Fit Note – 5 years on The Fit Note was introduced in 2010 and it has been in use for a little over 5 years. IOSH, the Chartered body for health and safety professionals recently conducted a study into the Fit Note titled‘Getting the best from the fit note’, which found that there is still widespread […]

So you have an employee who is absent with a long term ill health condition. As the manager you wonder what the future looks like for the employee. What is their prognosis? When are they likely to be able to return to work? Will they be able to do their job in full when they […]

Tougher checks for disability benefits? The Daily Mail wrote today, 25 November 2015, that George Osborne was expected to introduce new rules in awarding benefits to the long-term sick in his Autumn Statement. Today’s Spending Review does outline a vague plan of reforms

We’ve written about this before, but now it’s finally here. Employers in England and Wales are now able to refer employees to Fit for Work, the government service set up to help working people on long-term sickness absence. Fit for Work provides occupational health services to people who have been, or are likely to be, off work […]

Whilst absence triggers can be highly effective in cutting your absence levels, the way you set them is critical to their success. Understand how your absence policy works in real life when employees start to take advantage of loopholes.

Myth! Whilst dealing with depression or stress, shutting yourself away from everything for a while can feel like the best thing to do. But it isn’t necessarily the best antidote to these feelings.

Lord Freud said recently “Providing support where it’s needed most will help to reduce the length of time employees take off sick which in turn will cut sick pay costs, improve economic output and reduce the chance of people falling out of work and having to claim benefits”. It is for this reason that the […]

Why do absence management experts go on and on about early intervention? The data makes for shocking reading. Read on and find out some of the key reasons why you really need to intervene early:

We’ve nicknamed our long term absentee Usual Suspect Wild Bill Ghost because no one sees him, he is like a ghost in the workplace. Usually when we start to work with a company, some number of ghosts always re-surface.

The benefits of counselling and information services have long been known to many in the general public and now, thanks to new research, their positive influences on employee mental health is measurable too.