Posted By Nick Egan
This story started off as more of an HR issue, but now involves H&S and I'd be interested in your views/experiences. It came to our attention that one of our employees over 2 or 3 years was taking all his annual leave early in the year, then "hitting the sick" over the summer months. Well he was "counselled" about his attendance and can you guess what happend next? This year he reported an accident, fell over landed on a pile of paving flags. A 2 week sicknote and he says he might have to have physio so it could be longer. He may be genuine, but some how....

Posted By Nick Egan
Yes Ron, we pay 6 months full pay and 6 months half pay right from day one. You can self certificate sickness for the first 7 days. Unfortuanely I don't have faith in GP's as a group when it comes to spotting the work-shy looking for a sick note.

One repondent who emailed direct is sucessfully reducing absence from MSD's by early and automatic intervention and I would like to follow this course. I'm sure it would help the genuine and would discourage the malingerer
Nick

Posted By Karen Todd
I have had experience of a guy the rest of the workforce nicknamed "Mr Bump".

He started having all these minor accidents, such as getting stuff in his eye (not reported during work but apparently always going to A&E after work), not putting enough tack on a baseplate for a steel upright and it falling off onto his foot (yes, he was wearing steel toed boots), burning his own thumb when gas cutting, strained back allegedly from manual handling (we used a gantry crane and FLTs for handling the steel, the only things manually handled were small plates) etc etc.

However, there was a pattern to his absences. He was never off on a Monday or Tuesday. Wednesday was his most frequent day for an accident, followed by Thursday, followed by Friday. And if he had an accident during the week, he would never come back before the weekend. These injuries were all fairly minor, that for most would have required a trip to casualty before returning to work (except he always insisted on going home) or else say 1 day away from work (except he always took more).

What was happening, was that his wife (who is foreign) had quite a high powered job in Dublin, about 3 hours from where he lived & worked; so she was away all week and she only came home at weekends.

When he had his 'accidents', they were an excuse to have a long weekend and go down to Dublin to see his wife!

On one occasion he called me into the works canteen to look at the foot that the baseplate had dropped on. He said, "I'm really fed up. I want you to look at my foot as everyone out there is saying there's nothing wrong with me". I looked at his foot. There wasn't a mark on it...must've been internal bruising or something.

He was such a showman. When the baseplate fell on his foot, he refused to walk an inch and the van had to be reversed into the workshop, right up to where he stood, and he was driven to hospital which was next door to us. The rest of the workforce looked at him in disbelief as he stood there with the van being reversed up to him, but as it drove off to the hospital, everyone made a, "NEE-NOR, NEE-NOR" sound. One of the funniest things I've ever seen!

Karen

Posted By Steve Langston
Am i missing something?

I thought holiday could only be taken once it has been accrued unless under "exceptional circumstances" or "agreement with management".

If an employee is allowed to take his full entitlement in the first few months of the leave year then this is surely a management failing?

What happens if he/she leaves after 3 months into the leave year after using all the holiday. Your payroll section will end up reclaiming money from wages, in some circumstances (weekly paid)the wages will not cover the holiday that has been taken and you may end up pursuing the money in the courts.

If a person has 24 days holiday per year then they accrue 2 days for each month they work. In theory this eqautes to 6 days per quarter. In reality there needs to be some flexibility on both sides but to simply allow the leave to be taken is irresponsible.

If they want a long holiday at the start of the leave year they should agree with the management that they can carry some days over from the previous year, (and this means them saving some leave!)

Surely this should be handed swiftly back to HR.

With regards to the alleged accident then lets hope your management system is able to withstand a possible employers liability claim or HSE/local authority investigation.

Well liability claim anyway

good luck

Steve

Posted By Kieran Duignan
I am very curious about the boundary that Peter and Steve assert in relation to the 'HR' and 'Safety' functions. As a corporate member of both IOSH and CIPD, I know of no authoritative statement about this boundary, which in any case is impossible in the majority of organisations which don't have them.

What is the rationale for asserting a firm boundary between HR and OSH? What is the legal standing of the safety-competent person, employee or consultant, who attributes responsibility to 'HR', when
(a) HR disagree, or (b) there is no HR function?

Posted By David J.
Having been unfortunate enough to contract a serious illness and require 4 months off work, I for one appreciate the benefits of a sick pay scheme. Unfortunately there are people that abuse the system and consider it as part of their annual a/leave and have a couple of weeks off every year. I agree with the view why allow this person to take all a/leave early in the year. Surely one of the positives of a holiday is to re-charge the batteries. If one front-loads all the leave this benefit is lost. Also agree that this is really a HR issue. Investigating the accident is a separate concern.

Seems to me HR and line managers need to have the courage (and support) to confront this “chancer” (sorry cant fully escape my Scots roots). And send them on a permanent holiday.

Would also assert that self certification makes it even easier to abuse the system as some GP’s (at least in my experience) are less willing to give out sick note to “chancers” This was at least some form of control.

Karen what happened to your sense of romance?

Posted By Karen Todd
Romance went out the window. Everyone got really really fed up with him, but as I said we soon learnt that if he had an accident not to expect him in for the rest of the week and we could plan accordingly.

What made it more annoying was that he was one of those "doesn't need to work" types. He was a farmer and had other income.

Have come across many of these folk in my time. They don't work for the money; they work for the social side of things and some can be quite arrogant, knowing that they aren't there for the money.

We had another chap who had lots of frequent absences. However, we knew that he was a partner in an oil business. It was really frustrating because his wife would phone in sick for him and he would only be off one or 2 days at a time(out doing oil deliveries) but he had quite a few days off, although he was an excellent worker. We just couldn't depend on him at all and we were a small company (25 people). A lot of our work was out on site with 2 or 3 man teams on lots of different sites, so it really messed things up if he didn't turn in and not many other people knew his site.

What happened with him was that a gentleman's agreement was reached. He had to tell us when he thought he might need time off to do oil deliveries instead of phoning in sick and leaving us in the lurch, and he got that time off as unpaid leave.

It actually really worked well, and he became one of the chargehands and there were no more unplanned absences unless he was really ill (which was not very often).

Karen

Posted By Raymond Rapp
Some interesting and not so unusual comments. As a former TU & H&S Rep I have dealt with many situations arising from absence. Here are my views on the subject.

Clearly, there will always be those who for various reasons take more time off work than others. They are often labelled shirkers. However, imposing a system such as Tesco's penalises the 'genuine' workers as well as the not so genuine. The workforce often find a way round any penal system and if you are going to lose three days pay you might as well have a week off or claim an industrial injury.

I believe the answer lies in a system based on reward and retribution. For example, either providing an attendance bonus (cash or time off in lieu) or say five extra leave days that would be deducted from any sick leave. The truth is there is no simple answer.

Ray

Posted By Simone Plaut
dear Pete
this broken toe is not going to be six weeks off....that is a weight bearing bone.
Simone Plaut
Radiographer before I went into safety..
bruising may not be visible at this stage

Posted By Nick Egan
Thanks all, some interesting thoughts and views. Those of you pointing out management failings are right in the sense that implementation has not been carried through.
Our Leave policy actually states "In normal circumstances leave entitlement should be spread throughout the year in order to gain the maximum benefit from breaks away from work. It is recognised however that the bulk of leave will be taken through the months of April to October and every effort will be made to ensure that all requests are met. Authorisation will not be unreasonably withheld".
You can probably pick holes in this, I think we have been trying to be fair and flexible. What we have to be better at is tracking leave and withholding leave when it is an unreasonable request.
Nick