Employee Absence

[LAMS]

Hi all, I am new to this forum so apologies if this has been covered before.

I have an employee who returned to work after maternity leave at full time, requested part time hours that where granted immediately due to personal circumstances and the fact that the services of the company where not disrupted.

Since part time employment commenced this person has had at least 1 day per 3 day week as sickness and on some occasions the full 3 days.

I am now inviting her for a meeting to discuss her absence, punctuality and failure to follow company absence reporting procedures. I would also like to discuss her general performance and attitude to work in recent months. Can i do this in the same meeting?

Can I have advice please on the timescales that I need to give for improvement with this member of staff? I can't see the situation improving quickly and therefore I want to be able to take action as soon as possible.

The business is within the care industry and therefore we have to plan staffing and ratios in advance. We find that this member of staff is being used to plug the gaps and there is a concern that she will claim she is being treated unfairly when the general response is that we can't rely on her turning up!

Thanks in advance

 

[Employment Law Clinic]

You can deal with both matters in the same meeting, but you should state your intention (and include any information – such as the attendance records – you’ll be reviewing) clearly in the letter you send her. This should also cover possible outcomes – disciplinary warning – and her right to be accompanied.


Timetables are difficult to comment on. Best practice is “reasonable”, and this should always try to cover the patterns of absence: if an employee regularly increases sick leave towards the end of a leave year (when annual leave may be low or unavailable), it would be reasonable to have a review period a year long to ensure this covers the next year’s attendance. If the pattern of absences is more steady throughout the year, perhaps 3-6 months would be reasonable, at least for a first warning.

What you need to check though is whether your disciplinary procedures actually dictate any timescales. This practice is not sensible, but unfortunately it is quite common – I spent some time recently deciding on the length a disciplinary warning would remain live, only to find the disciplinary procedure forced me to give a warning that stays live for three months.


Karl Limpert

 

[LAMS]

Thanks for that response. I will have a closer look at the contract and procedures.

One thing that I has just sprung to mind is that she actually fails to report her absence on most occasions, she literraly just doesn't turn up. Are there any grounds for immediate action?

I will admit that if I was reading this thread my first response would be to look at the management and disciplinary practices going on but I do not run the site day to day, we have a manager employed for this. I review on a quarterly basis and update staff on any situations that have arose but I am finding that my manager isn't informing me of the occurances at the time (hence jumping on it now). This of course raises questions in regards to the manager but I need to ensure that both issues are covered, I can tackle the management issues relatively easy.

 

[Employment Law Clinic]

One thing that I has just sprung to mind is that she actually fails to report her absence on most occasions, she literraly just doesn't turn up. Are there any grounds for immediate action?

Absolutely, immediate disciplinary action is appropriate. Same goes for any contact that doesn’t meet the prescribed means of contact – contacting you/the manager by text etc should not be allowed, but many employees do this, and the employers don’t discourage it.

If your manager is not performing their duties effectively, you can outsource the management of sick leave - the employee phones your service provider and they manage the absence & getting the employee back to work as soon as possible on your behalf. That approach allows you/your manager to focus on managing the limited resources they do have, while you can have confidence the employee's absences are being monitored & managed carefully.




Karl Limpert

 

[sjbeale]

You should put a performance improvement plan in place that lasts around 3 months monitoring her attendance and performance with regular documented meetings. If there is no improvement in performance you must then make a decision whether to dismiss with a separate meeting set up to do so (and the right to appeal) of allow her to stay in her performance has improved.

The lack of reporting is a disciplinary issue and perhaps a low level warning should be considered. However, you need to ensure that she had been informed about contacting management if sick.

If her absences appear serious you could get an occ health report to determine fitness for her current work and to help you manage her attendance ongoing.

Document everything and keep on file.

 

[LAMS]

The lack of reporting is a disciplinary issue and perhaps a low level warning should be considered. However, you need to ensure that she had been informed about contacting management if sick.

She does understand the reporting procedures and she has signed a policy to this effect. She seems to choose on the day if she informs us or not. There is a pattern to the day that she doesn't inform us. I have just found out that on the occasions she has worked this week that she arrived late and then decided upon herself to stay late to make up the time. This matter will also be addressed in the meeting with her.

I think 3 months is a fair timescale for improvement. In this time that she is being monitored can dismisal take place if there are more absence and reporting (or lack of) problems?

contacting you/the manager by text etc should not be allowed, but many employees do this, and the employers don’t discourage it.

We remind each employee on their return to work that texting is not acceptable (we have 2 culprits for this) but our HR advisor tells me to be a little lenient(?) as at least they are informing us of their absence.

 

[Employment Law Clinic]

I think 3 months is a fair timescale for improvement. In this time that she is being monitored can dismisal take place if there are more absence and reporting (or lack of) problems?

Absolutely yes – the purpose of keeping the warning “live” is to enable the disciplinary to progress to a further level if sufficient improvement is not realised. This progress to the next stage can happen at any time, subject only to the disciplinary procedures, which often have various stages only reached if an earlier warning is live.

our HR advisor tells me to be a little lenient(?) as at least they are informing us of their absence.

And is the HR advisor lenient enough not to charge you for the unnecessary time spent turning the monologue of a text message into a dialogue that allows you to manage the sick leave? The typical things that any employer/manager needs to know is the nature of the illness; whether there is any work the employee can do, even if the sickness means the employee can't perform their full job; the likely duration of the absence; what assistance the employer can provide to improve attendance; how the absence will be managed for the future – what contact will there be & who will instigate this?

Much easier & quicker to get these questions resolved in a brief telephone conversation rather than a conversation by text message, so advising of an absence by text is always going to cost something, whether that is management time or depriving management of useful information that actually allows it to manage.

Quite honestly, the HR advisor is pathetic if they think knowing of an absence is sufficient, and they should be put on a warning for their performance until they're capable of managing absences!



Karl Limpert

 

[elliot.rigsby]

Hi all, I am new to this forum so apologies if this has been covered before.

I have an employee who returned to work after maternity leave at full time, requested part time hours that where granted immediately due to personal circumstances and the fact that the services of the company where not disrupted.

Since part time employment commenced this person has had at least 1 day per 3 day week as sickness and on some occasions the full 3 days.

I am now inviting her for a meeting to discuss her absence, punctuality and failure to follow company absence reporting procedures. I would also like to discuss her general performance and attitude to work in recent months. Can i do this in the same meeting?

Can I have advice please on the timescales that I need to give for improvement with this member of staff? I can't see the situation improving quickly and therefore I want to be able to take action as soon as possible.

The business is within the care industry and therefore we have to plan staffing and ratios in advance. We find that this member of staff is being used to plug the gaps and there is a concern that she will claim she is being treated unfairly when the general response is that we can't rely on her turning up!

Thanks in advance

Make sure you follow the procedures set out in your staff handbook, assuming you have one. If you don't you could be in for a rough ride!