Sickness at work
Hi everyone, I was just wondering if anyone has any experience in sickness at work. So I have been at my job just under 6 months. In this time I have had 3 days off for me, and 7 days off as dependancy for my 2 children. My workplace deem this as unreasonable. Is this right? I do sort alternative arrangements for my kids when they’re poorly so I’m not off for lots of days etc. I will also add in the employee handbook it says they see 4 days per month reasonable for dependancy, so that would be about 20 days dependancy I’d have to exceed a review it says however I’m getting issues now. Tia x
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Hi Tia,
There should be a policy in the handbook about what triggers a sickness absence review. For example, at my husband's workplace, their sickness review process gets triggered if you have 3 or more instances of sickness in a year. The length of absence doesn't matter at his. My workplace is if you have an absence for 10 days or more it triggers a review.
Check the policy. For the dependency thing you said, if it says in your handbook up to 4 days per month then they have no leg to stand on with that.
Hope all goes well x
hi, in the handbook it says 4 or more days for personal sickness it will trigger a review. And with dependency it’s if you exceed 4 days per month. Just worried as I have to have another day off today as my child is poorly, but I had 2 days off last week for my other daughter x
Has someone specifically said this to you or have you received some communication with this? Most places will have to follow procedure and "complete" a meeting or send out a letter as a check box to continue fairness throughout the company despite knowing the reasonings.
If your handbook says 4 or more days for personal sickness and you've only had 3 in the last 6 months, I would check they haven't snuck in a day by mistake. If they've sent you a letter, they should list the days you've taken off.
As for dependency, well, if you've exceeded the 4 days in a month they would flag you, just because you get 4 a month, doesn't mean you'd get 20 for 6 months I don't think unfortunately. This is how companies like to catch you out!
I hope this helps!
I have the employee hand book. It’s 5 days off as sickness and it triggers a letter of concern, I have had 3 days off due to being unwell. And then 7 days off for my children, the handbook says dependancy leave it deemed reasonable as long as it doesn’t exceed 20% of my working hours per month. So I do 25 p/w, so that would be 4 days for me with the days/hours I work:) I don’t normally have time off like this however we’ve all been really poorly recently. I have had 3 days off this month due to my children having a sickness bug
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