Sickness & Performance

If you take too much time off from work, or if you aren’t performing at the right level, you could be fairly dismissed for capability reasons. Although they are two distinct areas, sickness and performance are two sides of the same coin.

Sickness

Sickness is broken down into two different areas; short term sickness and long term sickness.

The first step is to check the employer’s policy, as this will highlight how they handle sickness.

Some employers will use a scoring system to determine how much absence will result in a ‘warning’. This can be a lot harder to navigate, especially with short term and frequent sickness.

Other employers will use a staged approach, that they will say is more supportive, but ultimately the end is the same, they are working you along a process towards dismissal.

Checking your policy is the first and only starting point.

Disability

The definition of disability under the Equality Act 2010, is essentially a condition that has a big impact on your life, that is likely to last, or has lasted over 12 months. Where a condition could be considered a disability, an employer is obliged to offer greater support and even make adjustments to policies and procedures.

If your employer doesn’t know about the condition they aren’t obliged to do anything, once they are aware they are unable to discriminate against you because of it as well.

This is important as a number of medical conditions will be considered disabilities under the Equality Act, especially conditions that lead to higher sickness absence rates. Employers should be looking at the process to see if triggers or thresholds need to be relaxed and whether they need to offer more support.

If you have a long term medical condition, and this affects you; you need to take advice.

Performance

If your employer feels you aren’t performing to the desired standard they may look to instigate performance management processes.

In short, this usually involves the employer setting an action plan with certain objectives for you to hit. These will usually last for 4-6 weeks.

Check your employer’s policy is always the first step, do this initially to understand what they need to do.

Don’t get too caught up on the origins of the performance plan, whether it is fair or unfair is largely immaterial at this point. I have represented countless individuals who focus on the fairness of the manager’s perception of their performance, becoming the performance problem in the process. We only have a certain amount of energy to give, focus on hitting your targets before raising concerns around the manager’s motive.

Especially as it is a lot easier to prove if you hit your targets and the manager still tries to progress you along the process.

Performance management is serious and can lead to dismissal if you don’t get it right! Take advice sooner rather than later to ensure you don’t get set-up to fail.