Do's & Don'ts of Long Term Sick Leave – Keeping in Touch
Do
Keep in regular contact with the employee who is off sick. Check in via telephone or email to keep appraised of their progress on a relatively frequent basis: once a month/every 6 weeks is sufficient for staff with sick notes stating they are unfit for 3 months+
Don’t
Over contact staff
Don’t pester staff with work related queries – if their fit notes say they are unable to work, apart for the odd straightforward query, sick employees should not be troubled with work queries at all and certainly not once urgent handover queries are dealt with.
Do
Offer to meet with staff for catch ups at a convenient location. This may be at the employees home, neutral venue or give the employee the option of popping into work (they may want to say hello to their colleagues).
When arranging meetings, informal catch ups and formal meetings – try to be sensitive to the employee’s needs – ask them when a good time of day is.
Offer a few dates for any meeting. If the employee is resistant to a meeting – you are entitled to proceed in their absence, but if a few dates are offered it shows you are attempting to cater to their needs and be considerate.
Don’t
Only offer one time, date and venue for a meeting. Be reasonable!
Do
Provide an agenda in advance of the meeting. Then all parties know what to expect.
If the meeting is a formal meeting, set out the agenda in the invite letter. Even if the meeting is an informal catch up it is still useful to give an indication of topics and put the employees mind at rest. Often employees feel on the back foot as they are terrified that at any meeting the employee may look to dismiss them.
Don’t
Turn up at a meeting with the only purpose being to say hello. Use face to face meetings to discuss timelines both the company plans and ask about their plans. For example provide an indication of an occupational health meetings planned, discussions about current role and cover etc. Also use the meetings to understand employee concerns and their current health prognosis.
For any clarification please don't hesitate to contact us for advice.
Posted on 03/02/2017 by Ortolan
