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Sickness Absence - and how to deal with it
Dealing with sickness absence becomes easier if you have a policy in place. You can then ensure your employees are treated consistently if they are off sick. It also
enables your staff to understand what they need to do when sick. There are other things you can do to try to minimise absence, such as looking at trends of sickness
absence, motivation and work conditions while looking at job satisfaction overall in your organisation.
There are a variety of approaches an organisation can take to address sickness absence, and much will depend on factors such as size of business, why the employee
has been off sick and whether the employee has had any previous sickness absence. If you explore these and other areas when you are working on a sickness absence,
the process of monitoring becomes more straightforward. Please note that this article relates to employees and not temporary workers.
How much does absenteeism cost an organisation?
The cost of sickness absence can be significant, according to ACAS, which says absence costs the UK economy £10-12 billion annually on average – equating to a loss
of an average of 8.4 days a year to the business. The key is to minimise sickness absence to improve business performance.
What about the legislation?
Relevant legislation includes the Disability Discrimination Act 1995.
If an employee has a disability you should try to make any reasonable adjustments. For example, if you employ someone who does manual work/lifting and they can no
longer do this then you should consider if there are any other roles they can do, such as administration. You also need to consider the above legislation if you are
disciplining or terminating someone’s contract, as you must ensure that you are not discriminating against them based on their disability.
So how should you start to address sickness absence?
Try to get those with staffing responsibility used to regularly investigating the causes of their staff’s sickness absence and for them to pick up on any patterns – for
example Monday/Friday absences only. Develop or use a sickness absence policy that managers and staff understand. This helps with all sickness absence as it enables
a consistent approach. If you do not have one of these, key areas to include are:
- What happens with pay – SSP or full pay?
- How should staff notify their sickness absence? You may wish to include: who an employee should contact, by what time, with what information, and when they are likely to be returning to work.
- What about self-certification and doctor’s notes? You should specify if the employee can self-certify for up to seven days and whether, after this time, they need a note.
- Outline your stance on medical referrals and whether you would do these.
The following areas are worth considering if your employee is off sick:
- Conducting return to work interviews.
- Investigating why your employees are off work – are there any trends, or is absence only in one area of the workforce?
- Is absence genuine?
- Are you going to use your disciplinary process to manage persistent short-term absence if levels are high?
- Consider using medical referrals.
- Are there triggers for sickness absence such as job satisfaction, staff morale and motivation, work environment?
What about dismissal?
If an employee is persistently away from work for short-term absences you can address this through your disciplinary procedure. For example, if an employee has been
off seven times with a cold and these are all Friday/ Monday absences and not genuine, then it may be cause for concern – following a disciplinary procedure may then
be the best option. When considering dismissal you should consider whether it’s likely the situation will happen again and ensure you are being consistent throughout
the business.
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