Unless you have some evidence of staff misleading you about the state of their health, you are pretty much stuck with accepting their explanation. From time to time, everyone gets ill and staff should never be penalised for this, but what do you do when they make a regular habit of taking a couple of days sick?
As ever, it is important to have policies in place to enable you to deal with absence effectively. I have a sickness absence policy dealing with long and short term absence.
Let's look at short term absence - My policy allows me to investigate the reasons for such absences. It requires employees to speak personally to the manager to explain their absence (you would be surprised how much easier it is for staff to 'pull a sickie' if someone else is allowed to call in for them, or they can send a text or email) It also gives me the ability to discipline staff if they do not follow the reporting procedures.
Also, everyone is required to complete a return to work form following any absence (no matter how short). This means I have a record of when they were sick, how long they were absent, and why.
This information is useful for several reasons:
- I can identify when there is a possible health issue that may affect their work, so I don’t endanger them, or others, by having them in the workplace.
- I can identify patterns of behaviour e.g. someone taking the Monday off at the end of every month.
- Even if there is no pattern but they are off frequently, I can speak to the employee and hopefully improve their attendance.
- Knowing they will have to record reasons and speak to a manager on their return to work acts as a deterrent to an unscrupulous employee
She managed to get a sick note! Despite my suspicions, there wasn’t a lot I could do about it because she was confirmed as unfit for any work.
Had she simply called in sick for that shift, I would probably have investigated the matter by speaking to her, her colleagues and documenting the niggles she had raised. The next step could be a disciplinary meeting.
The thing to remember about disciplinary meetings is that you do not have to prove the employee is actually guilty, you just need to show you had a reasonable belief they were guilty of the misconduct (here dishonesty) . You are perfectly entitled to decide one version of events is more plausible than another. A useful tool is finding on the balance of probabilities, i.e. that something is more likely than not, to be true.
If I rejected my employee’s account of her absence I could do various things from warnings to dismissal. But I would have to decide how much risk I was willing to take. I could leave myself open to an unfair dismissal claim (if I dismissed or they resigned), on the basis I treated them unfairly for asserting their statutory right to be off sick.
To me, generally speaking, if there is a trust issue it is extremely difficult to maintain the employment relationship. If you come across sickness issues I would recommend you seek advice from a lawyer or HR specialist. They can put the risk into perspective for you.
Mel Parsons is the licensee of The Tap & Barrel in Plymouth and managing director of specialist employment law firm, Insight Legal. Through her blogs she aims to provide an insight into issues she has faced with as a publican. However they are not designed as advice on how you should handle cases as each case is unique.
