Staff Absence But Not As We Know It.........

[EmployEasily HR Services]

Traditionally April and October see the introduction of numerous changes to UK Employment Laws and this coming April will be no exception.

Provided Parliment approve the proposed legislation (and this looks very likely) a new 'fit note' scheme called "Statement for Fitness at Work" will come into force from 6 April 2010.

The research suggests this new scheme will reduce staff absence and so reduce the costs associated with absence for Employers and at the same time Employees benefit from better health and well-being because they return to work sooner.

Seems like a potential win win but what do you think?

Will this new scheme help Employers or simply complicate the already tricky task of managing staff absence effectively?

[John Clark 555]

This looks like a welcome slant on an old problem.

I my former life, when people were signed off by the Doctor to come back to work, it was practice in a number of HM Dockyards for the Naval Medic to have the final say on fitness for duty. This often left us with a problem in the Motor Transport area when his decision was that drivers could return to be employed only on "light duties".

Drivers began to argue that "light duties" excluded some of the less popular tasks. The MT Manger found this restricted his flexibility when the bulk of his workforce fell into this category.

His solution was to interpret "light duties" to exclude availability for Overtime work which required flexibility to operate any vehicle in the Pool. The result was a queue of Drivers outsde the Medical Office seeking to be signed back as fully fit. Here's hoping for similar results from the Fit Note.