“I’m not coming in today”

Sickness absence is a major headache for employers of all types. Jolyon Berry looks at what options are available to manage the issue.

At the turn of the year, it seemed as though everyone was sick. The papers reported that with nearly two million workers off with colds, coughs or the flu, £45m was lost to the economy on 4 January alone.

Managing sickness absence is part and parcel of an HR manager’s role. The trick is efficiency; time out of the office is money wasted. A simple calculation with our HR Director recently confirmed that the cost of providing the flu jab to all employees was less than the loss of a lawyer staying away from the office for a week (and if they have influenza, a week off work is inevitable).

In this short article we look at the difference between short-term absences and long-term sickness issues. We also consider how you might avoid staff calling in sick and what a good policy looks like. The underlying message is that HR managers need to think about what they should do in any given situation before the problem arises.

Your policies

Ultimately you need to know that you are doing all you can to prevent absences in the first place, that you are monitoring situations as they arise and that at any given time you will be able to confirm how many days are being lost to absence.

You should be able to know at the outset of an absence, whether or not the employee will receive statutory sick pay or company sick pay (the latter being more generous), for how long, and how long before the absence becomes a “long term” sickness issue.

Good policies make clear how staff should report that they will not attend work due to sickness, what benefits are available, what the company can do to require an employee to see a company appointed doctor or occupational health therapist and cross references should be made to your capability procedures which (like disciplinary procedures) set out routes for improvement or dismissal.

The policy will only work for you if effective communication is maintained with the sick member of staff. Do not allow communications to break down.

In a recent case, we assisted a client managing a long-term sickness problem. The company met with a family member of the absent employee who was reluctant to speak to his employer for fear of the news it was going to give him. At the meeting with the family member, an agenda for a meeting with the member of staff was agreed. This enabled a productive meeting to take place with the employee. In another case, communications broke down and the company pressed ahead with meetings to determine the employee's fate. However, the employee refused to attend these meetings and litigation followed. The additional cost to the employer who met with the family member before meeting the employee was insignificant compared to the cost to the employer embroiled in bitter litigation.

Prevention is better than cure

Although epidemics take out large numbers of staff at the same time, unless the illness is particularly nasty, absence is usually brief. Stress however is a far bigger problem. It affects more people for longer, and, in a way, can be considered as contagious.

Do you have a stressful work environment? If so, why? Can you do anything about it? If so, why haven’t you? Clearly some jobs by their very nature are demanding and stressful. It is also true that some thrive on certain levels of stress, but in any job and for any employee, too much stress can cause serious problems which are difficult to resolve.

Ways of keeping stress at bay include maintaining a zero tolerance on bullying and discrimination, managing under performance, providing training, making available stress counselling, having a whistleblowing policy and generally treating staff reasonably. Stress cannot, however, be eradicated and if staff are sick as a result, treat them in accordance with your policies. It is common that such absences will be long-term.

Long-term absences

If your organisation has a permanent health insurance (“PHI”) policy, it is normally unadvisable to seek to terminate a member of staff with long-term sickness issues. To sack someone in these circumstances would be to deprive them of a potentially generous benefit.

In cases where there is no PHI, and there seems to be no prospect of the employee returning within a reasonable amount of time, consider managing the employee via a capability process. This should be compatible with the obligations to make reasonable adjustments for disabled employees (found in the Equality Act 2010).  Dismissal might be fair and reasonable in the circumstances.

Communication is key – staff who are surprised to hear that their pay is being cut or stopped, who see their jobs being relocated or who did not know that their employer was considering terminating their employment are far more likely to react defensively than staff with whom there has been a constant dialogue. Staff will also be more likely to challenge their employer if they feel that they have been treated less favourably than someone else in similar circumstances. Be able to justify your treatment of staff.

The “sickie”

Some staff appear more prone to picking up diseases and having accidents than others. The employee who continually takes a day off here and there can cause serious disruption and disharmony to any team.

A good system will weed out these people and will make sure that there is nothing more serious underlying the stream of days off. Does the employee have a serious medical complaint after all?  Is there more to this than meets the eye and, if so, is it something with which the company should be dealing?

Summary

No one wants to manage sickness absence, but like the common cold, it is inevitable. Points to remember are:

• Have a sick policy and a capability policy;
• Consider ways to help staff manage stress;
• Do not allow communication with staff to break down;
• Define "long-term" absence and be consistent in your management of long-term sick staff; and
• Remain flexible (but remember you are not a charity).

Jolyon Berry is a partner in the employment team at Birketts (www.birketts.co.uk). He can be contacted on 01473 406356 or by email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..