Managing Sickness Absence

This section of site is intended to advise you and assist in managing sickness absence within your team. Whether the absence is short term or long term, you will need to adopt different approaches to deal with these types of absences. Every individual case has different characteristics and needs to be managed accordingly to these circumstances.

As a manger, you are responsible for taking action to reduce the level of absence in your area, implementing the relevant policies, ensuring all employees are given the correct support and being mindful of employee’s health problems and treating information in confidence.

If you have a member of staff absent from work, short term or long term and need help and advice on what your next step should be, please contact your relevant Human Resources Business Partner.

The Definition of Sickness Absence

When the College refers to short term sickness, this means any absences from the workplace which is anything up to 4 weeks. Short term sickness is broadly defined as frequent and recurring periods which do not relate to an underlying health issue. Long term absence is defined as any absence that is longer than 4 weeks. Absence calculations are always done on a rolling 12 month basis.

The College’s absence policy has a certain triggering points where a member of staffs absence should be reviewed. These are 3 or more separate absences within a 6 month rolling period or 4 periods of absence within a 12 month rolling period or where there is a clear pattern of absence or 7 working days within a 6 month rolling period (pro rata for part time staff).

Absence and Welfare Meetings

If a member of staff has met the absence triggers above, you will be notified by your HR Business Partner. Notification of this will usually be at the beginning of each month, however, if you are aware a member of staff has hit the trigger points prior to receiving notification, you should inform your HR Business Partner. In order to support members of staff when they do meet the trigger points, there is a three stage approach called Absence and Welfare Meetings.

Absence and Welfare Meetings are an opportunity for you to understand why a member of staff has had periods of absence and be able to put support in place to ensure that a high level of attendance can be achieved. This could be due to an underlying medical condition or disability or related to a member of staff's personal circumstances. It is important that Reasonable Adjustments are considered throughout these meetings.

Your HR Business Partner will be able to support you through this process at every stage.

Absence Other Than Sickness

Sometimes members of staff will need time away from work which will not be sickness related. Members of staff who need to time off for a serious illness of a near relative (child, mother, father, brother, sister, head of family unit or another dependent whom they sole care for) are entitled to one day’s leave with their normal salary.

Compassionate Leave for the death of a member of staff’s immediate family allows them up to three days leave with salary. The provision of three days with salary is for staff who are responsible for making funeral arrangements or supporting a partner or family member in making these arrangements. Staff are entitled to time away from work for a funeral of a member of their immediate family or their partners immediate family. They are entitled to attend the funeral with their normal salary.

Dependent Leave allows a member of your staff time away from work in order to take any necessary action in cases of emergency relating to someone who is dependent on your member of staff. They are entitled to one day with salary.

It is important that you report this type of absence, you should fill in this Absence other than Sickness Form and send it to the Recruitment and Operations Team.