The purpose of the Attendance Management Policy is to ensure that:
The policy aims to demonstrate to managers and staff that early intervention is essential, for example, it can help you to:
You are responsible for:
Primarily to give you the chance to ensure that your member of staff is fit to return to work. In the case of frequent, short-term absence, it is an opportunity to:
For long-term absence, it allows you to:
• explore fully what you can do to facilitate the return to work (which can be difficult after a long period of absence). This might include refresher training or coaching, adjusting specific objectives and workloads or generally being protective of the individual in the first few weeks.
The Return to Work Discussion is not part of the formal Procedures for Dealing with Unsatisfactory Attendance. It is part of performance and attendance management. It is about supporting people and getting the best from them. The discussion will also help you to:
First, it is important that you see everyone who returns to work after a period of sick absence as soon as practicable on their first day back at work.
Secondly, make sure you prepare for the interview by checking the facts. Look at the person’s attendance record, remind yourself of any relevant background information and read any notes from earlier interviews.
Finally, you should ensure that you:
As noted above, you must carry out a Return to Work Discussion with every person, after every absence. To do anything else would be unfair and would also mean that they would be unable to confirm that they were self certifying for any absence between one and seven calendar days. Statistics show that in around 80% of cases, the interview will be simple and fast. You should contact your HR Adviser immediately for advice if, during the Return to Work Discussion, you discover that a member of staff has difficulty attending work because they have:
The worst thing you can do with absence from the office is to ignore it. If you carry out a Return to Work Discussion after every absence, absences may decrease and your knowledge and understanding of what motivates the absences will increase.
When carrying out the Return to Work Discussion you should:
Yes. You should keep a record of the discussion on the Return to Work Discussion form which will have been sent to you by the Human Resources Office upon receipt of the Absence Notification Form . This form should then be submitted to Human Resources as directed in the email you received.
Yes, it is legitimate for you to do so, however, you should bear in mind individual circumstances of the case and you may wish to consider if it is possible for you to get the information you require from other sources.
Prior to conducting a Return to Work Discussion, you should contact the Human Resources Office to obtain a current sick record for the member of staff. This will give you the absence history.
Further, your Head of Group/Office receives a note of everyone’s absence history from the Human Resources Office on a monthly basis and he or she should be discussing with you any case where absence is approaching any of the flags. You should also pay attention to the cause of the absence since it may be that you want to seek out potential sources of support for a member of staff whether or not any of the flags have been reached.
Yes. You are legally required under the Equality Act 2010 to put in place a reasonable adjustment to support a member of staff with a disability to stay in work.
The Equality Act considers someone to be disabled if they have: "a physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on their ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities."
However, special rules apply to certain impairments such as progressive conditions. For example, people with cancer, HIV and multiple sclerosis are protected effectively from the point of diagnosis.
In addition, a mental illness does not have to be "clinically well recognised" before it is judged to be a mental impairment for the purposes of the Act.
If you think that someone has a condition that fits into any one of these criteria, you should contact your HR Adviser immediately for specific, tailored advice on how to proceed.
A reasonable adjustment could be any number of things. Some examples of reasonable adjustments are:
The important thing for you to remember is that you will get professional advice from the Occupational Health Adviser through the Human Resources Office.
The Act does not provide a list of medical and other conditions that are likely to be covered. A member of staff can only be assessed on a case by case basis to determine whether their condition is covered by the Act. A number of issues will have to be looked at including the adverse affect on day to day activities, the type of condition, whether it is substantial and if the effects are long term. This is why it is important to seek professional advice from the Occupational Health Adviser through the Human Resources Office (see paragraph 22 below).
Yes. The member of staff has a contractual obligation to come to work on each and every day for which he or she is employed. Being absent from work is a breach of that obligation.
Yes. The Human Resources Office is there to:
The Occupational Health Adviser operates independently of management and has a role as an impartial professional adviser. He/she has duties to individuals as well as to the employer and is responsible for:
Remember the GP is the patient’s advocate. Our Occupational Health Adviser knows the context within which your member of staff operates and is in a better position to determine what he or she can and cannot do in the workplace. If we receive conflicting advice from our Occupational Health Adviser and the General Practitioner, a representative from Human Resources will provide you with professional advice and guidance tailored to the individual circumstances of the case, which might include discussions between the parties involved or obtaining the opinion of a third party.
