[Closed] What is a reasonable amount of time for an employee to be off sick in a year?

what kind of job?

what kind of illnesses.

I've taken 5-6 sick days in the last 20 years, all in one year 2 years ago.
very difficult question.

what are the stresses? dull job or mentally challenging,

General rule is 3 instances within a 12 month period.

At our place, when you hit that you need to have an informal chat with your manager to go through the reasons.

I'd say a year is reasonable. If they keep getting ill maybe there is something underlying they do not yet know about.

i was off sick twice last year - 2 days when i had my first COVID jab and 5 days later in the year when i caught COVID.

Prior to that - 5 days for an Op on my leg in 2018.

https://www.bradfordfactorcalculator.com/#how-to-use-the-bradford-factor

Some people do get ill-er than others.

I don't think there's a fixed period of time in a given year that's reasonable/unreasonable. Depends on circumstances. Is it just this year, have previous years been better? What's the impact been?

It's probably worth having an informal conversation with them to see if there's anything else going on.

Do they have kids?

Anyone with kids can expect to be out for at least one full week in Q1 of any year from the point at which the kids start nursery until they get to 8 or 9.

I'm just coming off the back of a cold brought into the house by my girlfriends daughter.
I had a few days last month from illness brought home by one of my kids.

Also, dunno if you've noticed, but global pandemic is making everyone twitchy. A lot of minor sniffles that 3 years ago i'd have gone to the office and done a full day, i now stay at home (but i can do 100% of my job from home).

I’d say a year is reasonable.

Yeah, if you take off more than a year in a year, that's definitely unreasonable!

In previous jobs it was a rolling 6 month percentage. If absence reached a certain level (IIRC it was maybe 6 or 8%??) then an informal discussion was made. Sometimes that discussion wasn’t made if a big illness/accident happened (eg broken leg) as it skewed the results but it did pick up people who were constantly taking one or two days off.
Only real problem we had were students who took a lot of Saturdays off when we hired them to work Saturdays 🙄🙄

I was off sick 10 days one year. Don't really know why but we'd just had our 2nd child so I suspect I was run down and stressed.

@chew

General rule is 3 instances within a 12 month period.

That's a terrible rule.

The rule here is "when you extract the urine".

Illness
You can be dismissed if you have a persistent or long-term illness that makes it impossible for you to do your job.

Before taking any action, your employer should:

look for ways to support you - for example, considering whether the job itself is making you sick and needs changing
give you reasonable time to recover from your illness
If you have a disability (which may include long-term illness), your employer has a legal duty to support disability in the workplace.

Dismissal because of a disability may be unlawful discrimination.

From gov.uk

I can't see there being a hard and fast rule, if you need something concrete then an employment lawyer would look at case law to decide what has been appropriate in the past should an employee challenge it at a tribunal.

I think we assume an average of 10 days a year but it varies massively between service areas. It's difficult to say reasonable as some people get ill more easily than others.

I take it you feel they are taking the piss rather than genuinely ill? And you've already had talks.

You could request access to their medical records - you'll be amazed how quick they recover or find another job.

My wife's boss just had to do this. Employee in question suddenly decided the job wasn't for her.

I have a friend with a pretty good work ethic but a string of low to medium grade issues. She also falls out of favour with employers quite regularly, I think they suspect her of skiving because she calls in so much with things like 'headaches' and 'stomach pain'.

I know the reasons for these as I have known her a long time, but her employers don't.

General rule is 3 instances within a 12 month period.

That’s a terrible rule

It is surprisingly common. I think it is one of those many company rules that is there to be enforced for the piss takers and ignored at all other times.

You could request access to their medical records

Could you? That seems pretty invasive.

             General rule is 3 instances within a 12 month period.

That’s a terrible rule

Agreed. One of my team had sinus problems and had to take days off occasionally. I'd known him for 20 years and knew he wasn't skiver. If he took a week off, that was one episode. But he cares about the job, so he took Monday off, struggled in to do important work on Tuesday (it wasn't infectious), then had to take Wednesday off, came in Thursday and then off on Friday. 3 episodes, so we both had to waste an hour going through all the HR procedures.

