The Work Thread

That system does sound stupid to be fair, and Moggy is right that it would encourage people to take more than one day off at a time if it won't result in their 'score' increasing. Surely companies should be looking for patterns of sickness if anything other than total number of days off?

Something that I find irritating about sickness at work is back to work interviews. I've been ill twice in the 2.5 years I've been with my current company, and both times have had these weird conversations where your line manager asks you what was wrong, how you're feeling now etc. Just seems like a complete waste of time unless you've been off for a week or longer. Not sure if these are normal for every day of sickness or if it's just because I don't usually have days off.

Oblomov Boblomov wrote:

Drumstick wrote:I've had six (exactly six) days off sick in the last 12 months. If OB was my manager he'd probably have martched me up to HR long ago for a dressing down.

I'd have had you down at occupational health after three of those days. You'd have at least seven prescriptions, a flexible working arrangement and mandatory health screening every month by now .

Sig updated.

PaperMacheMario wrote:That system does sound stupid to be fair, and Moggy is right that it would encourage people to take more than one day off at a time if it won't result in their 'score' increasing. Surely companies should be looking for patterns of sickness if anything other than total number of days off?

Something that I find irritating about sickness at work is back to work interviews. I've been ill twice in the 2.5 years I've been with my current company, and both times have had these weird conversations where your line manager asks you what was wrong, how you're feeling now etc. Just seems like a complete waste of time unless you've been off for a week or longer. Not sure if these are normal for every day of sickness or if it's just because I don't usually have days off.

Again, this type of system provides a consistently applied foundational knowledge. This is used in conjunction with a range of other factors such as return to work interviews, patterns of sickness etc to build a complete picture.

No wonder non-managers think managers are plebs if you believe we just look at some basic formula and go oops, score's gone over, bye bye Janice.

I would also consider someone who decides to take additional false sick days off because it won't inflate their score as dishonest. As above, it shouldn't just come down the score on its own anyway and any management team that does that is obviously a poor one.

Re back to work interviews, these are crucial IMO and are the most important aspect of sickness management. It does come down again to consistency and it provides the ability to crack down on a potential sickness absence issue from the very beginning and fully document the entire situation for future use if necessary. In your situation, it might seem unnecessary, however what's to say you won't develop a sickness problem in the future and how would other team members feel if you were left out of the management process just because you were considered reliable by your manager?

Drumstick wrote:

Oblomov Boblomov wrote:

Drumstick wrote:I've had six (exactly six) days off sick in the last 12 months. If OB was my manager he'd probably have martched me up to HR long ago for a dressing down.

I'd have had you down at occupational health after three of those days. You'd have at least seven prescriptions, a flexible working arrangement and mandatory health screening every month by now .

Sig updated.

If only you weren't a much better poker player than me, it wouldn't be ironic .

Apologies to anyone bored senseless by this post. My advice would be to not read it, but this is the end now so you're too late.

I have an interview Monday for a job in risk and compliance

Totally off topic, I forgot to mention that I actually heard some ponce use the phrase 'blue-sky thinking' this morning. And it wasn't even in a way that made sense. Pure waffle.

A blue sky waffle?

That's not a growth wrote:A blue sky waffle?

Yep, that's about how much sense it made.

Slayerx wrote:I have an interview Monday for a job in risk and compliance

Good luck mate, let us know how you get on.

Slayerx wrote:I have an interview Monday for a job in risk and compliance

Congrats. This used to be very much my area.

Behavioural competency interview, by any chance?

Oblomov Boblomov wrote:

Slayerx wrote:I have an interview Monday for a job in risk and compliance

Congrats. This used to be very much my area.

Funniest part about this is that slayerx is from Bradford.

Drumstick wrote:

Oblomov Boblomov wrote:

Slayerx wrote:I have an interview Monday for a job in risk and compliance

Congrats. This used to be very much my area.

Funniest part about this is that slayerx is from Bradford.

"My name is Slayerx and I came up with the Bradford Factor."

"Fuckinell lad, what a belter, that's my favourite sickness absence policy! You've got the job!"

Oblomov Boblomov wrote:

Slayerx wrote:I have an interview Monday for a job in risk and compliance

Congrats. This used to be very much my area.

Behavioural competency interview, by any chance?

Half an hour of competency based questions and then 15 minutes given to present some data provided that I need to analyse for trends, concerns and people risk.

Then the final 15 for questions based around my presentation.

I also need to condense the data into a booklet with my findings.

Oblomov Boblomov wrote:

Drumstick wrote:

Oblomov Boblomov wrote:

Slayerx wrote:I have an interview Monday for a job in risk and compliance

Congrats. This used to be very much my area.

Funniest part about this is that slayerx is from Bradford.

"My name is Slayerx and I came up with the Bradford Factor."

"Fuckinell lad, what a belter, that's my favourite sickness absence policy! You've got the job!"

Slayerx wrote:

Oblomov Boblomov wrote:

Slayerx wrote:I have an interview Monday for a job in risk and compliance

Congrats. This used to be very much my area.

