Sickness absence costs the UK billions every year and has a huge impact on profits. Two sickness absence situations that have been in the press recently show the implications for handling sickness absence badly. Sickness absence cost Birmingham City Council £35m last year with sickness rates running at almost double the national average. The main reasons were anxiety, stress and depression. In another case a nurse working for North Wales police lead a department where 200 sickness days had been lost in three years. She herself had had 69 days off in three years, 24 in one year. When the nurse was challenged about her high sickness rates she claimed she had throat cancer. This was not investigated thoroughly until managers got suspicious that her high sickness continued after she had supposedly had an operation.
Both these cases were in the public sector where, in general, across the UK absence levels are one third higher than that in the private sector. By tackling the problems tax payers’ money could be saved. Given that public sector organisations have a well staffed HR department and access to an occupational health service, perhaps the lack of management initiative in dealing with these situations is at fault.
The aim of any sickness procedure would be to get the employee back to working normally and if that cannot happen then consideration to termination of employment. The sickness procedure needs to be fair. Sickness absence, whether intermittent or long term, can be dealt with quite easily and fairly following a few simple guidelines along with documented meetings. The main point is to deal with it quickly. Management commitment is essential. Turning a blind eye will not help; there will be an impact on morale as other employees watch a colleague not being dealt with and, in my experience, a sickness absence situation will only get worse. Small companies certainly cannot afford to allow a sickness absence case to linger at huge cost to the business.
Getting good advice on handling a sickness absence case is essential in case there might be underlying disability issues which need to be dealt with correctly to avoid disability discrimination.
