Managing employee absence can be a difficult field to tackle and this article by Toby Pochron of Freeths LLP is here to help break down each type of common absences.
When thinking of staff absence, the first thoughts would normally be of holiday or sickness absences. However, there are several other types of absences which need to be managed. These absences largely fall within three categories:
Managing employee absence can be a difficult field to tackle and this article is here to help break down each type of common absences.
These tend to be the easiest absences to manage as they are pre-agreed with the employee, therefore there tend to be fewer managing issues which arise from them.
The starting point for this is that all workers are legally entitled to 5.6 weeks paid holiday a year, for those workers who work 5 days a week, this would be 28 days. This is calculated differently for part time workers and irregular hours workers.
Tips for managing holidays:
A quick rundown of the rights relating to family leave, dependent on employees being eligible, are:
Tips for managing family leave:
While there is no legal right to a career break it may be an option to consider if an employee wishes to take a longer period away from work. The best way to agree the terms of a career break may be through an additional agreement which should be tailored to the situation.
There is no general right for employees to take time off for medical or dental appointments if they are not unfit, it is down to employer discretion.
Tips for managing: If an employee starts to have several medical appointments, it may be an indicator that the employee is becoming seriously unwell. Try to find out how the employee is doing through informal welfare discussions with them and consider if the requirement to make reasonable adjustments, such as allowing frequent medical appointments, is triggered.
Employees are entitled to time off to carry out certain public duties, but it is up to employer discretion as to whether to pay for the time off.
These are absences caused by unpredictable events, for which an employer cannot be notified of in advance but are still able to be authorised.
The Office for National Statistics published in April of this year that the sickness absence rate in the UK 2021 rose to 2.2% in the UK. This is the highest it has been since 2010. An extreme case of this is in South Ayrshire, where council employees over the period of 12 months had a combined time off of 125 years due to sickness.
Normally, sickness absence is short-term and does not become a problem, but what do you do when it tips over to becoming an ongoing concern for the organisation?
Tips for managing: Try to keep an eye on home-working employees, increasingly they will simply work from home while unwell instead of taking time off. It is important to try to stop this to help prevent a culture which fosters burnout and makes illnesses last longer.
Employees may be prevented from getting to work by weather, strikes or flight cancellations, or delays.
Tips for managing: Ensure you have a policy in place to have a company-wide approach to these events. While it is unclear if employees are entitled to pay, paying employees who cannot attend work will help improve employee relations, help stop resentment towards employees who are able to work from home, help prevent employees from falsely claiming sick leave, and lower legal risk of employees claiming deductions from wages.
there is no general right to compassionate leave but there are some rights for specific situations as detailed below. Employers may wish to consider expanding on the below to offer compassionate leave in wider situations.
Tips for managing unexpected absences: It is important to make it clear to employees what they need to do in order to take any of the above times off from work especially in the case of an unexpected absence. The easiest way to do this is to have comprehensive policies.
To complete the set of types of absences, there are unauthorised absences, which is when an employee just does not show up and does not provide a reason for it. It could be lateness on a regular basis or just not showing up for days at a time.
The starting point for managing employees who have unauthorised absences is to contact them to let them know their absence is unauthorised and asking for them to explain the absence. If they then attend the workplace or respond, carry out an informal meeting with them. It may be that there is a more serious underlying cause for the absences such as health issues or that they need support. Do not jump straight to a disciplinary process without finding out or trying to find out why they are absent.
If the absences continue or they do not supply you with an acceptable reason for the absence, then it is time to start a formal disciplinary process and investigate the absence as a potential misconduct.