When Staff Get Sick, You're the Cover

Staff get sick. It's inevitable, it's unpredictable, and in a small team it's devastating. A big company has cover arrangements, agency staff on call, enough people to absorb the gap. You have none of that. When your only brewer calls in sick on brew day, there is no plan B. You are plan B.

It doesn't matter that you were supposed to be doing deliveries, or meeting a potential stockist, or finally catching up on your VAT return. All of that gets pushed aside because someone needs to be in the brewery and there's nobody else. The buck stops with you. It always does.

Short-term sickness is disruptive enough. Long-term sickness is a different problem entirely. If someone is off for weeks or months, you're legally obligated to pay statutory sick pay, keep their job open, and handle the situation with care. You can't just replace them. You can't pressure them to come back. You have to manage it properly, which means occupational health assessments, return-to-work plans, and reasonable adjustments — all while doing their job on top of your own.

And then there's the grey area: the person who's not quite sick enough to stay home but not well enough to be useful. The hangover that's officially a stomach bug. The "bad back" that flares up every Monday morning. You'll suspect, but you can't prove it, and accusing someone of faking illness when they're genuinely unwell is a fast track to a grievance or a tribunal. So you grit your teeth, cover the shift, and add it to the long list of things you never imagined dealing with when you were perfecting your IPA recipe.