Hi. I will keep this short.

I have been given a written warning for sickness and have kept to targets since this. Last week I was extremely ill and still went into work. I am still ill and have now been signed off by my doctor for a week. After speaking to my boss I am now worried about what may happen next. Could I ask where I stand or if anyone has experienced the same thing and may have advice?

Thanks

Hello and welcome to CAG.

I expect the forum guys will be along later with advice for you, they may ask you for extra information to be able to help you.

My best, HB

It will depend on your company's sickness policy and also the reason for sickness

Your policy may state the next level is a final written warning

Most sickness policies once you are in the formal stage will expect (usually set out via any disciplinary letter) that no further absence is expected but as you have not disclosed the reason it's hard to say that there may need to be allowance by them that some time may be needed because you have a disability which means you have much more weight in law behind you than being off with flu

It is possible that, if the trigger for sickness/performance management is along the lines of recurrent short term absence not requiring medical certification from GP (such as every time you have to work a weekend/late evening/specific task, immediately before or after a period of leave or after a 'night out' you are then off sick for 2 days) then being signed off by your GP may lead to further discussion regarding sickness but no further action being taken - especially given that you went into work during the period of sickness. Would other employees be expected to attend work if suffering from the same illness/symptoms?

If the previous triggers for the performance management is overall level of sickness then you might be on shakier ground regarding the next level of discipline being undertaken.

In my own experience I was put on performance management following a huge amount of sickness - broken elbow (2 months off work) 5 months after having a rough time due to a miscarriage and subsequent infection (2 months off again) and, about 4 months later, 2 weeks off with a chest infection (that was diagnosed by one of the Dr's I worked with! Them went to GP given steroids and antibiotics) Anyway, as is understandable, I was taken along the sickness management route and put on 3 months monitoring and told was not allowed to be off sick in that time - difficult when in the NHS during the winter and dealing with RSV virus and norovirus and having strict policies in place about not attending work for 48 hours if had symptoms of noro!! - I managed that but they decided to follow it with another 3 month period of monitoring during which I had 1 day of recorded sickness. They invoked the next stage of disciplinary procedure and, at the hearing myself and the union rep were able to argue that, due to how they were managing the situation 'recurrent unauthorised absences', they should discount all periods of sickness covered by medical certificate which took the number of days sickness being performance managed down from 84 over an 18 month period to just 3 days and the same company policy stated no trigger until sickness was at 6 days in a 6 month period or 10 days in a year.

Disciplinary process immediately stopped as being inappropriate and previous 6 months of monitoring already an excessive reaction to such a small level of sickness over a prolonged period of time.

Good luck with your situation and getting back on a good footing with your health,

Feebee_71