| There are many different types of leave that an employee can take. Sickness absence is just one category, but the easiest one to manage effectively. But some other types of absence can have just as negative an effect at work, but are harder to address – most notably time off for dependants.
Of course, there are other types of statutory leave, such as maternity, paternity, adoption, and parental leave, which are not covered here. They are statutory entitlements, so it is more about managing those periods of leave and arranging cover when they apply.
Time off for Dependants
Every employee has the right to a reasonable amount of time off, without notice, to deal with an unforeseen emergency involving a dependant. That could include a spouse, partner, child, grandchild, parent or someone who depends on you for care (such as an elderly neighbour).
Commonly this applies to a parent whose child falls ill and can’t go to school or nursery, meaning the employee has to stay at home with them. The intention is that they take the time to make longer-term care arrangements, and the normal expectation is that one or two days would probably be enough in most cases, but this is not prescriptive and could be longer.
There is no limit on how many times an employee can take time off for dependants, but if it becomes excessive you may be able to address it in a similar manner to sickness absence (see below). However, “excessive” in this case is likely to be much more time off than would trigger a capability procedure on the basis of sickness absence.
Sickness Absence
Some employers have a procedure to address frequent, short-term sickness absence. The aim of such a procedure is to strike a reasonable balance between the need for employees to take some time off when they are unwell against the employer’s reasonable need for employees to attend work.
Even if you don’t have a formal procedure, you can still address it if you act reasonably. A typical procedure will follow a similar pattern to a disciplinary procedure with a formal written warning, preceding a final written warning and then dismissal if improvement is not achieved. This procedure, unlike a disciplinary procedure, is not intended to be punitive, so the tone is very different – it is more about encouraging better attendance whilst acknowledging that may not be possible and looking at what can be done to support an employee to improve their attendance.
A trigger to initiating this procedure could be 3 separate periods of sickness absence or 8 working days of sickness absence in a rolling 12 month period. The first time the trigger is reached, the employer would normally be expected to address this informally but make it clear to the employee that if their attendance does not improve, a formal procedure may commence. It would then be a case of resetting the triggers and continuing to monitor attendance. If the triggers are reached again, then the formal stage would commence, possibly leading for a first written warning. At each stage triggers are reset and monitoring continues.
Recording Absence
If is really important that absence is recorded accurately. Time off for dependants and sickness absence should not be conflated. The procedure outlined above for managing attendance only relates to sickness absence for the individual (so does not include time off when their child is sick, for instance or if they can’t attend work because their car has broken down, etc.)
When recording sickness absence, you should record the dates of absence and duration for each period of absence, as well as any details of the reason (e.g. flu, stress, stomach upset, etc.). This will help you to consider whether there might be any underlying health condition that is contributing to high absence – if that amounts to a disability, then caution will need to be applied, but that will not necessarily stop the procedure.
Sickness absence which is pregnancy-related should be disregarded for this purpose, as to take it into account would be directly discriminatory.
Breathe is an excellent tool that, amongst other things, helps you to accurately record and report on absence. If you would like to find out more about Breathe and to arrange a demo, please contact us. |
