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Ask the expert: Sickness in an SME

Posted by Adam Partington, Esther Smith in Strategies, Managing people, Employment law on Tue, 30/03/2010 - 10:17

One of our employees has been off sick 22 times in the past year. Now she claims she has an underlying health condition. How should we handle it? Adam Partington and Esther Smith advise.

The question: Sickness in an SME

We are a very small company (two full time and one part time), and we have a member of staff who has had over 22 days off sick in the last year. All the sick days have been one or two days at a time. The vast majority occur on Mondays and Fridays or before or after a holiday. We have invited her to a meeting to discuss the time off, she has replied stating that she has an ongoing medical condition and that she will be bringing her solicitor.

When we employed her she did not at any stage indicate that she had a serious medical condition. She has since then said that she has a medical condition, but we have never at any time been provided with any evidence. Clearly we have never had a sick note as the days off have never been more than one or two days.

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Editor's Welcome

Hello! And welcome back as we enter 2012, with a busy year ahead of us all. With talk of double-dip recessions, a possible partial or even full break-up of the Eurozone and unemployment rates set to hit nearly 9%, topics such as organisational streamlining, staff resilience and talent management are likely to be on many an HR professional's lips over the next 12 months.

But to lighten the gloom here in the UK, we also have the Queen's Diamond Jubilee and its attendant public holidays to look forward to at the start of June. Followed by two weeks of Olympic Games from 27 July to 12 August and the Paralympics from 29 August to 9 September, each generating their own excitement, but also issues to work through for hard-pressed HR departments trying to sort out the multifarious staffing issues in advance.

So with an interesting but challenging year to come, HRZone promises to be with you, supporting you all the way and providing our usual insightful blend of news, analysis, community blogs and expert comment to help you sort the wheat from the chaff. As ever, we love to hear from you too so feel free to either post your words of wisdom to our blog section yourself or, in the case of longer, more in-depth ‘expert voice’ articles, drop me a line with any ideas to cath.everett@siftmedia.co.uk.....

Cath Everett

HRZone Editor

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