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My son informed me today that he has been dismissed from his job. It is a small company & the job involves heavy lifting providing a regular service to individual customers. My son has been their almost 8 months & has a contract but has had 17days off sick in that time which he appreciates is a lot but regretably was unfortunate & genuinely unavoidable. He has three young children & unfortunately within the first month of starting the job he was off for 5days with a prevalent sickness bug that went through the whole family. In January he had an accident (unrelated to work) & was taken to hospital by ambulance with an injury resulting in two days off. Two weeks ago he was sent home from work with breathing problems due to a severe chest infection, he has been on steroids & other medication signed off by his doctor who initially wanted to hospitalise him. My son is not usually a sickly person so this illness has taken its toll on him but he kept in contact with his company with certificates & phone throughout. The boss has seemed to be very understanding to the point that when my son was deemed fit to resume work on Monday & offered to come in regardless of pre-booked 2 days holiday for his sons birthday the boss text him to say take the holiday as planned & come in for work on Wednesday.
However on arriving for work yesterday he was presented with his P45 and told they have been extremely pleased with his work which was faultless but they are a small company & the 17days he has been absent overall was unacceptable for them. My son knows 17days is excessive & he is very regretful but it was all genuine & not something he could avoid, he certainly could not have carried out his duties in the condition he was in. He asked why the boss did not say anything beforehand or pre-warn him of his pending dismissal instead of letting him think he was coming to work & was told he wanted to speak to him face to face. However the boss complained he had to do my sons job on Tuesday due to another persons absence & the P45 was dated Tuesday, my son suspects the boss was miffed at having to do the job & may have made the decision as a result of his frame of mind.
My question is should my son have had a verbal & written warning or is this an acceptable dismissal? He has never been given any indication that the absence was putting his job at risk, even yesterday the boss told him he could not fault nay aspects of his work & they had been very pleased with him in that regard, the dismissal is purely due to his sick record.
However on arriving for work yesterday he was presented with his P45 and told they have been extremely pleased with his work which was faultless but they are a small company & the 17days he has been absent overall was unacceptable for them. My son knows 17days is excessive & he is very regretful but it was all genuine & not something he could avoid, he certainly could not have carried out his duties in the condition he was in. He asked why the boss did not say anything beforehand or pre-warn him of his pending dismissal instead of letting him think he was coming to work & was told he wanted to speak to him face to face. However the boss complained he had to do my sons job on Tuesday due to another persons absence & the P45 was dated Tuesday, my son suspects the boss was miffed at having to do the job & may have made the decision as a result of his frame of mind.
My question is should my son have had a verbal & written warning or is this an acceptable dismissal? He has never been given any indication that the absence was putting his job at risk, even yesterday the boss told him he could not fault nay aspects of his work & they had been very pleased with him in that regard, the dismissal is purely due to his sick record.
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