Sickness and Absence

For most companies, employees are the biggest cost (as well as their biggest asset). People being absent for various reasons is unavoidable, but if left unmanaged can cause real problems for your business.

Team Mint have been handling issues like this for years and can safely say we’ve seen a lot of different circumstances. These can range from completely banal or deeply personal – so handling people with persistent attendance problems needs to be treated with tact and an open mind.

The process can have legal ramifications and can involve occupational health professionals and doctors, so it is important you use the right procedure to get the right result for both your business and the employee in question.

The best way to manage absences at work is to have clear and consistent policies. These make it clear what is expected of you and the employee. The policies can be referred to during conversations and used to ensure all employees are treated consistently. It is also important to record and monitor absences to ensure you are dealing with facts and facts alone. It may appear someone is calling in sick a lot when in reality they’ve had only a few days off over the last year.

Contact Mint HR

or Call 01138 630 011

Here are a few tips on how to handle absence concerns

Understand the issue — don’t be afraid to ask questions.
Keep records – this is crucial to be able to manage the situation and you must do for all – you don’t want to be accused of targeting someone.
Hold ‘return to work’ meetings after every period of absence, yes, every period of absence.
Seek medical advice — via the GP or Occupational Health.

Advise your employee if the absence is becoming a cause for concern as soon as it is.
Keep in touch — especially with those off ill. For long term sick ask how often you can make contact.
Take more formal action if necessary.
Assume all absence is genuine. Even if you think the could have come into work – there’s normally an underlying reason why they haven’t.

Case Study

We’ve seen a lot in our time but this one really sticks out. A client of ours contacted us because one of their new recruits was absent from work and hadn’t called in. We advised they try every method of contact possible; contacting next of kin, even popping round to their house and next steps – the police. You never know, something serious could have happened.

All to no avail so we wrote to the employee stating that if they didn’t get in touch, we’d assumed they’d resigned.

This prompted the employee’s girlfriend to contact. He couldn’t have possibly called as he was in hospital with botulism (Mint quickly Googles botulism). Blimey, that sounds serious.

Ok, we’ll give you another chance.

That was until we had a call from the police asking if we recognised the guy in the picture (self service check out at Asda, very clear picture of him wearing company branded t-shirt). Yes we said – we do – what date was this? The same day he was in hospital suffering from the rare and life-threatening condition apparently.

His employment was terminated soon after.

Sickness and Absence Testimonial

Tracy was really supportive and came out to site for my client at really short notice when they were having some absenteeism issues with their team.

She was really knowledgeable and friendly, offered some great advice on the day and gave them two options with regards to how she could help them progress with their team.

— L Berry, Chatterbox Digital.

Frequently Asked Questions

The best practices for sickness absence have clear policies and are monitored and reinforced consistently across a company. Recording and measuring sickness absences in your workplace should include the date, number, length and reason for each absence.

Mint HR recommends setting ‘trigger’ or ‘review’ points as specific thresholds that, when reached, prompt action from management to review and address the issue.

No. There are no legal rules about how or when absence should be reviewed.

A Fit note (formally known as sick note) is required for absences that exceed 7 calendar days (note – not working days). For less than 7 days, an employee can self-certify their sickness absence. Fit notes can be provided by GPs, registered nursed, occupational therapists, physiotherapists and pharmacists and indicate whether the employee is “not fit for work” or “may be fit for work,”. They may include advice for a safe return to work.

Short-term sickness is defined as absence of less than 28 calendar days. If regular absences have occurred and triggers activated, these should be reviewed to see if any patterns emerge (same health issue, same days of the week etc) and discussed formally with the employee. You need to consider if any reasonable adjustments in the workplace could be made to reduce the number of absences moving forwards. Short term sickness can be tricky for companies as they may not be able to provide cover at short notice putting additional stress and workload on the rest of the team. You can dismiss someone for unsatisfactory attendance if you can prove you acted reasonably. HR support is recommended if you are considering this.

Long-term sickness absence is generally considered to be absence of four weeks or more by an employee unable to work due to a health condition. This can include physical or mental health issues. Employers have a legal obligation to support employees during long-term sickness. However, you can terminate a contract due to long-term sickness absences but only after considering all factors and then following a fair process. We advise seeking HR support and advice before going down this route.

Occupational Health are the go between the GP and the workplace. They have the clinical know how but unlike a GP who may automatically sign someone off work, they will offer suggestions to help the person return or remain in work.

Normally workplaces will only use OH if someone has been off work for a long time but our advice is to also utilise them if:

Someone is having short time days off and states that they have an underlying medical condition.
The person is in work but has a medical condition which may affect their work or may put them at harms way.

If you are considering terminating someone’s employment on medical grounds you MUST obtain a medical report ideally from OH prior to doing so.

It may be that with a few adjustments to the workplace, working hours, tasks to be carried out, sickness can be minimised and costly discrimination claims avoided.

The individual can request such adjustments. Occupational Health can assist with providing recommendations too.

The key word here is ‘reasonable’. What is reasonable for a corporate may not be reasonable for a small employer.

Yes! If you have a pregnant employee – you cannot take action in relation to pregnancy related absences.

If someone has a disability then you need to fully consider reasonable adjustments.

You don’t want to be accused of any form of discrimination.