Yes. We will let the individual see the referral form and ask for his or her consent to approach their GP.
Under the terms of the Access to Medical Reports Act 1988 the individual has the right to see any medical reports supplied by their GP or other medical practitioner in respect of their health and must give their express consent for medical information to be accessed by a third party.
The purpose of consulting the individual in advance is not to seek their consent to make the referral; it is to give consent for our Occupational Health Adviser to obtain information from the GP or other medical practitioner, such as a hospital consultant. If the member of staff refuses to give consent, our Occupational Health Adviser will base their advice on the information they have. You should also bear in mind that if the member of staff refuses to co-operate in the application of any the SPCB’s policies or procedures, including the Attendance Management Policy and Procedure, this may be treated as misconduct and dealt with under the disciplinary procedures.
You should take into account:
There are three different types of absence:
The type of absence matters because you must treat each different type of absence in a different way.
If it is a long-term absence, you will need to:
If it is a short-term absence but there is an underlying medical reason, you will need to:
If the absence is short term with no underlying medical condition, you must ensure that the member of staff is aware of the standards of attendance expected of them and give them the opportunity to meet those standards before taking any action under the Improving Attendance Policy (page 10 of the Attendance Management Policy).
If the member of staff has already been given additional days because of disability related absence, the adjustments that were put in place, will have to be reviewed to determine whether it is still reasonable to accept a higher level of absence related to disability. You must consult with the Human Resources Office if the revised flag has been reached.
The Improving Attendance Policy will normally be invoked:
No. Ultimately, all types of absence will be dealt with under those procedures when the level of absence becomes unacceptable. What differs is the steps you must take before moving on to those procedures. The representative from Human Resources will be happy to advise you on when it will be appropriate for you to use the Improving Attendance Policy.
The Attendance Management Policy is not in place to manage absence that is not genuine. If you discover an absence that is not genuine, you should contact the Human Resources Office as you should deal with it through the Disciplinary Procedures. As a manager, you must ensure that the work for which you are responsible is done. You will not be able to do that if your staff do not attend work. The Attendance Management Policy will help you to consider and decide the best way to get your staff to attend work.
You will continue to follow the same procedure. Just because an absence is covered by a medical certificate, it is not a reason to abandon the Attendance Management Policy. It simply means that you may have to adjust the way in which you deal with the case (see paragraphs 31 and 32 above). Staff are contracted to attend work and for that they are remunerated. If staff are unable to attend work, even through illness, a manager must first of all try to put in place support measures to allow the member of staff to meet our standards (which may be adjusted to take account of medical advice). Ultimately however, if absence levels remain an issue even after such support measures have been put in place, you will have to consider (in consultation with the HR Adviser) whether further management action is required.
You should get in touch with the HR Adviser immediately. The HR Adviser will provide you with specific tailored advice appropriate to the individual circumstances of the situation.
If the absence has reached any of the flags set out in paragraphs 22 & 23 of the Attendance Management Policy, you should contact the HR Adviser for specific advice on how to manage the case. The HR Adviser will help to arrange for you to access the Occupational Health and Safety Advisory Services and will help you to manage the case in line with paragraphs 22 to 27 above.
You should arrange to speak with them straight away. You should ask them if they are fit to be at work. If they are not fit to be at work, you should send them home.
You should record the absence as sick leave. You should authorise a FWH credit to take the day total up to 7 hours and 24 minutes (or to the number of hours scheduled to work as part of a shift pattern, for example, 10 hours for staff working 12-hour shifts in Security).
Pregnancy-related absence will be recorded as sick absence but not counted towards the flags as it is unlawful to take any action on the grounds of pregnancy-related illness. However, you should contact the HR Adviser in such circumstances because separate arrangements apply to pregnancy-related absences depending on the timing of the absence.