Imagine you are off for a month over summer… You are having the holiday of a lifetime but it is coming to an end. You really cannot face going back to the office just yet, but you have no more annual leave. Isn’t it tempting to change your flight and call in sick for a couple of days? DG HR thinks you might be tempted and created a specific rule [1] requiring a medical certificate for any sick leave before or after annual leave.
Whilst at G2004 we quite understand that the rationale behind this rule is to cover situations like the one above, we wonder whether it really works well in practice, and would welcome any thoughts from colleagues.
Let’s take another more mundane scenario.
Imagine, you were having problems with your washing machine. You are pretty sure your regular handyman can fix it, but he is only available on Friday afternoon. You book him in for then, and take Friday afternoon as annual holiday. Then when you wake up on the following Monday morning, you find you feel awful and have a streaming cold. You rarely take time off for sickness, but you feel so bad that you decide to have a day of sick leave. Your first day off sick for 2 years.
Under this scenario you would also need a medical certificate, since Friday afternoon + Sat + Sun + Mon = 3.5 calendar days, and any sick leave before or after annual leave (in working day terms) where the total exceeds 3 calendar days needs a certificate.
Equally, if you fell sick in the cold weather on the last working day before the Christmas holidays, you would also need a medical certificate if you were not due back in the office on the morning of the first working day of the New Year. For instance, you might have got a better priced flight for coming back a day later.
At G2004, we wonder whether this rule really is proportionate to its aims. It would seem to envisage the situation where all annual leave is taken a single summer holiday block that you might be tempted to extend, however, few colleagues seem to really use it this way. With a more typical usage of leave in smaller blocks, including single days and half days, there are many working days are before or after annual leave.
The before or after rule would also seem to rather contradict the spirit of the other more sensible rule that a medical certificate is not necessary for absences of up to 3 days when the total of absences without a medical certificate is no more than 12 days in the previous 12 months. This 12 day rule seems to give staff the benefit of the doubt, whereas the before or after rule would seem to find us guilty until proven innocent!