Disciplinary difficulties

Pulling a sickie to avoid a disciplinary is probably not the best course of action unless . . .

This issue crops up all the time. An employer calls a member of staff to a disciplinary meeting and he/she promptly goes off sick with stress and anxiety. Whilst I accept there are genuine cases of staff falling ill over the prospect of attending a disciplinary, there are also many people who simply pull a sickie to avoid the inevitable.

It may delay the process by a few days or even weeks, but there will come a time when the disciplinary will have to be heard. In my experience delays like this simply sour the employer/employee relationship.

Now, there will always be the employee who knows that the outcome of the disciplinary will result in his/her dismissal, so they will drag the process out as long as possible, particularly if they receive contractual sick pay over and above SSP. Why not?

But many disciplinaries will not result in a dismissal or any sanction at all. Employers will not forget there is an outstanding disciplinary issue and they will be waiting with notepad and pen in hand to continue the process once the employee is fit enough to engage, so why delay? Perhaps the employee thinks they will be treated more leniently or the employer will feel sorry for them and discontinue the process. In my experience this very rarely happens. However. . . .

I know of one very good reason why staff will go sick when faced with a disciplinary