Excuses, Excuses, Excuses!

Thursday February 2, 2017

Sometimes, life can get the better of staff. When things get too much, a duvet day, a Netflix marathon or a dreary dose of daytime TV can find its way onto the agenda for those in need of a little R&R – whatever the cost to the employer. To do this, many have been all too easily tempted into what’s commonly known as ‘pulling a sickie’, by pulling your leg!

Before switching on Bargain Hunt, many prepare the tallest tales, strangest stories and most fantastic fibs for their bosses, all to get them off the hook for the day. In this week’s blog, The HR Dept has had a hunt around the Internet for the most hilarious examples of absence excuses!

We hope you haven’t heard anything similar to what follows…

1. One Buzzfeed user posted this ‘highly elaborate’ excuse. It must have been a bad hangover! 

“I said I’d been up all night in the ER with my friend who was a total idiot and had sliced his hand open with a power tool. Got the day off to catch up on some sleep. Went in the next day with stories of how he just needed some stitches and was very lucky to have not done more damage. There was no power tool incident, I was just hungover.”

2. Another covered their tracks well with this one…

“One time when I worked in retail I told my boss I fractured my toe… Not serious enough to need a cast or crutches but enough that I needed to ‘stay off my feet’ for a few days. Perfect.”

3. Here’s one we hope you don’t receive this summer!

“Good morning, in case you haven’t noticed it is a beautiful day outside. Given that I haven’t seen the sun for a month, thanks to the windowless frozen hellbox we call an office, I will be taking a day to enjoy it. Please send all messages in skywriting should you need me”. 

4. We are a nation of pet lovers, but is this taking things too far? Poor pup.

“My dog has had a big fright, and I don’t want to leave him”.

Could this fall under ‘Peternity Leave’?

5. Lastly, someone sticking to honesty as the best policy…

“A worker called in sick saying that he was hungover”.

One thing’s for sure. If you get a call from an employee calling in sick who’s as convincing as Mike Tyson is here, you know to be a little suspicious…

And this guy! 

 

Sickness Leave is in theory a brilliant system: one that prevents ‘mucus troopers’ spreading their germs at work, and that gives employees that’re under the weather the time they need to recover. However, considering that 15% of all sick days taken are fake, it can really hurt SMEs. Hence it’s essential that sickness leave is appropriately managed. You as an employer need to make sure that your responsibilities are upheld, and that you’re preventing any abuse of the system.

By introducing return to work interviews and measuring tools, as well as training managers on how to use them, a significant improvement can be made. If you have any concerns about sickness leave and how to manage it, give The HR Dept a call. We can implement the proper processes and support you through them.

Preventing People Problems

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