You could request access to their medical records

Could you? That seems pretty invasive

Only the camera footage.

How valued does this employee feel?

The less someone feels valued, the less critical and illness needs to be to trigger time off and the longer recovery can take.

I think we assume an average of 10 days a year but it varies massively between service areas. It’s difficult to say reasonable as some people get ill more easily than others.

I work with a load of slackers too.

I don't get ill. Only time off sick in 30 years was a week in hospital after falling off a bike.

Anyone with kids can expect to be out for at least one full week in Q1 of any year from the point at which the kids start nursery until they get to 8 or 9.

3 kids during the 30 years too.

Seems you're all slackers 🙂

General rule is 3 instances within a 12 month period.

Same at our place, but it can be less if an instance is particularly long. You can write to their doctor to ask how you (as an employer) can support their illness/condition if it's ongoing. From what I remember from my HR days, you'll need permission from the employee though first.

That’s a terrible rule.

99% of the time nothing happens, as its easy to explain why you'd had that time off.

What it does it highlight to people who take the piss and have every other friday off, that their absence is been monitored, and corrects their behaviour.

It all falls back to why the OP is asking
Is it someone who might have an underlying health issue that is unknown?
Or is it someone who is known to generally take liberties?

how about the flip side. How many times has someone gone to work when they really should have stayed home in bed instead of taking the team down with their infection???
I'm speaking in broader terms, this whole s/he's a trooper for being in work when sick and doing 60 hour weeks is just all kinds wrong

I'd be more concerned if they had a pattern to being off sick, that would be more telling

You can't request access to a person's medical records. Well you can ask but they can and should say no.

You can arrange an occupational health assessment - and you may be able to see the suggested actions that come from that assessment so they can be put in place.

IME somebody calling in frequently with minor stuff, and just skating inside formal procedures for trigger points, there is something else going on (kids is an obvious one but there are limits, especially if they are calling in sick to child-mind). Ask them! Just use an open question and let people talk and listen to them. You might be surprised.

During this pandemic where we’ve been working from home, I haven’t bothered taking any sick days despite (a) getting ill from the COVID vaccine and (b) catching Covid-19 itself.
I did have to take 4 weeks off ‘sick’ when I had both eyes operated on (at two week intervals) for cataracts. Not my choice, but the surgeon insisted.

In a previous role where I had a toxic manager, I did register on their Bradford scale. She even called me in for a chat about my latest illness - after I’d already handed in my notice. Told her I didn’t care, I was leaving anyway

I see it's already turned into a "I work harder than everyone else" competition.

I'm going to vote for "JohnDrummer" the winner so far as he bravely goes into work whilst ill only stopping when he's blind, whereas "intheborders" simply never gets ill which doesn't demonstrate the same determination.

During this pandemic where we’ve been working from home, I haven’t bothered taking any sick days

This is key. Letting staff work from home if need be reduces sick days.

Me about 5days  in every three years

My wife 1day out of every 5 but she does have health issues.

So this person is a remote worker (so no risk of bringing anything into the office) and the illnesses are all (seemingly) unrelated. There has been no mention of stress and there have been 'back to work' meetings after some longer periods of sickness where we have asked if there is anything we can do (they said no). Pattern-wise hard to say as they have been sick on and off since they joined us.

You can’t request access to a person’s medical records. 

Every work contract I've signed in the last 25 years has included a clause giving the employer the right to see my medical records (6 or so jobs).

I pushed back the first couple of times but was told no sign, no job so just sucked it up.

It has only be invoked once and that's when the workplace OT was involved via proper HR channels and I was seriously ill.

We work 4 week hitches on the ship. You'd be amazed how many of the crew get recurring 'Summer Back' and 'Christmas Back' when their hitches coincide with being away from home at that time. It genuinely baffles me that the company hasn't got a better system in place for dealing with these absences.
We get paid well, and many of us can afford to be off on SSP for an extra month, but it's the blatant arrogance of it that gets me. Other people have to pick up the extra work, as often the agency crew who come in to replace them don't have the working knowledge of the ship.

