The People Bulletin

Following on from our record-clicking People Bulletin story on ‘Fibbing at work revealed’ a recent survey from CareerBuilding.co.uk[1] has confirmed that half of UK employers do not always believe the reasons given when an employee calls in sick. 

Nine per cent of respondents claimed to drive by their employee’s home to check if they are faking sickness. Thirteen percent have fired an employee for not having a legitimate reason for missing work. The nationwide survey included more than 190 UK business leaders. 

Fake spotters

Employers suspecting employees of faking a ‘sickie’ have used different tactics to investigate the absence, especially if the employee is a chronic offender. These have included: 

• Required a doctor’s note – 29%.
• Called the employee – 19%.
• Had another employee call the employee – 7%.
• Checked the employee’s personal social networking page – 6%.

“If you lie about the reason for needing time off, you can seriously hurt your credibility with your employer,” said Tony Roy, president of CareerBuilder EMEA. “The vast majority of employers – 79% – enable workers to use sick days for mental health days to rest, recharge and return more productive, so your best bet is to be up front and honest with your manager.”

Unusual excuses

When asked to share examples of the most unusual excuses they received from workers calling in sick, employers in Europe reported the following: 

• Employee’s foot was stuck in the toilet.
• Employee said someone threw a garden gnome through his window.
• Employee claimed to be attacked by a shark.
• Employee witnessed someone being pushed under a train.
• Employee had a nightmare and felt out of sorts.
• Employee was intoxicated by burning vines.
• Employee got her finger stuck in a car door.
• Employee injured his leg chasing his dog to prevent it from attacking a rabbit.
• Employee had to take his mother shopping.
  

Other tall tales
Search engines reveal other admissions of pulling ‘sickies' in chat forums. These include:

• Baby boomer admits fibbing about going to see great-grandmother when all the time she was sneaking out to see the Beatles playing in Ipswich but, “I should say that I have had a very good attendance record for work ever since and have never fibbed to get a day off since.”[2]
• Young man makes out his girlfiend had been in a car accident.  Unfortunately for him, his father was working in another part of the company so when colleagues asked him how his son’s girlfriend was recovering things started to unravel.[3] 

Worrying advice for would-be skivers 

We unearthed this blog entry from 2004 which suggesting that pulling ‘sickies' has become some sort of dubious artform: “Skiving off work for mental health reasons is a national tradition and yet many people in the workforce are unsure how to go about it. We offer top tips on pulling a perfect sickie to secure a guilt-free day off.”[4] Employers do need to be vigilant about these sorts of forums, although the recent high levels of unemployment[5] have changed attitudes to being able to remain in work.

Managing sickness absence 

All employers encountering high levels of sickness should remind themselves of their rights on how to manage the problem and take practical steps to address it.  Louise McCartney’s top tips from her article ‘Not in today’[6] form a useful checklist:  

• Have a clear sickness policy and sickness reporting procedure.
• Enforce it and make it part of the routine.
• Include trigger points where the process escalates. Where appropriate, invoke the disciplinary/capability process.
• Make sure there are consequences – triggered interviews and, where appropriate, formal capability/disciplinary procedures.
• Consider terms and conditions of employment – do they encourage sickness absence by providing overly generous contractual sick pay?
• Focus on the employee and their absence, making them aware of the impact on colleagues and the consequences for their own employment.
• Don’t make skiving easy.

CareerBuilder’s Tony Roy told The People Bulletin: “With a tough economic climate came smaller staffs, heavier workloads and longer hours.  Using a sick day to take a break from stress and growing demands has become more common than the past across markets. To encourage employees to take efforts needed to manage stress, recharge and have a better work/life balance, supervisors should lead by example.” 

[1] An online European survey of 757 business leaders in the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Sweden was conducted in a range of organisations between 17 November and 17 December.  Business leaders included C-level executives, directors and senior managers with recruitment responsibilities.  The survey was conducted online by Shape the Future, a market research agency based near London which specialises in high speed online research. The survey was conducted strictly according to the code of conduct of the UK’s Market Research Society.

[2] http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=449318&page=2 

[3] http://vbulletin.thesite.org/showthread.php/34911-What-s-the-worst-excuse-you-ve-used-for-pulling-a-sickie 

[4]  http://workhate.blogspot.com/2004/01/great-sick-day-getaway.html 

[5] www.apbusinesscontacts.com/the_people_bulletin-pb_5/just_not_enough.aspx 

[6]  www.apbusinesscontacts.com/the_people_bulletin-pb_2/notin.aspx