Behavioural competency interview, by any chance?

Half an hour of competency based questions and then 15 minutes given to present some data provided that I need to analyse for trends, concerns and people risk.

Then the final 15 for questions based around my presentation.

I also need to condense the data into a booklet with my findings.

There goes your weekend then .

Oblomov Boblomov wrote:

PaperMacheMario wrote:That system does sound stupid to be fair, and Moggy is right that it would encourage people to take more than one day off at a time if it won't result in their 'score' increasing. Surely companies should be looking for patterns of sickness if anything other than total number of days off?

Something that I find irritating about sickness at work is back to work interviews. I've been ill twice in the 2.5 years I've been with my current company, and both times have had these weird conversations where your line manager asks you what was wrong, how you're feeling now etc. Just seems like a complete waste of time unless you've been off for a week or longer. Not sure if these are normal for every day of sickness or if it's just because I don't usually have days off.

Again, this type of system provides a consistently applied foundational knowledge. This is used in conjunction with a range of other factors such as return to work interviews, patterns of sickness etc to build a complete picture.

No wonder non-managers think managers are plebs if you believe we just look at some basic formula and go oops, score's gone over, bye bye Janice.

I would also consider someone who decides to take additional false sick days off because it won't inflate their score as dishonest. As above, it shouldn't just come down the score on its own anyway and any management team that does that is obviously a poor one.

Oh, I know that. I just don't think it actually adds anything to whatever systems are already in place. It sounds almost counterintuitive if anything. And you're right that people who do or would do that are dishonest. But that still doesn't mean it's not encouraging certain employees to take extra days off, resulting in a loss of efficiency blah blah blah. And there's no way of knowing if this person actually is taking extra days off due to illness or because they're exploiting a loophole.

Oblomov Boblomov wrote:Re back to work interviews, these are crucial IMO and are the most important aspect of sickness management. It does come down again to consistency and it provides the ability to crack down on a potential sickness absence issue from the very beginning and fully document the entire situation for future use if necessary. In your situation, it might seem unnecessary, however what's to say you won't develop a sickness problem in the future and how would other team members feel if you were left out of the management process just because you were considered reliable by your manager?

Thanks for the explanation, that does make sense and I understand it's normal practice. I do suffer from migraines and both of my days off were due to that, so I guess it could prove useful. I just thought it was amusing since it pretty much went how I explained.

PaperMacheMario wrote:But that still doesn't mean it's not encouraging certain employees to take extra days off, resulting in a loss of efficiency blah blah blah. And there's no way of knowing if this person actually is taking extra days off due to illness or because they're exploiting a loophole.

Our managers actively encourage it, they hate the system as much as we do as they (rightly!) know it's about much more than a score. As they say, if the directors are going to penalise people based on a silly sickness occurrence score, then make the most of the time you do have off.

This is probably why me and Oblo are not understanding each other, a decent firm probably uses the score in a constructive way, mine uses it to punish people and our managers hate it.

In my firm, breaking the top score leads to disciplinary action, so (however stupid Oblo thinks I am) my example of 6 days sick actually could lead to serious disciplinary procedures being invoked.

I don't think I could ever bring myself to care about how many sick days I've had, or what time I get to the office, or any of the other things that would presumably make Ob begin to document evidence ( ). I would probably be instantly sacked from literally any private sector job. Better sink my claws into the University I think.

That's it, I just had a crisis team meeting on my own, there was a strawberry float load of blue sky thinking and every single one of you is on a performance plan as of Monday .

Maybe if corporates didn't employ people based on a rat race and instead focused on personal qualities and passion they wouldn't need to distrust their employees to actually do their job as much.

But alas it's the world we live in and good people don't get jobs.

I see your blue-sky thinking and raise you my blue-ocean engineering.

Oblomov Boblomov wrote:Re back to work interviews, these are crucial IMO and are the most important aspect of sickness management. It does come down again to consistency and it provides the ability to crack down on a potential sickness absence issue from the very beginning and fully document the entire situation for future use if necessary. In your situation, it might seem unnecessary, however what's to say you won't develop a sickness problem in the future and how would other team members feel if you were left out of the management process just because you were considered reliable by your manager?

From my POV, back to work interviews are a waste of my time. They basically consist of three lines of interrogation:

1) What was wrong with you, how bad was it?
2) Are you OK now? Along with perhaps further questioning just to double check the employee isn't faking it
3) Will this be a problem in future?

I see them as companies choosing to actively demonstrate mistrust of their employees to not take advantage of stuff like sick pay. I do understand that it's important to document how often someone is sick in case you get someone with 10-20 different instances over 12 months but this "cracking down" type mentality companies have is nonsense considering that >99% of employees do not do this (at least in my experience).

There's also a feeling that managers aren't treated the same as those on the lower rungs of the corporate ladder in this regard. They very often pull the "work from home" card if they are unwell so that it doesn't go against their sick record thus circumventing the entire process and rendering it inherently unfair on those further down the food chain (and this comes from someone who has the option of working from home).