Receiving either a disability discrimination claim or unfair dismissal claim strikes fear in the hearts of most employers. Our employment solicitors can support you to identify a genuinely ill employee, and are highly skilled in assessing medical evidence in order to determine when you should implement adjustments and/or when it is safe to proceed to dismissal.

Whether short-term repeated absences or long term sick leave, employee absence can be catastrophic for business. This is the case irrespective of whether your employee is genuinely ill or not. In our experience, the worst approach an employer can take is to ignore the situation. Hoping it will get better never works – after all, hope it not a strategy!

We can help you (end to end) with managing long or short term absence problems. We will support you with all the documents you need to get the job done. We can work with your own occupational health specialist or introduce you to a medical expert to get the report you need. We can prepare the medical referral, discuss the outcome and work with you to implement adjustments or support you with a fair and non-discriminatory dismissal. Remember, just because an adjustment is recommended it does not mean it is ‘reasonable’ in the eyes of the law. What is reasonable depends on the circumstances; what your business can implement and what the employee can work with.

For complex absence concerns, strategic legal advice and guidance might be what is needed to achieve a positive outcome – managing poor employee attendance can be a like a game of chess. If your employee is malingering, we can support you with any disciplinary proceedings that may follow.

Those who don’t know, don’t do – your team leaders and managers are at the coal face of absence management.  If they are not adequately trained how to identify and manage issues, employee absence problems are inevitable. We offer two hour leadership training sessions on how to effectively manage absence in the workplace.

Our employment solicitors pride themselves on getting workable results. We can:

  • Provide a strategic approach to absence management
  • Prepare and advise on absence management methods including the implementation of relevant policies and procedures such as a disciplinary policy and a sickness absence procedure
  • Guide you through the relevant absence management process
  • Prepare useful and effective occupational health referral documents
  • Help you to interpret medical evidence
  • Advise on the implementation of reasonable adjustments
  • Draft or check documents including: emails, letters, scripts, guidance notes and investigation questions
  • Advise on how and what to collate as evidence; and when/how to use it
  • Advise on settlement negotiations (such as protected conversations/without prejudice discussions)

Why choose Trethowans?

Our team is recognised in the Legal 500 2023 and Chambers and Partners 2023 and also ranked for Employment Law in the South.

For expert legal advice on absence management and dealing with absences from work, don’t hesitate to contact our team of experienced employment solicitors on 0800 2800 421.

Why not ask us to deliver training to your directors and managers on how to effectively conduct an absence management process.

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