my colleagues in the process. BUT IM HERE!!!"

American Multinationals can have very very aggressive performance management strategies. Sick leave isn't tolerated at all in many and people who record more than their peers will be targeted for improvement, including below successful reviews and pip's, some companies policy insist that employees who are rated as BE (below expectations) must be on a PIP following the review.. There's an awful lot of blow about the great pay in these MN's but it comes with a serious level of expectation of the employee, those not meeting these expectations (including zero sickleave) very quickly see the other side of MN corporations and their policies, most are non unionised too.

Where I currently work (not an american MN) is much more understanding, particularly of certified sick days, they have a limited number of days employees will be paid for and then sick days (certified or not) are not paid. I think this is a better system, there's less abuse when its costing money from the paypacket.

Ragnar Lothbrok

Puibo wrote: »

A guy working with me has had 12 sick days this year so far!! Can't remember the exact number for last year but it was probably up around the same mark.

I saw him out shopping on a Monday evening in which he proceeded to call in sick for the remainder of the week. Not sure if he saw me but he did look a bit embarrassed, as in when I saw him again he was red in the face. I'm not saying he should be at home in bed but if your well enough to be seen buying pizza with your girlfriend well I think your well enough to go to work!!

This is quite a small company too. I said it to my boss that I had seen him and nothing was done about it.

I have so many issues with this post :mad:

What gives you the right to monitor someone else's sick leave patterns, unless you're his direct supervisor?

Assuming you're not a qualified medical expert, how can you assess how fit he was to attend work? Some illnesses aren't easy to identify for someone who has NO RIGHT TO SPECULATE.

How do you know that he hadn't just been to the GP/chemist, and then got himself a pizza afterwards?

15 minutes (max) ordering and waiting for a pizza does not equate to a full shift in work. Are you suggesting that he should turn up to work unless he is actually on his death bed?

Maybe he was embarrassed because he knew you'd be an ass about seeing him out and would probably go running to tell tales to the boss.

Why would you deliberately try to cause trouble for this particular colleague? It seems very much like a young child running to tell teacher.

To be honest, I don't see that 12 days in one full year is excessive either. A genuine illness could easily take a week to clear itself out of the system, and you have no idea what medical problems your colleague may have.

You don't know that the boss didn't take any action. Perhaps he had a word with the "culprit" and realised that he had a genuine reason to be absent on sick leave. This would certainly be none of your business.

Finally, keep your fingers crossed that you never need to take any sick leave, in case there's another person with the same attitude as yourself only too happy to go running to the boss to drop you in it.

Puibo

Senna wrote:

Is there a doctors in this same town? Could he have been visiting the surgery earlier? Is there a chemist (or even a shop) in this same town? Could he have been buying meds? Was your colleague not feeling up to cooking so went into town to get some food?

There is a reason he has the name excuses at work. Tel me why should I pick up his slack while he sits on his lazy a$$ playing xbox and watching netflix for the week?

Puibo

Ragnar Lothbrok wrote:

To be honest, I don't see that 12 days in one full year is excessive either. A genuine illness could easily take a week to clear itself out of the system, and you have no idea what medical problems your colleague may have.

I'm going to assume you are the shop steward in your organisation.

Also when a sick note has not been produced and 2 and a half weeks later when after being reminded daily, he has said it got put through the wash in his pants suspicions do start to arise.

Coupled with this on one occasion he was told to go home and get his doctors note he made his excuses not to go and get it.

Go on and defend this.......

Ursus Horribilis

As you can see, snitching has had zero effect.

mitresize5

If I was on probation I'd have to be hospitalized or close to before I'd take a sick day.

I've 8 people on my team, we get X amount of paid non certified sick days a year. 7 people have one or two days sick leave a year, the other has X. Over the course of the years I'm sure some of them are genuine, most are p1ss takes though.

First sign of a down turn and he's first out the door.

Stepping Stone

Ragnar Lothbrok wrote: »

I have so many issues with this post :mad:

What gives you the right to monitor someone else's sick leave patterns, unless you're his direct supervisor?

Assuming you're not a qualified medical expert, how can you assess how fit he was to attend work? Some illnesses aren't easy to identify for someone who has NO RIGHT TO SPECULATE.

How do you know that he hadn't just been to the GP/chemist, and then got himself a pizza afterwards?

15 minutes (max) ordering and waiting for a pizza does not equate to a full shift in work. Are you suggesting that he should turn up to work unless he is actually on his death bed?

Maybe he was embarrassed because he knew you'd be an ass about seeing him out and would probably go running to tell tales to the boss.

Why would you deliberately try to cause trouble for this particular colleague? It seems very much like a young child running to tell teacher.