General rule is 3 instances within a 12 month period.

"Instances", rather than "days", sounds reasonable. Like one instance could be a cold that lasts 2 days, another a bad back from a fall lasting 3 days, another instance could be a broken neck that lasts 6 weeks. This was me in a previous job. No-one found it unreasonable 🙂

There's also a better culture in my place now, post-Covid, that you stay home if you have a cold. Much better than those times when brave souls (myself included) would venture in to the office and spread their germs.

Self-certified or with a fitness to work note from Doctor?

Self-certified or with a fitness to work note from Doctor?

In the past it has been both (depending on the duration of the illness).

This is key. Letting staff work from home if need be reduces sick days.

Some of my work is in occupational health, even before the pandemic one of the senior managers told me something akin to "people don't take sick days any more, they work from home".

This may be most-relevant for desk jobs of course.

Sounds like some lead is being swung anyway.

@dannybgoode

Every work contract I’ve signed in the last 25 years has included a clause giving the employer the right to see my medical records

Not one single contract i've signed has given them the right to see my medical records, a couple have a clause that stipulates that they may *ask* to contact whichever medical professional is treating you in the event of long term or regular/ongoing illnesses if they feel that the information given (by you/doctors note) is not adequate.

Lost days in an office environment should generally run under 2%. A fair bit higher for medical / food production / construction. That puts a price on it so you can decide what you're prepared to tolerate or how much would be reasonable to pay for a good occupational health person to deal with it. OH would be my choice - I was skeptical but it was a real eye opener as to just how effective they can be when dealing with people working for me.

Reasonable amount - none... for some people.

If you start making a statement about an acceptable limit then people will start to use that limit.

Absolutely it needs to be there for people who need it - illness, injury, or even worse, developing a lifelong disease or condiiton which needs ongoing treatment.

But if someone I worked with (our company's biggest expense by far is payroll, our output is pdf documents) was routinely taking a total of 2 weeks a year every year for colds and headaches I'd be a bit peed off and I'd be asking for more annual leave in my review.

I'm currently signed off sick, first time I've been off in 4-5 years. We used to have the "3 instances/8 days in 12 months" sparks an informal review, but it's now at managers discretion - if you break both arms what does the bureaucracy achieve.

I think those with an option to WFH nowadays will be "off" less, but "hopefully" employers and staff will be a bit more pragmatic about people dragging themselves in and spreading germs around the workplace - not everyone has that luxury, of course, which I accept.

Some people do have more sick time than others - as a manager a few years back with a team of mainly ladies of a certain age, I had to learn an awful lot about menopausal symptoms, and I don't think any of them were taking the piss.

I also had a colleague with a genuine, certified medical issue who was put down the competency route, which seemed harsh. She came out of the meeting to announce that she had been granted an additional 8 days sick leave a year before the review would be triggered again. She then loudly began discussing and planning when she might take those extra 8 days. Absolute piss taker on the back of a genuine health issue.

We had a someone in my last co. that was always taking days off, weeks off. Seemed to be out of the office more that she was in it. Got promoted to Director. We were impressed, cos she was useless at management job she was already doing... funny thing was though, one year's Secret Santa she received a gift of paracetamol, Lemsip, ibuprofen and Vicks nasal spray. How we laughed.

If you start making a statement about an acceptable limit then people will start to use that limit.

I am not planning on making a 'statement', just wondering at what point do I need to escalate it. FWIW, the amount of time exceeds pretty much any of the examples given by others in this thread so far.

Presume this is in the UK? Different rules for different countries. You should probably ask HR for guidance, they might not have a formal policy but they'll be able to give you rule of thumb.

I've always judged this kind of thing on an individual basis - some folks that have worked for me I've had to almost force to take time off when they are ill so they get a lot of slack, others have taken the proverbial so I've followed local process to the letter and done what I can to make it clear that I know what they are up to. They are usually very aware of their rights and recognise when you are playing the game with them.

