Provided the replacement is more meritocratic. Usually when automatic payrises are suspended, its usually corporate speak for no pay rises.

Legally, yes. I'm also fairly sure the company guidebook would contain some platitudes.

But you could kiss goodbye to any hope of pay increases / promotion / good performance reviews.

I know one guy who is a recovering alcoholic - good guy, and doing well - the company have been very supportive, but he will never move beyond his current position (as he "can't take the pressure" - of course they won't say it in those words, but the effect is the same).

All I know is, as much as the law may be designed to protect you, if I were signed of with stress (I was offered time off by my doctor for depression some time ago) my career at this place would effectively be over

Edited by npn (01 Jun 2015 5.32pm)

When did I say I had a problem with teachers?

I merely pointed out that the fact that teachers have a high instance of stress related time off doesn't necessarily correlate with the amount of stress in the job

Oh i'm sorry, all that banging on about them having to 'man up' led me to the assumption that you had something against them. Crazy logic eh?

You must surely work in IT, because its full of idiots who despite being quite well educated somehow manage to remain remarkably ignorant. I have to say of every industry I've worked in, only IT and enginnering seems to actively employ ignorant people who think they're special (defense Engineering and IT is worse, as its full of keyboard soldiers).

Stress manifests as illnesses and causes illness through a number of factors. You're never ill with stress per se. Stress can cause actual physiological illnesses as the result of stress is a reduction of the immune system. The problem of stress lies with maladaption of the flight or fight response (essentially we respond to environmental stressors as threats, in the same way our primal ancestors would have).

Short term, this isn't a real problem. But long term exposure to stress results in a long term activity of flight or fight responses (both physiological and neurological) and this creates very real health problems.

Any number of very real physical and mental health problems have their origin in exposure to stress, or periods of long term stress. My fathers long term back pains, assumed to be from damage caused by physical labour, actually vanished after he switched jobs. The job wasn't less demanding, it just paid more and was a more relaxing environment.

You must surely work in IT, because its full of idiots who despite being quite well educated somehow manage to remain remarkably ignorant. I have to say of every industry I've worked in, only IT and enginnering seems to actively employ ignorant people who think they're special (defense Engineering and IT is worse, as its full of keyboard soldiers).

Stress manifests as illnesses and causes illness through a number of factors. You're never ill with stress per se. Stress can cause actual physiological illnesses as the result of stress is a reduction of the immune system. The problem of stress lies with maladaption of the flight or fight response (essentially we respond to environmental stressors as threats, in the same way our primal ancestors would have).

Short term, this isn't a real problem. But long term exposure to stress results in a long term activity of flight or fight responses (both physiological and neurological) and this creates very real health problems.

Any number of very real physical and mental health problems have their origin in exposure to stress, or periods of long term stress. My fathers long term back pains, assumed to be from damage caused by physical labour, actually vanished after he switched jobs. The job wasn't less demanding, it just paid more and was a more relaxing environment.