To be honest, I don't see that 12 days in one full year is excessive either. A genuine illness could easily take a week to clear itself out of the system, and you have no idea what medical problems your colleague may have.

You don't know that the boss didn't take any action. Perhaps he had a word with the "culprit" and realised that he had a genuine reason to be absent on sick leave. This would certainly be none of your business.

Finally, keep your fingers crossed that you never need to take any sick leave, in case there's another person with the same attitude as yourself only too happy to go running to the boss to drop you in it.

I used to work in a similar situation. Small company, one person regularly calling in sick. The workload was just redistributed between us. We were under huge pressure, leave was impossible to take cos we were always behind and we were under pressure not to take time off when we were sick.

This person was seen at gigs, in the pub, cinema, restaurant, concerts in other cities while outon sick leave. We discussed it among ourselves for over a year until we felt that we had covered for this lazy ass for too long. We approached our manager as a group, outlined our concerns and left it. Nothing was done, but we stopped covering their work and we took our leave anyway. This put pressure on the management, who finally decided to ask this individual to attend the company doctor.

To cut a long story short, they were fired. Now, you may say that this was none of my business but I was forced to work long, hard days to cover for them. If I booked a half day of leave, I would be lucky to get out at three cos it was a Friday, so they would have called in sick. I was hugely under pressure, so my health took a huge hit. They felt no guilt when I was getting shouted at because we had missed deadlines because we were under staffed. My life was hell for a few years and I didn't even have kids to deal with like a few others.

There are piss takers who spot poor management and take advantage. It was the middle of the recession, so we kept our heads down and got on with it. Management were at fault, but sometimes it is easier for them not to tackle this sort of thing.

jimba

Puibo wrote: »

There is a reason he has the name excuses at work. Tel me why should I pick up his slack while he sits on his lazy a$$ playing xbox and watching netflix for the week?

I'd much prefer an employee who took the odd sick day than a snitch in the ranks who has potential to cause disharmony amongst the workforce.

wardides

Some people really need to relax. I doubt many of us have a job *that* important that the odd sick day will bring down the company.

Nift

Puibo wrote: »

A guy working with me has had 12 sick days this year so far!! Can't remember the exact number for last year but it was probably up around the same mark.

I saw him out shopping on a Monday evening in which he proceeded to call in sick for the remainder of the week. Not sure if he saw me but he did look a bit embarrassed, as in when I saw him again he was red in the face. I'm not saying he should be at home in bed but if your well enough to be seen buying pizza with your girlfriend well I think your well enough to go to work!!

This is quite a small company too. I said it to my boss that I had seen him and nothing was done about it.

Thats being a bit of a rat no? I work for a company where most people have 8 or more sick days. Unpaid. Some of you guys need to get a life.

x43r0

My company has a very relaxed approach when it comes to working from home. At the same time, there isn't any major stigma to taking sick days. If you're too sick to work then fine, take the day and rest up. No judgement.

This level of trust from the employer pays off because a lot of people will choose to work from home rather than take a sick day. It works really well because if I'm feeling rough, I'll just work from the couch while I recover and I go in the next day without having to catch up on a load of work

Puibo

jimba wrote:

I'd much prefer an employee who took the odd sick day than a snitch in the ranks who has potential to cause disharmony amongst the workforce.

As I said we are a small company and him taking advantage of soft management causes the "disharmony.

Nift wrote:

Thats being a bit of a rat no? I work for a company where most people have 8 or more sick days. Unpaid. Some of you guys need to get a life.

Yeah probably is but I don't work for a drug cartel so it's grand.

daheff

_Brian wrote: »

I definitely had someone on a PIP for 5 days in a year.

Truth is if your sick your sick and there's nothing you can really do.

Not knowing the full story behind this, you seem to contradict your self with these two sentences. If they are sick and cant do anything about it how does putting them on a PIP help?? Unless you can prove they are taking the piss, this is a disgraceful way to treat your team.

deadybai wrote: »

How many sick days on average do people usually take ? I'm in a job 3 months and this is my 2nd sick day. Both times im genuinely sick .

If you were genuinely sick (one offs happen) and arent sick again for the rest of your probation/ the rest of the year, I dont see anything happening. If it did, i'd be finding a new employer -do you really want to work for one that pressurises you to work when you are unfit to do so??

deadybai wrote: »

Also does it count as a sick day if you have to work the hours back the following week ?

Never heard of this before. Do you get paid for the sick day? Are you just catching up on outstanding work, or is it a case of doing the hours?

Del2005 wrote: »

The bad news is that you are on probation and regardless of the reason ringing in sick twice before you complete half of it doesn't look good for you, at best it's an extended probation and the worst is good bye.