Always communicate as much as you can though (not just when they are ill!) as you never know whats going on. I had a chap working for me who was diligent and conscientious to a fault but over the course of a year started taking more and more time off with more and more outrageous reasons. Eventually, with some help from the company and some third party counselling which the company paid for, it turned out he was in the middle of a significant breakdown. He spent almost a year off work and another year on a planned easing back into work. Thankfully he's OK now and actually has a much healthier balance. As this persons manager and friend I was blown away by the amount of support the company provided, not just in time off but providing (organising, managing, funding) professional (external unbiased) help.

intheborders
Free Member
I think we assume an average of 10 days a year but it varies massively between service areas. It’s difficult to say reasonable as some people get ill more easily than others.

I work with a load of slackers too.

I don’t get ill. Only time off sick in 30 years was a week in hospital after falling off a bike.

Anyone with kids can expect to be out for at least one full week in Q1 of any year from the point at which the kids start nursery until they get to 8 or 9.

3 kids during the 30 years too.

Seems you’re all slackers 🙂

Jesus H Christ 🥱

Difficult one but for me a clear diagnosed condition for an otherwise good employee would have a much higher threshold for time off than someone with regular Mondayitis and was a poor employee.

I love the I can't help getting ill type comments which is often true but when it's repeat bouts of back sickness, headaches, Flu, being under the weather I usually point out they maybe need to look at lifestyle factors such as sleep, diet, alcohol and exercise (assuming they've had any underlying medical condition ruled out).

Bottom line though is if you aren't in work you aren't fulfilling your contract regardless of the reason and the employer isn't a charity.

To the original question if an employee is heading towards 500 points on the Bradford factor without an underlying condition and assuming I'd taken them through the stages of absence management I'd be looking at dismissal but with all these things specific circumstances are really important an can trump any numerical approach.

Always communicate as much as you can though (not just when they are ill!) as you never know whats going on. I had a chap working for me who was diligent and conscientious to a fault but over the course of a year started taking more and more time off with more and more outrageous reasons. Eventually, with some help from the company and some third party counselling which the company paid for, it turned out he was in the middle of a significant breakdown. He spent almost a year off work and another year on a planned easing back into work. Thankfully he’s OK now and actually has a much healthier balance. As this persons manager and friend I was blown away by the amount of support the company provided, not just in time off but providing (organising, managing, funding) professional (external unbiased) help.

this, speak to them one to one - from there decide if you need to highlight to HR. HR will then advise you on steps towards attendance management as per company policy. Dont ask a bike forum how to manage your business.

Invariably HR will get it wrong but its their job to get it wrong - not yours. You get it wrong and your likely to end up on the end of procedural management.

We don't get paid for the first 30 hours of sick. Thought it pretty Dickensian but it's a good incentive for the pee takers. Does lead to bugs being circulated though and am interested how it pans out when we have a number of covid cases, as we seem to have now.

have they got young kids?

I had never ever had a sick day, not one, till i had kids.
Them and their little mates are germ farms

and the employer isn’t a charity.

Mine is...it say so at the bottom of all our email sigs...

Many years ago I worked at the  Borg Warner gearbox factory in Sydney. We got 10 days sick leave a year and if you didn't take it you got paid 10 extra days!

A place I worked for in NZ had a similar policy - you had ten sick days a year, after that no pay and they didn't roll over. The year ticked over in summer, so loads of folk would be "sick" towards the end when they knew they would get paid, and get a new allowance soon...

Ours uses the Bradford score. It is a useful tool but not as a basis for policy.

I've a lad that I've managed to offload from my team after he's had nearly 40 unsanctioned days off in a working year. We're landscapers, he's a labourer (albeit very green to the role) and he seems to have a bewildering array of personal and social issues. Of all his time off, I think about a quarter of it is related to a sprained wrist, the rest is arguments with his girlfriend and such like. It has been suggested, on more than one occasion, that he should seek counselling. This company does not offer any sick pay, just SSP after 4 days continued absence.

