Time off for sick children

[raindance]

We have special leave available in my company to deal with urgent domestic distress.  This covers a multitude of things including sick relatives.

Some of our mothers - especially those with very young children - will use up vacation or work from home.  Generally, my company tries to be very understanding about these matters.  

Working parents can be seen as a difficult thing for employers, and can cause resentment amongst those employees who don't have children.   Nursery care is hideously expensive and nannies (surprisingly cheaper, especially if one nanny-shares) are not always the best thing.

What it comes down to is retention of valued employees whilst recognising that people have lives outside work.  

R.

[spitfire78]

Currently, most of our admin staff are at the age where they have already had their children or know they won't be having them - so maternity leave isn't an issue at the moment.

Conversely, though, that means that a lot of us are at the age where our parents need our time and attention.  When I was a secretary and sharing an office with a co-worker, she had to take time off to care for her parents (dr. appts, hospitalizations, surgical procedures, etc.).  It wasn't a block of time but rather days or hours here and there.  At one point, she apologized to me because of all the time I had covered for her.  I told her then that the way I looked at it was that I was covering for her now but someday she would be doing the same for me (her parents are slightly older than mine, so mine were healthy at the time).  I think she was relieved that I felt that way, and it gave her one less thing to worry about during that stressful time.

[londonpa]

As one poster mentioned above, the UK has the worst family friendly policies in Europe and what, according to DD's latest news report, is going to increase flexible working and drive up the number of people  working from home?  Not family friendly policies  but Environmental Policies!!!

UK Home Page - News Alerts:  UK Workers Will Go Green Or Go Home.
http://www.deskdemon.com/pages/uk/newsalert/details?id=158

'...Companies wanting to recruit the best candidates are facing a growing trend amongst UK workers (37%) who will only consider roles offering flexible working. The business landscape is set to change within just 5-10 years, as a further two thirds of UK workers are demanding home working within that time scale. ...'

On another note, I'm glad that the issues concerning care for elderly parents has been mentioned.  Regardless of whether you have children, elderly relatives  to care for or both - seems to me that whether we like it or not, women take on the responsibility.   I know men (or some men) do try to do their bit - but it still falls to us to drop everything and take the lion's share.  That's our lot and (am I speaking out of turn?) the majority of us put up, shut up and get on with it.

[dettu]

If we're to keep everything consistent here, I guess Dusty should have thought about having to care for sick parents before she put a burden on the rest of us by coming to work while her parents are still alive.

Yes, I do think it's small-minded. In my office, some have children and some do not. Fathers are as likely as mothers to take off with a sick child. Happens all the time. The company allows us to use our sick leave for this purpose--or to care for a sick parent. Family medical leave is available if your parent or, heaven forbid, your child is ill for an extended period. Meanwhile, single or childless or even parentless people do get sick and miss work. Flu, cold, gastrointestinal disturbance or worse--they miss work. Do I sit around whinging that I have to make up the work of people because they had the nerve to go and get sick on my shift? I should say not.

I'm no longer at the stage of my life when I'll be having more babies (I hope). A co-worker recently did have a baby and yes, the other two admins in our group had to pick up the slack. One of us is a mother and the other is not--and it never occurred to us to whine and complain that we had to do her work while she enjoyed time off with a newborn. I'm sure not going to be moaning about this when that child is in the work force and I'm on social security.

My husband is now able to share equally in missing work when our child is sick. It wasn't always so. It made more sense for me to miss, because if one of us were to be let go because of absences, it might as well be the one who earns less. We are fortunate in having a healthy kid who rarely misses school for illness.

My mother used to have to lie about being ill herself if she had to stay home from work with us. Maybe the angry childless and the furious parentless would like to go back to that system.

Edited by dettu on 22/02/07 02:33 PM.

[duque]

Hang on Dettu .... I don't think there is any "angry childless and the furious parentless" people around here .... we are just complaining about the system.

I am fortunate as though we do not have a family sick leave policy here, my boss is sufficientely considerate to let us have any time off we need, regardless its for ourselves, our partners, children or family. He's even let me have time off when one of my pets was seriously ill.

However others are not as fortunate as me. In Spain practically a 90% of the companies couldn't give a damm for family friendly policies and if they have to "put up" for example with a six month maternity leave they will end up choosing male workers, unless men are eventually also entitled to a 6 month leave. Again they will prefer choosing male workers because it will be less likely they will have to end up caring for ill children.

I can tell you, it is totally against the law in Spain to fire a pregnant woman, but they get fired every day!!! The excuse is that either the contract has ended or because of "operational reasons".

Whatever we do or what ever benefits we can get, we will always end up loosing.

[misslynn]

It's interesting to see how many admins here don't have children by choice, I am included in that group.  I made the choice early on that having children just isn't for me though I love kids and love my nephews/niece.

There are 9 administrative assistants in my group, I had a 3-month period last year during which 3 of them were out at the same time for maternity leave. Two had children and one adopted a child. But they aren't the only ones who have taken leaves, I've had another that has taken time off twice for surgery, one more more has a surgery coming up and I, myself, took time last month for my own surgery. My boss even allowed me time off when my cat became ill in December and I spent 2 days at the vet with him.

