BBC Radio 4 2016-06-23

Good morning. voices at the British Medical Association's annual conference have suggested that employees should be able to self-certify sickness for up to two weeks rather than one. This looks like a story about growing pressures on primary healthcare and GPs’ desire to spend less time on routine requests.

But there’s a deeper issue involved than that. It’s fundamentally a question of trust. What kind of a relationship do the employee and employer (or supervisor) have? Does the employee believe in the organisation and regard themselves as well treated, so they wouldn’t imagine calling in sick without good reason? Does the employer respect the character of their employee such that they are happy to take them at their word? If not, the area of sick leave and sick pay are often among the first places tension surfaces. GPs can easily get drawn into a battle between employee and employer that’s not strictly much to do with health but everything to do with well-being and trust.
To thrive in a working environment you need to be fluent in two languages. The first is that of contract. A contract is a voluntary agreement between two free agents that creates an obligation that can be enforced. Contracts are a residue of accumulated wisdom. Someone’s thought in advance about all the things that could go wrong and worked out a way of naming responsibilities and anticipating solutions.
But the problem with contracts is that they can subside to a minimal commitment on both sides. The employer can treat the employee poorly and hide behind the fact that it’s within the terms of the contract. The employee can see there are 7 permitted sick days per year and treat them like unofficial holidays.

That’s why a healthy relationship grows into something more – something called a covenant. A covenant is a largely unspoken bond of trust and love between parties that realise how much they deepen and enrich one another. The Bible is all about covenants: the covenant of life with Noah, of the land with Abraham, of the law with Moses, of the lineage with David, and ultimately of forgiveness and eternal life in Jesus. Covenant is the Bible’s word for what people of all backgrounds identify as their deepest convictions, commitments and loyalties.

When people are dismayed by rogue employers it’s usually because they seem to be exploiting contracts with no regard to the notion of covenant. The secret is to aspire for every relationship to become a covenant, but never let any relationship fall below the level of a contract. I believe we can’t run our whole lives by contracts – even our working lives. The workplace flourishes when contracts slowly but surely turn into covenants. To achieve that, as employee or employer, means learning to speak both languages.