On a side note, I'm always tickled by a lass in a previous job asking the boss how many days sick leave she had remaining for her year. Good one!

Some people do get ill-er than others.

Yep, had colleagues who just seem to get ill all the time, others go decades without so much as a day off. Genetics / lifestyle.

There's a lot to unpick here. Folk can't help being ill, they can help in not taking the piss.

This isn't America, I've had friends in the US tell me that they're going to book a day off sick because they've run out of holidays and this seemingly isn't unusual.

General rule is 3 instances within a 12 month period.

This is very common, and it's commonly misunderstood.

This sort of policy isn't "three strikes and disciplinary," rather it's a trigger for an employer to investigate further. This isn't necessarily a negative thing, a chunk of it is arse covering. If you're off with work-related stress (say) and work ignore it then they're potentially in the crap. Are you getting migraines because you need an eye test? Is there an underlying chronic condition your employer needs to consider? Or, yes of course, is your recurring back problem wholly related to you not being able to get it off the bed after a Sunday night skinful?

I've been bitten by this. I was off at the start of a week with either a cold or flu, felt better so came back into work midweek then relapsed so was off again at the end of the same week. In diligently dragging myself back to work I'd created two separate incidences of absence. One other day off in the surrounding two years (three periods in any rolling 12 months) and I found myself in front of HR. "What happened?" I had a cold. "Is it likely to reoccur?" God knows, it's a cold. Probably? "Is there anything we can do to help?" Do you have the cure for the common cold? No, then. "Thanks, bye!"

From a HR point of view I'd have been better off skiving on the Wednesday than dragging my snotty carcass back into work before I was fully recovered, but ultimately they weren't fussed. They were checking in, is everything OK, yes it is, OK then.

Dont ask a bike forum how to manage your business.

I am not asking anyone how to manage my business. If I had been doing that I would have asked a very different question. I am merely curious at this stage.

I'm no HR person but I do kind of touch on this doing other consultancy work. I personally don't agree with it, but lots of employers seem to have the Bradford factor embedded somewhere within sickness absence procedures.

https://www.breathehr.com/en-gb/bradford-factor-calculator

Edit: missed that this had been mentioned already.

So in my example above, if I'd had the week off with flu my Bradford index would be 5. When I came back in on the Wednesday - so less time off overall - it'd be 16. If I'd had three days off and dragged myself in on the Tuesday and Thursday, it'd be 27.

Are people actually paid to come up with this shit? I'm in the wrong line of work. I propose the Cougar Scale: if you're genuinely ill, keep your disease-ridden arse at home rather than infecting half the building whilst boasting about how you haven't had a day off sick in twenty years.

Piss taking annoys me but so do people who come in to work when they are ill. Well done trooper! Thanks to you and the air-con ten people will be off in the next week or so. Just so you can pull the “I’ve never had a day off sick” card.

I need that Like button again.

So our instance has a Bradford score of 560.

So our instance has a Bradford score of 560.

Again completely useless without context though.

That might be incredibly reasonable time to be off .... Or it might be incredibly unreasonable !

That might be incredibly reasonable time to be off …. Or it might be incredibly unreasonable !

I get that.

completely useless without context though.

as the Bradford factor is spells of sickness squared, times total days off, and only integer values can be used, we have the following options.

1 instance of 560 days - not possible as that is more than a year
2 instances totalling 140 days - possible but unlikely
3 instances - 560 not divisible by 9, so not possible
4 instances totalling 35 days - most likely
5 instances or more - 560 not divisible by 25, 36, 49 etc.

So 7 working weeks off (assuming a 5 day work week) over 4 separate instances.

Of course that could be 1 badly broken leg and 3 hangovers, or 4 sneaky holidays, or anything in between...

I used to work in a household name manufacturing company that brought in a new rule of two absences in a rolling twelve month period lead to step up the warning progression verbal, first written, second written, dismissal.

I haven't had a sick day in the last ten years that I can recall but I soon left them.

