It’s that time of year again where everyone seems to have a cold, and it can be hard to manage your business needs when staff are poorly.
Is it OK for you to contact people when they are ‘off sick’? Can you ring them to ask if they will be back tomorrow – or might that be seen as hostile or intimidating?
I am not an HR professional or an employment lawyer, but I do know that there are some very important legal precedents to consider. You may have heard about the HMRC worker who won her tribunal claim after receiving a birthday card while on sick leave? (They had specifically asked for no contact previously.)
The key for me is that businesses should have a ‘consistent and reasonable’ approach to sick leave that combines company policy with case-by-case consideration.
You need to walk a careful line between keeping each other updated appropriately, and preventing unwanted contact.
The best starting point is to have a clear policy, an agreed framework that establishes the typical approach to communication during sick leave.
This framework would suggest clear touchpoints, such as when the employer would normally contact absent workers, or how they will keep in two-way touch during periods of longer-term absence.
And both parties should be reminded of the conditions and agree upon them, right at the start of the sickness period. It may be appropriate to email a summary to the member of staff, but that would need to have been discussed beforehand too.
In summary, be consistent, agree and manage expectations, and be supportive. And when they return, discuss whether there’s anything you can do to prevent any reoccurrence, to help keep them happy, healthy and productive.
And that’s definitely something not to be sneezed at!