As an employer, you have a legal duty to ensure your staff\u2019s health, safety and well-being. Therefore, you should have policies that cover sick leave. You must deal with it effectively given the cost of absent staff can be significant for any business. Therefore, following the law regarding sick leave can help minimise the impact of absent staff on your business. Hence, this article will explain what you should and should not do when your staff are on sick leave. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
You must keep in contact with your employees during their time away from work on sick leave. This is part of your duty of care as an employer. However, you should ensure the contract solely regards their health with a focus on how they can return to work. Additionally, you should also keep them informed on changes in the business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If your employee is off work in the short term, you may contact them regularly. However, this will be less frequent when they are on long-term sick leave. In saying that, the amount of contact will depend on the circumstances. Ultimately, you should be mindful of too much contact can be unreasonable, especially if the reason for sick leave is related to stress in the workplace. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unreasonable contact could result in a claim for constructive dismissal, where your actions give your employee no choice but to leave the job.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
When your staff are on sick leave, you will want to help them return to work as soon as they are well enough. You can help them return by considering reasonable adjustments<\/a> to allow this. For example, you may consider offering:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Where your staff have a disability and have told you this, or where you should be aware of it, you have a legal duty to consider reasonable adjustments for them in the workplace to assist them in their role and reduce any disadvantage they may encounter compared to other staff.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n\n Continue reading this article below the form\n <\/i>\n<\/a>\n