The fundamental concept of employment is that an employee attends work at a specific place, for a specific time as agreed in a contract. Simply defined, absence is the “state of being away from a place or person”.
Employees do have certain rights and can by law take leave for different reasons, these include:
- Maternity or other parental leave
- Trade union activities
- Time off during notice of redundancy to seek new work
- Time off for performance of health and safety duties or employee representative
- Public service such as jury duty
Workplace absence can authorised or non-authorised. The most common authorised absence is holiday leave. Normally a contract of employment will specify the number of days an employee is permitted to take for holidays and perhaps compassionate leave or other extenuating circumstances.
Absence due to sickness is normally unauthorised absence. Employer policy varies greatly concerning payment whilst sick, from nothing i.e. only statutory sick pay, to receiving full pay for a certain period, sometimes up to 6 months.
An employer should have a sickness absence policy which considers the following:
Reporting absence
An employer should set out the process for reporting absence, for example when and to whom the notification should be. This will be a contractual agreement with the employee. If the employee fails to notify the employer according to the policy, they may face disciplinary action.
Extended absence
Policies can vary but generally after 3 days (i.e. the 4th day) an employee must provide an employer with a doctor’s line, sometimes called a fit note. This is to certify that the employee is indeed absent for the reasons they say and to ensure the employee can receive SSP through their employer. Similar to generally reporting absence, an employee may be subject to disciplinary action if they fail to provide a note and worst still, they may be refused SSP if they cannot provide evidence of illness.
Return to work discussions
Many organisations will have a return to work interview process after a period of illness in which the employer ensures the employee is fit enough to return to work and to discuss the reason for absence. It may be that some reasonable adjustment needs to be made for the employee in order for them to return to their normal role. This process should not be for quizzing the employee on their illness but to ensure they are essentially legally able to return to work (consider health and safety obligations here for the employer).
Absence triggers
An organisation may have a point at which prolonged or numerous absences trigger a review. Sometimes it can be triggered by for example, an employee being late or absent on the same day each week. This policy needs to be extremely clear as to what is and is not tolerated by the employer. Due to social media, many employees are being caught out.
Long-term sickness absence
The definition of long-term will vary between organisations. Generally absence longer than 7 working days can be considered long-term. This may be due to a serious illness or perhaps an operation requiring recuperation. An organisation needs to consider its approach and policy with regards to long-term absence from both the company and individuals’ perspective.
All people policies have an impact on the mental health of employees. Absence policies in particular have an impact on whether employees feel trusted and able to take time off when sick. This is where the issue of presenteeism can start to raise its head. For example, employees whose performance is ‘downgraded’ due to an absence, may in future not take time off which can cause further issues. Some might even say that having attendance as a key performance attribute is somewhat outdated. We would agree.
