Absence management

When employees are absent from work for long periods of time, this can cause significant disruption for your business and your people. 

From time-to-time most employees will experience some sort of ill health, and occasional absence due to such occurrences will not usually be a cause for management concern. However, in cases where an employer has reason to doubt whether the sickness is genuine, or in cases where an employee has frequent short-term absences or is absent for extended periods, the situation can be challenging and time consuming to manage. 

It is crucial to handle such absences properly in order to facilitate a return to work as soon as is practicable as well as to avoid exposure to potential Employment Tribunal claims. Through a combination of up-to-date, comprehensive absence management procedures and good communication, the impact and disruption to your business can be kept to a minimum.

What do we do?

Our expert lawyers provide legal and practical support. We can help to protect your business by ensuring that effective absence management policies and processes are in place and are correctly utilised. Having clear policies in place will help you to deal with absence from work in a fair and consistent manner and also sets out clearly for employees what is expected from them in terms of communication and behaviour.

We regularly support clients when engaging with employees on specific absence management issues, making sure that all obligations are met from a legal and regulatory perspective. Getting the right advice at an early stage is crucial, as failing to manage employee absence correctly has the potential to lead to discrimination claims. If an individual’s absence is disability-related, they are entitled to protection against disability discrimination under the Equality Act 2010. Our experts can guide you through the process so that the employee is dealt with fairly and sensitively, while the interests of the business are also protected.

Who do we help?

We work with organisations of all sizes, typically working closely with HR, people teams or senior executives and business owners.