When A Member Of Staff Is "not Fit To Work" But Comes To Work

[Alison]

if a member of staff is unwell complaining of stomach ache all the time and not doing their share of the work because of the pain can I as an employer send her home and tell her she is unfit to work and not to come back until she is fit and well to do the job she is paid to do?

 

or

 

do I ask all the other staff to carry her share of lifting and carrying which is a lot considering we are a pack away group and have to do a lot of lifting throughout the morning

 

this member of staff is the youngest and not the most productive member of staff at the best of times, so for her not be helping with the manual work means she turning up and being paid for very little work, also the rest of the team are all a lot older and I don't feel its fair to be expecting them to be literally carrying the extra burden,

 

I have bank staff who could step in and relieve this member of staff until she is well.

 

before anyone asks shes not pregnant! she has been to the doctors but they are unsure what is up with her

Edited March 27, 2012 by Alison

[Rea]

Are there any other jobs she could take over from the other staff until this is sorted?

I agree it can be very unfair so if the rest of the staff can see she has a definite role with a set job list it might help them until her problems are sorted. Our staff have a rota for who does kitchen, man's the door, main cupboard and mats.

[Guest]

I would not hesitate to send a staff member home who clearly is not fit to carry out duties, and I have. Consider if something happened and you needed your insurance cover I doubt very much that they would be happy if you were aware of a problem and let the person continue to work, at the very least you should do a risk assessment and rota time off for a GP visit, explain you have a duty of care to employees and this is what is going to happen.

 

If as you say the staff member is often not pulling their weight it could be a try on, the other staff team members are going to get a bit fed up and before you know it you will have a mutiny on your hands. I would nip it in the bud asap and follow it up with a thorough appraisal and return to work interview.

[Guest]

Sorry just noticed that she has been to GP and they have not found anything. In this case I would insist that she has a second opinion, in your contracts / staff handbook do you have a section on medical reports?

 

I do feel that this staff member is going to be a long term pita but then I've seen it so many times so I am very cynical <_<

 

Has she been with you long?

 

I feel that you need to be all over this like a rash before things escalate, pull the duty of care, we need to get you sorted and better again thing, often they suddenly get better when they know you want copies of GP reports, constant risk assessments, or losing wages due to being sent home as they are clearly unwell. Or I could be a miserable old git and they might actually be sick.

[Guest]

Hello < look on the acas website , there is a very useful section about this type of situation . Y ou can ask to contact her GP ref her fitness to work - there are proformas on there of sample letters too .

[Susan]

Be careful not to set yourself up as the doctor though as this can be construed as bullying.