Managing High employee sick leave

Real Life Case Study - Managing High Employee Sick Leave

In our latest December newsletter we were excited to add a new section -  a real life case study of an End2end Business Solutions success story.

Managing High employee sick leave

I am currently working with a client who has an employee who is constantly taking sick leave and obtaining doctors certificates.  The employee is part of an administrative team who all share the business' administrative tasks.  In addition to having high sick leave, the employee isn’t a team player, only completes the bare minimum of work and the work is of poor quality.  Left unchecked, this has caused angst and low morale with the other workers.    Initially I thought this was a training issue, however, I decided to investigate the sick leave records to determine if I could find a pattern.   Sure enough, this part-time employee would fall sick on the last 2 days of a period, often just before long weekends or end of month when it was busy, creating a week's leave regularly for themselves. 

My next step was to organise a meeting with the employee to present my findings and gain input from them on how this situation could be satisfactorily resolved, with the ultimate aim of the employee taking ownership of the medical condition instead of making it a problem for the employer.   In this meeting I found that the employee needed to work, but was not completely happy in this job. 

The solution has been that the employee will be returning to the doctor to have the medical condition managed properly and action taken.  The worker is also working to make up for time lost and help their fellow team members.  The final step will be to get the employee feeling engaged as part of the team and not as though it is a chore to be at the employer.   Regular communication with this employee has helped in letting the employee know that someone is aware and is ready to help. 

As an employer, don’t leave high sick leave unchecked, there may not always be a pattern, however, it is important to address it with the employee by offering to help solve the issue they may have, and getting the employee to take ownership of the problem.   If it is an attitude problem that is causing the high absence level, work to find out what the underlying issue is and take steps to re-engage the employee.