Holidays and sickness absence
People who go sick either before/during or after their holidays is always tricky to handle - when is the absence genuine and when did they need an extra day off before/after their holiday?
This is a tricky one as ultimately you may be saying you don’t believe the absence is genuine, and as is human nature, we don’t like confrontation so don’t like to challenge someone’s honesty and integrity. That is why it is recommended that your sickness absence policy states that any company sick pay is discretionary (so if you do not believe the absence is genuine, you can choose not to pay company sick pay) and also if they are sick whilst on holiday, they need to get a medical certificate to be reimbursed for the holiday (employees are quite creative😊 if they feel they cannot ‘get’ the company sick pay, they may try and reclaim the holiday as sickness overrides holiday). Where managers can reference a policy and its process, it gives them the confidence to tackle the difficult conversation.
Holding return to work meetings after any absence can sometimes help address the issue of truthfulness; being able to look into the whites of someone’s eyes to assess whether you feel they are being genuine or not is extremely helpful, although this is not watertight of course. What we do know from research (CIPD source) is that return to work meetings are known to reduce short term absence levels and may reveal other underlying issues for the absence.
If however someone is off sick before and/or after their booked holidays, and yet you’ve seen a post on social media where they were out partying and are trying to claim this period as sickness absence, you can absolutely do something about this. Get in touch and we can help you.