LONG TERM SICKNESS ABSENCE!

It is notoriously difficult to establish when exactly someone goes from being on short term sickness absence leave to long term sickness absence leave. However, it is vital to make this distinction if you are to ensure you manage the sickness absence in a way that is appropriate to business needs.

Occasionally, it is clear that someone is going to be on long term absence - e.g. they have had a heart attack, stroke, been involved in a serious traffic accident. But often long term sickness absence slowly creeps up on you - perhaps they are signed off work for just 2 weeks, and then another 2 weeks and then another 2 weeks, then all of a sudden one day you realise they have been off for 4 months or 6 months or 8 months or even 12 months. At what point did this become long term sickness absence?

SHORT TERM VS LONG TERM ABSENCE:

So why do we need a management distinction between short term and long term absence?

Short term issues:

• It is misconduct or genuine ill health?

• Are they healthy enough generally to do the job they were employed to do?

• Impact on colleague when absence are very unpredictable.

• GP report will be of no use as most employees do not visit their GP when they are sick for just few days.

• Self certification information is crucial if you are to manage the situation.

• Covering work is very hard in many jobs resulting in impact on business efficiency.

• Managerial very time consuming.

Long term issues:

• Potential cost implications (sick pay and/or temp.cover) of a long absence.

• Communication difficulties if an employee is not able to attend work at all.

• Identifying possible length of absence is often very difficult, but can become very important for purposes of arranging cover, deciding whether to dismiss or not etc.

• Disability discrimination act might become relevant in managing the member of staff.

• Emotional and moral issues for managers e.g re sick pay and ill health dismissals.