Sickness absence is a fact of life for Employers: it can be massively disruptive, but effective and proactive management of sickness absence can go a long way to minimising its impact, while ensuring businesses stay on the right side of employment legislation.
When handling persistent short term or long term sickness absence, the first thing for an Employer to remember is to try to stay open-minded about an employee's absences rather than immediately concluding that the employee is taking time off work without good reason. It may be that the cause of the employee's absences is something beyond his or her control. Alternatively, a problem at work may be to blame. Whatever the reason for the absence, the Employer will have to make an effort to understand the reason behind the sickness absence and then identify an appropriate course of action.
Simply Docs has a comprehensive range of policies, guidance notes and letters to support businesses through the whole absence management process and these have just been updated in line with best practice.
The Sickness and Absence Policy and separate Guidance Notes now have more detailed sections on notification and return to work procedures. They also take account of the requirements placed on Employers as a result of the Equality Act in the case of disability–related absence.
New to the Simply Docs site are the Unauthorized Absence letters, for use when an Employee has failed to come into work and has not contacted the Employer as to the reason for their absence.
The contents of this Newsletter are for reference purposes only and do not constitute legal advice. Independent legal advice should be sought in relation to any specific legal matter.