Absence from Work

There are many reasons which an employee may request time off work and we can advise you how best to handle these requests and minimise the impact on your business.

Sickness Absence

Sickness absence is a fact of life for Employers but can be massively disruptive. Effective and proactive management of sickness absence can go a long way to minimising its impact, while ensuring businesses stay on the right side of employment legislation.
When handling persistent short term or long term sickness absence, the first thing for an Employer to remember is to try to stay open-minded about an employee's absences rather than immediately concluding that the employee is taking time off work without good reason. It may be that the cause of the employee's absences is something beyond his or her control. Alternatively, a problem at work may be to blame. Whatever the reason for the absence, the Employer will have to make an effort to understand the reason behind the sickness absence and then identify an appropriate course of action.

We provide guidance advice on what procedures to put in place to manage sickness absence effectively including use of systems such as Bradford Scoring so that persistent short term absence can be deal with as a performance issue.

Maternity / Paternity Leave

This is an area which has seen many changes over the last couple of years with rights and entitlements being increased for both Mothers and Fathers.

You should have a clear policy in place that details the process any employee needs to follow when they need to advise you that they are expecting a baby.

Many employers find this confusing and so we can provide you with the guidance on what you should be doing, by when and also how to keep your employee involved in your business when they are on leave so that this eases a return to work.

Emergency Leave for Dependants / Parental Leave

There may be the need for an employee to take time off work to either care for a dependant or child, in this case the right to paid leave is not automatic.

If you are not fully aware of the requirements of these family friendly policies then we are happy to explain these and help you put the right procedures in place to handle these requests.

Jury Service

You may have employees that are called for Jury duty and so your absence policies should set out what happens in this instance as you may continue to pay an employee or they may need to claim their expenses through the courts.

If you are unsure how to deal with Jury Service then contact us to discuss.

Reduce the disruption absence can cause by being prepared