03 April 2006

Increasing productivity is a goal that most businesses want to achieve, and it therefore seems logical that employees, who are frequently off sick, should be disciplined or dismissed. However, recently there have been some large awards made against employers for dismissing employees because of their levels of sickness absence. While employees who are often off sick can be extremely annoying and expensive for employers, this has to be balanced against the risk of discriminating against employees, as the examples below illustrate.

An Amicus member, who was off sick with work related stress was fired after a company snoop found him doing odd jobs ‘on the side’. The Newcastle Employment Tribunal said that he should be paid £65,000 in compensation for unfair dismissal because the company did not explicitly forbid staff taking temporary work when ill.

Employers should pay particular attention to long-term illness and stress. Recently a taxman was awarded £138,000 after claiming that he suffered severe stress and depression at work.

Attendance incentives could be seen as a way of encouraging employees to attend work on a regular basis rather than taking the odd day off sick here and there.

Most employees already have an employment contract providing a wage in return for an agreed number of contracted hours – why pay twice by giving them an attendance incentive? Some employers argue employees should not provide an additional reward for simply doing what is expected of them. Attendance should be incorporated into a broader performance bonus, where attendance is a key business objective – that way the business gets a return on its investment.

However, incentives can be a useful element in a broader absence management programme that includes support for those with genuine health problems to get back to work.

An example of where attendance incentives worked, can be seen in the below example:

• 100% attendance in the past year: eligible for holiday vouchers worth £250.
• 100% attendance in the past two years: eligible for holiday vouchers worth £500.
• 100% attendance in the past three years: eligible for holiday vouchers worth £1000.

This reward scheme was run in 2005, based on attendance in 2004, and the number of staff with 100% attendance increased by 30%

Instead of dismissing staff, because employers have become disillusioned with the amount of sick leave that employees are taking off, they should be more proactive in increasing incentives for employees to attend work. Employers should be more proactive in increasing incentives, or be more sympathetic with long-term illness and making reasonable adjustments where appropriate. This could stop employers becoming sick about the amount of compensation they have to pay out, if they dismiss in the wrong circumstances.