What is the sickness levels like in your office?

[madelin4]

Just curious to hear what other offices sickness levels are like and also how are sick staff treated? In my office there is around 10 of us out. They dont seem to bother with long terms as Atos deals with it, but the short term are not treated very good with phone calls every day etc.

What is their plan with the sick staff? they cant pay off everyone who goes sick ?

[DirtyHarry]

My office is beginning to resemble a field hospital during the Crimean war. We've people limping, unable to stand/walk for any great length of time,
sore hands, bad backs, and so on................If anyone's off sick they don't seem to get harassed with numerous nuisance calls from management,
one call a week seems about the norm here.

[bandit650]

The sick levels in the office i am based at is hopeless we have anything from 18-20 people off at a time we have several off on long term sick but our DOM who is like a pit bull who thinks the wages come out of his own pocket, has never had a days sick in all the years he's worked for RM is always getting managers to phone staff,the short term sick are treated like pieces of crap its so bad sometimes that we've had cases of harrassment put up,the only other thing that i have noticed that if your face fits and you aint felling to well you get kept in the office but if you dont fit then you get oh go out on your delivery you'll feel better out in the air.Anybody get the same in thier office?

[k979aaa]

Just curious to hear what other offices sickness levels are like and also how are sick staff treated? In my office there is around 10 of us out. They dont seem to bother with long terms as Atos deals with it, but the short term are not treated very good with phone calls every day etc.

What is their plan with the sick staff? they cant pay off everyone who goes sick ?

Just wait till the all new singing and danceing attendence procedure is announced!.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

in my DO sick levels are very high well short term sick anyway - they had a purge last year and all long term sickies, or repeat long term sickies were all paid off.

Short Term is high with a section of 30 someone is off sick every day - however the treatment is generally fair by the Lineo but when his bosses get involved its headed towards stages. We have to ring every day by 15 minutes after shift starts. Thats about it.

However as k979aaa intimated if the attendance procedure RM wants gets through its going to be very bloody. AFAIR it will be stages after 5 day periods.

[madelin4]

QUOTE""""""However as k979aaa intimated if the attendance procedure RM wants gets through its going to be very bloody. AFAIR it will be stages after 5 day periods.



So really anyone who is out then will not go back until they are sure they are 101% fit , i have had a lot of problems at my office and i have been off now for 4.5 months, they have not (so Far) tried to get rid of me, i am hoping to get back soon and trying to remain positive but can be hard to the way things are and it will only get worse. I enjoy my job and know there is much worse i could be doing out there!

[k979aaa]

QUOTE""""""However as k979aaa intimated if the attendance procedure RM wants gets through its going to be very bloody. AFAIR it will be stages after 5 day periods.



So really anyone who is out then will not go back until they are sure they are 101% fit , i have had a lot of problems at my office and i have been off now for 4.5 months, they have not (so Far) tried to get rid of me, i am hoping to get back soon and trying to remain positive but can be hard to the way things are and it will only get worse. I enjoy my job and know there is much worse i could be doing out there!

Well royalmail are determined to get rid of fulltime staff who do not meet their increasingly demanding standards from the latest i have heard 9 month's on the sick is no more!. ps i wish you all the best and get well soon "madelin4".

[madelin4]

QUOTE""""""However as k979aaa intimated if the attendance procedure RM wants gets through its going to be very bloody. AFAIR it will be stages after 5 day periods.



So really anyone who is out then will not go back until they are sure they are 101% fit , i have had a lot of problems at my office and i have been off now for 4.5 months, they have not (so Far) tried to get rid of me, i am hoping to get back soon and trying to remain positive but can be hard to the way things are and it will only get worse. I enjoy my job and know there is much worse i could be doing out there!

Well royalmail are determined to get rid of fulltime staff who do not meet their increasingly demanding standards from the latest i have heard 9 month's on the sick is no more!. ps i wish you all the best and get well soon "madelin4".

Thanks K979aaa.

[not me]

we have ongoing short term sick issues.at the end of december we probably had over 30% off sick in the office.
our DOM is off with stress now.
anyone off sick now is phoned to come in for an interview in the 1st few days
stage warnings are flying out as soon as you meet the requirements

[sevenandseven]

we have ongoing short term sick issues.at the end of december we probably had over 30% off sick in the office.
our DOM is off with stress now.
anyone off sick now is phoned to come in for an interview in the 1st few days
stage warnings are flying out as soon as you meet the requirements

I wonder if any of those told to come in for an interview has the highly contagious norovirus? So contagious you are advised to stay indoors and not even see your doctor for risk of spreading it. I know this is true because it is on one of our noticeboards. But then Royal Mail always knows best when it comes to health issues.

[Carnoustie]

Sick levels in our office are really high. They have a budget for paid sick leave (because it's unrealistic to assume there will be 100% attendance) and they display a graph showing this year's weekly sick levels, last year's, and the budgeted level for each week. From memory, there's only been one week out of 44 in the current financial year where levels of sick have been below the budgeted level.

We had managers letting us know in WTLL sessions recently that sick leave is way too high, to a general reaction of 'what do you want us to do about it ?. Surely, if you're sick, you're sick... END OF !!!'

They didn't like it too much when I asked if managers' absences were included in that figure. It's a bit of a joke being lectured about too many people taking time off sick when two managers are currently off long-term sick, the one who's doing the WTLL has just come back off sick, and other ones aren't exactly 'leading by example'.

It seems that if your face fits, you can get away with unlimited absenteeism. If your face fits, you don't phone in sick, you give some other reason and then the manager grants a comp day after the event, all for the price of one kiss on his/her @rse

If you're a thorn in their side, you get pulled in for a Stage warning

[baldrick]

I had a Stage 1 hearing from a manager who's had more time off sick in the last 27 weeks than I've had in 27 years.
I wonder how much of the sickness figures are due to managers' sickness?

[billyb8]

The worst I've ever seen. lots of older staff are reaching breaking point as walks are made bigger. 9 bags is now not uncommon.

[jafferpants]

If rm think it's bad now wait till they try to get people working till 65. By the way have they dropped all the incentives to stop sick leave like car's and vouchers as iv'e not heard much about it lately. They may as well cos it's obviously not working.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

If rm think it's bad now wait till they try to get people working till 65. By the way have they dropped all the incentives to stop sick leave like car's and vouchers as iv'e not heard much about it lately. They may as well cos it's obviously not working.

They ran it for 2 years I think.