Dont think this would necessarily be the case. If it were, then the op is probably better off out of that company. If they treat people that badly, then what else do they find ok to mistreat workers about

dev100 wrote: »

Pip is an awful term ....

Would you reward someone who works an extra 5 days over the year in hours above and beyond their normal working hours if they were on salary and not getting anything extra for it ?

Fair point...I'm betting there is nothing for the person who does 5 extra days in overtime....those kind of companies probably expect that additional unpaid work.

Widdershins

Manach wrote: »

. Given that there is an onus on the employer to ensure as much as possible a healthy and low-stress environment, then having genuinely ill people within a workplace would be a dubious outcome to say the least.

What does this actually mean..how does it translate to the actions of employers and how the workplace is run? Are there guidelines? I have been wondering for ages

Ragnar Lothbrok

Puibo wrote: »

I'm going to assume you are the shop steward in your organisation.

Also when a sick note has not been produced and 2 and a half weeks later when after being reminded daily, he has said it got put through the wash in his pants suspicions do start to arise.

Coupled with this on one occasion he was told to go home and get his doctors note he made his excuses not to go and get it.

Go on and defend this.......

The trouble is that there will always be some people who take advantage of sick leave regulations and try to get away with as much as they possibly can. Possibly your colleague is one of these, but that wasn't made clear in your original post.

I'm certainly not going to defend anyone who abuses sick leave. However, I still stand by my points in general, and you don't really have the proof that your colleague is abusing the situation - you may have suspicions, but that's not enough.

Regardless of your colleague's actions, I still have a very low opinion of someone who would willingly go to their boss to drop a workmate in it, particularly when the colleague's actions don't constitute a H&S issue or directly have a negative effect on you or your other colleagues.

I'm a member of a union alright, but play no active role in it at all.

Manach

Widdershins wrote: »

What does this actually mean..how does it translate to the actions of employers and how the workplace is run? Are there guidelines? I have been wondering for ages

The reason it is unclear is perhaps of the changing legal environment. Both employers/employees have rights and duties. These are laid out in statutes. But as well there are court cases that are always ongoing that effect how these are interpreted. So it would be mostly employment lawyers who would have the latest knowledge : thus any guidelines would need to be undated frequently.

However books like "Your rights at work" by the UK's TUC are a good starting place. This text mentions the implied employer duty to provide a healthy and safe working environment, and this book mentioned (AFAIR) stress based illnesses.

notharrypotter

However books like "Your rights at work" by the UK's TUC are a good starting place.

interesting but Irish version?

dev100

daheff wrote:

Fair point...I'm betting there is nothing for the person who does 5 extra days in overtime....those kind of companies probably expect that additional unpaid work.

Ha no I don't call it overtime . It's the clap on the shoulder effort. I call it charity work SVDP work

o1s1n wrote:

Yeah a PIP for 5 sick days seems incredibly extreme. Normally businesses would use something like the Bradford calculator and put people on a PIP if they go over a certain score .if they had 5 separate sick days off (the worst way of having sick days with Bradford) they'd still only have a score of 125 as their maximum.

It's a bit like the casino s the house always wins....

Geuze

deadybai wrote: »

How many sick days on average do people usually take ? I'm in a job 3 months and this is my 2nd sick day. Both times im genuinely sick .

Does this look bad or is it fairly normal ? How many sick days would one usually take over 12 months?

I actually hate taking them but when I do I really don't feel well. Also does it count as a sick day if you have to work the hours back the following week ?

I've taken 1 sick day in 18 years, due to hangover maybe 15 years ago.

Mind you, I have a flexible job.....

Widdershins

I took a couple of weeks or more in a year at my last job. I sustained injuries at work by doing things I shouldn't have been asked to do, using equipment, supplied by my employers, that was not designed for the job. I used to tell them that they were asking me to do unsafe work but they'd rear up at me and insist it was perfectly normal. Actually it was more than a couple of weeks what with illness on top of the injuries. One of the employer's wives had cancer and I didn't want to be passing on germs.

I worked off some of that time off later on but probably should've left sooner.

_Brian

daheff wrote: »

Not knowing the full story behind this, you seem to contradict your self with these two sentences. If they are sick and cant do anything about it how does putting them on a PIP help?? Unless you can prove they are taking the piss, this is a disgraceful way to treat your team.

Every situation is different but if an employee falls into a BE rating for absence, genuine or not then in some companies a PIP must be issued. It comes down to the performance managment being employed in the company and their tolerance levels for absence some expect zero absence.

Puibo

I've taken 3 this year. All in the first 4 months of the year. On two occasions I left work as opposed to calling in sick.

Luckily I'm not too far from work.