There’s also a better culture in my place now, post-Covid, that you stay home if you have a cold. Much better than those times when brave souls (myself included) would venture in to the office and spread their germs.

I think in the case the OP is describing I guess its useful to know if this pattern relates to the last year or so, or the last decade. There was quite a consistent effort to make the case against the culture presentee-ism in the workplace as the start of the pandemic so someone might well feel they are acting in everyone's best interests not to come to work if they're ill in anyway, rather than just when they're too ill to be able to come to work at all.

Are you from P&O HR?

@funkmasterp

Piss taking annoys me but so do people who come in to work when they are ill. Well done trooper! Thanks to you and the air-con ten people will be off in the next week or so. Just so you can pull the “I’ve never had a day off sick” card.

My old manager, used to do TTs at quite a high level (solid sub 20/50 minute rider) and if he spotted sick people in his team, he'd send them home (via telephone). Even used to get other managers at his level to send sick people home...

There's some horrid employers out there...

16 years ago mrs_oab went from model employee to multiple sicknesses over 18 months. Some were a fortnight off (pnumonia). After 18 months hunting, doctors finally diagnosed her.

Fwiw, I don't think you can say/suggest any limit. You can know your employees and create a culture of honesty and trust - support where needed and getting the job done with some pride.

I’m going to vote for “JohnDrummer” the winner so far as he bravely goes into work whilst ill only stopping when he’s blind,

That’s not what I said. I’ve been working from home pretty much 100% since Covid-19 so I haven’t been [i]going in to work [/i] so no [i]need [/i] to take time off, even when I [i]was [/i] ill

One of Mrs Pondo's colleagues takes loads of time off (was ill during an Ofsted inspection - surprise!), and has been off for best part of the last two weeks at a time when everyone is really, really struggling - she put pictures of herself at a wedding this weekend on social media, I suspect the greetings on her return will notvbe cordial.

My employer's ace - there's a member of my team who's been off long-term since before I joined two and a half years ago, never met them but they should be having a phased return shortly.

Cougar the Bradford factor is pretty useful as it penalised people with lots of short term absence, but it should only be used as a trigger to ask questions exactly as you describe, it's actually more for HR to manage managers, there's no ambiguity about when it's appropriate to check what's happening and provide support or take action. It should not be a disciplinary tool based on breaching a threshold.

I think it's also important to consider colleagues when someone else is off a lot regardless of the underlying cause. It puts extra stress on them with the uncertainty and having to pick up the extra work. Also puts a lot of extra stress on supervisors and managers both in work and emotional terms. For me it would be unlikely I would keep someone on the books who had been off for more than a year, either we don't need them (so redundancy would be appropriate, preferably enhanced) or we've covered the role with another individual.

For me it would be unlikely I would keep someone on the books who had been off for more than a year, either we don’t need them

Shit out of luck if you were to as one of my past colleagues did and have a stroke in the office with work stress as a major contributor....

Was out of work recovering for near 2 years and was a highly successful and key part of the team when he came back.

But there is that old saying .... Drop dead they will replace you tomorrow.

This isn’t America, I’ve had friends in the US tell me that they’re going to book a day off sick because they’ve run out of holidays and this seemingly isn’t unusual.

In the US theres no legal entitlement to paid holidays at all - so its quite possible to start the year having run out of holidays. If people do get paid holidays they're lucky if its 10 days a year - half the statutory amount UK employees get. People's healthcare, if they have any, is provided by their employer too. So you might want to swing the lead by taking time off sick - but not so sick you actually need medicine. Theres no legal requirement for US employers to pay sick leave.

Not read it all - has anyone said Bradford factor yet?

Just to rock the boat a little... Sometimes you just need to be able to wave the white flag and take a mental health / physical illness day off work without being persecuted for it.

That’s very true. A ‘duvet day’

Not read it all – has anyone said Bradford factor yet?

No

I think I've been on here too long.

I saw the topic on mobile and correctly guessed who posted it.

That's not good.