My belief, and thankfully also my boss's/company's belief, is that when you care about employees as people and support them in a healthy balance of work/home, then everyone is happier. They are better (and happier) employees, turnover is lower and there is a positive financial impact.

[itsme_calista]

LOL ... who jinxed me?   Talk about tempting fate.  Guess who is off work today with her son!

Luckily today my boss is out of the office (means the phones will be dead) and my in tray is empty bar rearranging the bosses filing.

Callie

[gee4]

Just in relation to this and more recently when I was off sick, my company changed their sick leave policy due to too many people taking sick days off when they prob weren't sick at all.  This said they now deduct pay for any sick days in your first year of employment.  You will understand my frustration that I was so ill I could hardly walk, get out of bed etc or do any of the things that come as second nature to me.  Instead of 4 days sick, I took 2 as sick and 2 as annual leave.

Therefore we are encouraged not to be off sick.  A colleague of mine who has been here for quite some years, was pulled by HR the other day to discuss his sick leave.  This relates to maybe 3 or 4 periods of sickness where the person  was actually ill and could not come to work.  Would they rather we came in and died at our desks to prove how sick we are?

The frustration is there are lots of posters here who seem to have very sympathetic companies/bosses - lucky you.  However it seems many companies don't want you to be off sick and if you are (or your children are) you must have a good excuse, a doctor's line or take your sick time as leave for fear of losing pay.

[itsme_calista]

I agree Gee ... my boss is hugely sympathetic with me and he knows I'll make up the time elsewhere (ie I've been in for 15 minutes this morning, sorted email etc and will go in at 4 pm to make sure there's nothing urgent and to process our figures for him), I've left messages saying that at 4 if there is anything I'll go in tomorrow morning and make up the time.

I've been with the company for 8 months and they have the same policy, no sick pay for the first year, and in the second year it's at the Manager's discretion.  I've had one day off so far, and don't anticipate being paid for having today off (although knowing the way my boss works, he may well pay me anyway because I make up the time).

There was an interesting article on the front page recent about Presenteeism, which my company now suffers from as a result, someone is always ill and then it spreads around the offices.

Callie

[gee4]

Calista,  we've had a bad round of the flu in here since way before Christmas.  Some people are still sick, but are in work.

My grievance is, if parents are allowed time off to look after sick children, where is fair employment and equal rights - should I be allowed that time off too?

[itsme_calista]

Absolutely Gee ... I don't see any difference and to me it would be discrimination.  Employers often think of "Family Friendly" policies in terms of parents of small children, but rarely the opposite way round and I do think that many overlook such matters.  

Callie

[JessW]

Duque,  your conclusions may be a bit premature.  All is not necessarily lost.

With more regulations being uniformed across the EU there will probably be more of an introduction to "Paternity Leave" which, for those dads out there who know about it, is already in use (not necessarily widespread but it is being done!).  Who's to say that employers won't get just as miffed at having to allow for (eventually) paid maternity leave!?!

Just my thoughts on the subject.

Jess

[tillaruth]

According to the latest research, reported on this site, sickies are costing the Uk between £10 - £12 billion a year.  I think that's just for staff sickness, let alone taking time off work for family care.  It also states that Brits take off 27-million alcohol-related sick days plus days after the death of a dog.  

Whilst I can understand that companies can get very fed up with staff absences (inconvenience, cost etc.,), I'm not sure what they can do about it.   If they want to keep reliable, contientious staff, who don't abuse the system then, in my opinion, they have to allow for family friendly policies - otherwise long term, they'll lose out on the good workers, who, when push comes to shove are most likely to put family (young or old) first.   The company then has the costly business of finding new replacements and training them.

[gee4]

That may be the case but other companies don't operate like this.  In my last job you didn't get your salary deducted if you were sick and absences were horrendous - here you do and yet your sick leave is still queried.  It's a no-win situation for both employers and employees.  You cannot keep altering the goalposts to allow for sick parents, children or pets.  That's what we have annual and unpaid leave for.  Other staff only get their backs up when such time is given off.  It's not fair to the loyal minority who always seem to get punished by covering for staff and doing double the work.

At the end of the day companies want good, reliable staff who aren't going to abuse the system.  Would you employ a builder, plumber, architect if they were sick all the time or were regularly taking time off?

[diotima]

I don't believe that Brits take that number of days off for alcohol-related problems. What I think, and I have eight years of observing this in one big engineering company, is that it's more acceptable to be off sick because of something alcohol-related, like a hangover, than it is to actually be ill. In our sick society it's macho and not frowned on, to be drunk, it's a weakness actually to be ill. I was criticised by HR for being off sick with a 'headache' (which was a migraine), when a colleague who was off the same day with an admitted hangover wasn't hauled over the coals, he was just a 'good old boy'. I'm not sure that a woman with a hangover would have been given the same latitude.

I've felt discriminated against when I've had to cover for certain family-related absences, although I'm basically sympathetic to their problem. IMHO, one answer to this is for more flexitime working, and more flexible hours within those arrangements.

We're not going to solve this problem until it's addressed as a societal issue:  employment laws, family rights and it involves the tax system and environmental issues that have been mentioned already.