Tips needed before Monday

[Gangham_style14]

Question answered

[clashcityrocker]

I just think it's disgusting I want to go in guns blazing as I feel the manager who sent me the letter knew my situation, but I need to be professional so any advice what I could hit them with ?

First off calm down.
The attendance review has been triggered because you have breached the agreed guidelines. It isn't personal.
At the meeting you will be able to put forward any mitigating circumstances for your absences. You should have a copy of the absences and the recorded reasons.
Do this calmly.
If you are in the union make sure you have your rep in attendance. If not take a colleague to the meeting.

From what you have posted I don't understand how you have triggered a review but ultimately a stage 1 review isn't the end of the world.
You can't appeal it.
And as you say you are never off sick, it will only take 6 months to clear.
It isn't worth getting upset about.

[buntin]

you cant appeal if the stage 1 is issued and it sounds like a big if but you can still put a grievance in if it is issued.

[postslippete]

Royal Mail's stage procedure is indeed bonkers. You could genuinely be at death's door and yet because the attendance review has been triggered, a manager must action it. I say "must" because most of them really don't have a backbone and are consciously worried about not following any procedures that may impact them.

So my advice, is to keep calm as its just procedure. Judging by what you said they may have all your sickness/absent record in front of them from when you had your car accident, but its probably not really relevant because it was over a year ago. Take a rep in with you, just in case they do go through your sick record in this way. And if you don't have a rep, then remember that you don't have to go through with it.

[hans solo]

all stage warnings are issued at your line managers discretion

[rehabron]

This was discussed in a previous topic on absences that are extant and can be reintroduced by a line manger in the calculation for the issuing of formal stage prompts because the absence is still "live" having not gone a full year since the introduction of another absence. This is an underhand way by management using past absences that received stages and use for further calculation for the second time should the previous absence have not gone the full distance.
In your case your absence of 102 days with a return to work on March 2016 which did not receive a stage1 prompt but as this is still active and with your absence in Feb 2017 it has triggered a stage interview. As other posters have stated first thing is to ensure that you are accompanied to this interview preferably with your union rep. Your absence of 102 days caused by a car accident was not taken to a stage review at the time and this will be your argument on mitigating circumstances for this triggering of a stage 1 om Monday. Please ensure that you request a copy of the notes from this interview so they can be used at a later date if necessary.

[UnhappyGremlin]

all stage warnings are issued at your line managers discretion

Disagree completely.

They're supposed to be, but in reality, most managers are instructed by a senior manager to issue no matter what.