If you’ve ever felt stuck managing long-term sickness or short bursts of absence without much GP guidance — help might be on the way.

A new government pilot across 15 regions (including Greater Manchester) is trialling better access to work-and-health support through GP surgeries - https://www.gov.uk/government/news/boost-for-gp-practices-to-help-people-back-to-work

According to the Government, 93% of fit notes issued electronically in primary care across England last year declared people “not fit for work”, offering no constructive alternative or support pathway.

Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Wes Streeting, said: “This pilot is a step towards transforming a broken system that’s been failing people for years.

It isn’t just about freeing up GPs to treat patients rather than fill in forms. It’s about fundamentally changing the conversation from ‘you can’t’ to ‘how can we help you?’ When someone walks into their doctor’s surgery worried about their job, they should walk out with a plan, not just a piece of paper that closes doors.”

Interventions via the new fund could include:

• hiring work and health coaches, social prescribers or occupational therapists for GP teams to refer patients to for holistic support, help and advice, from gym memberships to career coaching

• supporting and upskilling occupational therapists or physiotherapists to issue fit notes and improve the quality of work and health advice given to a patient

• upskilling GPs and wider GP teams to improve their ability to support patients with local work and health advice.

These will be welcomed additions for employers.

What can you do in the meantime to manage sickness absence?

1. Keeping on top of unfinished work

When an employee is absent from work, there are likely going to be concerns over the uncompleted work they have left behind, which can have a significant impact on the business. After all, most employees are a key part of the business and will have responsibilities or duties that fall solely within their remit. Whether it is to attend a particular meeting with an important client or supplier, upload certain information to an internal system or order vital supplies, their tasks will often be personal to them. They may also not be recorded in a way that it is obvious and easy for another to pick the work up.

Keeping up with employees

To minimise the impact on the business of outstanding workloads, as their manager ensure there are regular catch-ups taking place with your team members so that you have up-to-date knowledge of what they are working on. You should encourage them to keep their diary up to date and share it with you, so you can easily check where they are expected, what for and when. This knowledge will be needed so you can allocate employees to cover the tasks which need completing or decide what can be left until they return to work.

Proactive steps

Once you are aware of the absence, you should proactively start managing the employee’s workload, triaging tasks into what is essential and what can wait. This can involve arranging cover for important business tasks to be undertaken and delaying meetings that the employee is needed in. This is a delicate balancing exercise however, as whilst essential functions must continue, leaving too much for the employee on their return, even less critical tasks, could result in the employee feeling overwhelmed and recommencing their sickness absence within a short period.

Cross-training

One way sickness absence can be managed effectively is through cross-training employees on key tasks which must be carried out each day to ensure the business can run smoothly. Having a small number of employees who have knowledge of the key parts of their colleagues’ workload can help avoid any detrimental impact on the business. In addition, this prevents the need to recruit agency workers to cover these key tasks, saving the often considerable expense that this incurs.

2. Supporting the rest of the team

It would be advisable to provide extra support to the colleagues of the absent employee during their time off work, especially where this is a smaller team or the period of absence is expected to be lengthy.

Managing your own tasks

Where team members are asked to cover some of the absent employee’s work, it's important to ensure you still have sufficient time and availability to complete your own tasks. Overloading other team members with too much work could have the opposite effect, and even lead them to take sickness leave themselves because they have been overwhelmed and stressed.

Team relationships

Absences can also be damaging to team morale and cohesion. You need to carefully monitor your teams to identify any instances where sickness absence has led to a breakdown in team relationships and left employees with a negative impression of their colleague. Whilst you need to be careful not to share personal information, communicating the news of the employee’s absence in a manner which is supportive and does not create feelings of resentment will be important. Getting stuck in and taking on some of the work will also help maintain a positive and “can-do” attitude towards this absence.

3. Staying proactive with absence tracking

Recording and monitoring absences is an important part of managing people, and it should not be allowed to fall by the wayside. To do so could mean opportunities to better manage absences are lost, and those pushing the boundaries could go unnoticed.

Have a system

Introducing a streamlined absence recording system is a great practical step that can be implemented to help. This will mean absence levels for a particular employee, or within the team, can be easily reviewed and patterns of absence or a pattern of reasons which could suggest the employee may be classed as disabled under the Equality Act 2010, might be identified. This will then allow you to identify and address matters such as persistent short-term absence or implement reasonable adjustments.

Proactive management of absence issues can reduce the levels of sickness absence. As above, it can lead to reasonable adjustments being put in place for those that need them. It can also reduce levels of sickness absence by identifying and managing those who are persistently off work. It creates the opportunity to discuss an individual employee’s absence patterns with them and gives you and the employee a chance to think of solutions.

4. Spotting absence patterns early

Unfortunately, “pulling a sickie” is a well-known employee practice. So much so, there is a “national sickie day” which is statistically the day when most workers are likely to call in sick. This behaviour can lead to the breakdown of team relations and should be tackled if it becomes evident.

Clearer absence recording systems can help spot incidents of false sickness absence, such as an employee who regularly takes Mondays off after warmer weather, which can then help to carry out formal action to deter false absences.

5. Helping your employee return (and stay)

Research has shown that absent employees are more likely to leave employment if their absence lasts for four weeks or more. Therefore, to reduce the practical impact on the business, acting proactively to support the employee in returning to work when they are fit to do so, will be really beneficial.

Maintaining contact

Maintaining regular contact with the employee during their sickness absence is key to preventing feelings of isolation and being overwhelmed when considering a return to work. It can be used to reassure them that they will not be returning to a mountain of work or colleagues unhappy with them for their absence. This is especially important for those with mental health issues, for whom the worry of returning could stall their recovery and cause them further distress. If not managed carefully, this can escalate to a prolonged absence and even the employee leaving their employment.

Regular contact is an opportunity to make the employee aware of updates, give reassurance about their work which is being covered and remind them of the support that will be put in place in order to assist a return to work, whether this is on a phased return, with reasonable adjustments in place or in an alternative role.

As well as taking steps once the employee is absent, taking proactive steps to provide support to employees to avoid them being absent in the first place will be really helpful. Introducing employee support schemes, such as employee assistance programmes, can provide guidance, information and counselling to employees to help them with issues that would previously have led to periods of sickness absence. With early help provided by employer schemes and assistance, organisations will experience lower levels of sickness absence resulting in a lesser impact on the business.

The pilot is promising — but support can start now and hopefully those 5 areas are helpful.

👋 I'm Pam, founder of PM Business Support Services. I help first-line managers build confidence through:

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