Warm weather warning

 It’s probably no coincidence that each year when the weather warms up, sickness absence rises.   Funnily enough, on a Monday or Friday excuses start pouring in. Those with a 24 hour bugs seem to have a miraculous recovery as soon as the clouds come over that can be better explained by a Pimm’s induced hangover.

This is not to say that employers can accuse their employees of pulling a ‘sickie’ without concrete proof, so our advice would be to hold return to work interviews with employees to let them know that you are on the ball.

It is not just absenteeism that can be a problem for employers during spells of warm weather. Do you as an employer have to provide sun cream to workers who spend the majority of their working day in the sun?

No, you don’t have an obligation to do so but it would be in your interests as well as the employee’s to outline sun protection advice in training should this be appropriate to your staff.

Encourage workers to cover up and wear sun screen of at least SPF 15 on parts that cannot be covered up. Being safe in the sun may be common sense but can sometimes be lost in the heat. Drinking plenty of water and taking breaks in the shade as well as informing employees of the danger of sun exposure are just a few of the top tips The HR Dept is providing to combat this issue.

While you don’t have a legal obligation to protect your employees from the rays of the sun, staff absenteeism is likely to be reduced if you take a proactive approach.

Summer of Sport

In a recent poll The HR Dept asked employers if they thought workplace absence would increase during the UK’s ‘Summer of Sport’ and whether they had a plan in place to deal with this.

We can now reveal that 42% of respondents expected workplace absence to increase during the summer due to the Olympics and Euro 2012. That is not surprising perhaps, but of these respondents, a further 47% said they did not have a plan to deal with unauthorised absences. British employers need to get to grips with managing all those employees who come knocking on the door asking to leave early to watch this summer’s sporting events.

Simon Morgan, Director of The HR Dept [South East London and North Kent] comments: “We do not advocate creating a policy for the sake of creating a policy. Employers should use existing policies and procedures for dealing with holiday requests, other absences and so on. It would be useful to have an IT/social media policy to reduce the risk of employees misusing the internet to live stream sporting events while they are meant to be working. If employers are concerned that their policies/procedures do not cover all possible scenarios, then The HR Dept would be more than happy to help.”

Employers should not accuse their employees of pulling a ‘sickie’ without reasonable evidence (seeing one of your ‘sick’ employees appear in TV coverage would be evidence enough!)

Here are our top three excuses from employees and what employers have interpreted them as:

Employee: [Monday morning] I can’t come into work today as

I have come down with food poisoning.

Employer: Probably too much alcohol rather than bad prawns!

Employee: [Friday] My child is unwell and there’s no one else

to look after him/her.

Employer: Looks like they want a head start to their weekend.

Employee: I have to go to my Gran’s funeral.

Employer: Again? How many grandmothers can one person have?

If you would like some advice on managing holiday and unauthorised absence, speak to The HR Dept. We specialise in advising small and medium sized businesses on all employment issues.

simon.morgan@hrdept.co.uk

www.hrdept.co.uk