Director's please....advice on staff sickies

[fchaudari76]

When do you start thinking about talking to your staff about 2 many sickies etc
...and what is your process of dealing with it?
What is your centres policy on calling in sick/going home sick etc?

[Lorina]

At my last centre, during the staff meeting my director spoke to us as a group about taking sick leaves. She had mentioned that a few staff members had already taken there sick leave entitlements for the year and when if they continue taking sick leave they will do so without pay. Also we were asked to bring in a medical certificate whether we had sick leave entitlements or not (which was stated in the policy). If you have taken sick leave and wanted to use your sick leave pay then you had to bring in a medical certificate to verify it. Otherwise it would be taken as leave without pay.

You can't really justify how many sickies are too many, especially if someone is legitimately taking sick leave for the right reasons. However, if someone is taking a sickie off every week or two maybe you can discuss it with them and find out what is going on.

My last director always said that when calling up sick we had to speak to her directly on the phone and either ring the night before or by 7 AM the next morning... When going home sick, the staff member has to be sick enough to want to go home and we couldn't go unless ratio was covered...

Once staff know that they probably won't be paid for sickies unless they bring in a medical certificate then that will probably reduce the amount of sickies taken...maybe... unless you have some very sick workers to deal with...lol...

Hope this helps,

,
L.A

[fchaudari76]

That is exactly what I have been doing but seems some people do not care since they have no sick leave left anyway so regardless they would be on leave without pay so med cert or not it makes no difference. However I have some serial offenders who I am keeping an eye on and will be having a conversation with. I don't mind if people are legitimately sick but some people seem to milk it and a lot of Fridays & Mondays taken off!!! hmmmmmmmmmmmm

[nattieP82]

Hi there,

Our policy is that once there is a 'trend' or 'pattern' emerging with sick leave, the worker can be questioned, so if it's the same staff always taking Friday/ Monday off, you could definitely question and demand a medical certificate for that time off or HR is involved (in my workplace).
However- we also go by 'instances' of sick leave, rather than 'days.' For example, if I'm off Thursday, Friday then Monday and Tuesday- it's 4 days of my sick leave I've used but only the 1 instance of being off sick (my husband works for the state government and his is identical to mine). In other words, we could have any number of sick days in a year, but only the INSTANCES would be counted and used for reprimanding, etc.
Also- if there are 3 or more cases of any contagious illness in our centre and a worker gets it after that, then this counts as Workers Comp and not their sick leave.

Hope this helps and not confuses you!
Good luck.

[fchaudari76]

Even if it is one instance of sick leave it is still X days off within a work period and sick leave is done on hours not instances
Anyway I have been monitoring things closely and repeat offenders are being spoken to or asked to bring in Medical Certificates every time they are off and if they are ill so frequently then they may have to think their work:personal health commitments through