Keeping in touch

Where absence continues beyond the issuing of the first Fit Note employers are likely to require the employee to keep in touch. As with notification, practice varies from employer to employer. However, if absence becomes extended a periodic meeting with the employer could be part of the procedure. That could be held at home, at work or a mutually acceptable location.

Policy on long-term sickness and ill health capability at Asda Distribution allows for the option of home or depot visits where absence lasts three weeks or longer, but says in all cases welfare visits must be handled sensitively and with due consideration for the nature of the colleague’s illness. That could include making a reasonable number of attempts to convene a meeting with the colleague present, offering a neutral venue, or asking them to attend the next Occupational Health clinic.

However, employer monitoring can become intrusive. In an extreme case in 2013, a member of the Fire Brigades Union, Anthea Orchard, who had signed off work with stress and hyperthyroidism shortly after returning to work from 12 months’ maternity leave, witnessed men sitting in cars outside her home, received phone calls offering her work and found a GPS tracker attached to her car. She left the job with £11,000 compensation after signing a “compromise agreement” not to take the employer to court for human rights violations (see page 66).