Few organisations have a true understanding of what the Fit For Work initiative is, and even fewer have started to develop a strategy to integrate it with their existing occupational health provision. Beate O’Neil, head of Wellness Consulting at PSHPC.
Once an employee has reached, or is expected to reach, four weeks of sickness absence, their GP will refer them to Fit for Work for an assessment by a health professional, so how will companiesdeal with any Fit for Work recommendations on sick employees that might come their way? PSHPC have collated five useful suggestions for companies to consider.
1 – Ensure your company has a robust absence management policy in place. This gives you the ability to refer sick employees to occupational health – whether that is your own occupational health provider or a third party – within your chosen timeframes and according to your policy. If you chose to refer to your own occupational health, rather than utilise Fit for Work, set your referral trigger earlier than their four week timescale. Your absence management policy should also make clear to employees what the company’s approach will be if they decline to be referred in this way.
2 – Inform/train line managers about how the new Fit For Work service works and how they will need to respond to it. They will need to put the right measures in place to effectively work with Fit for Work reports on sick employees. For instance, when a report arrives, the line manager needs to decide if they should contact HR immediately, take on the return to work process with the individual directly or contact the Fit For Work practitioner who wrote the report if further discussion / information is required.
3 – Establish guidelines for storing employee reports. These will contain personal, sensitive data that is covered under the Data Protection Act 1998, which governs how such data should be held and processed. Companies need to inform their line managers what to do with the report, where to save it and how to store it – storage in an open public folder is not acceptable. The storage of such information should be secure, so ideally line managers should forward the report to their HR department.
4 – Consider how you will treat the £500 tax allowance that companies are being offered for medical treatment recommended by occupational health or Fit For Work. Will you pay for treatment aimed at returning employees to work, or not? Whatever you decide you need to ensure that all employees are treated fairly and consistently.
5 – Encourage line managers to use the Fit For Work free information service. This offers health assessments and online and telephone information. Managers and employees can use the telephone line should they have a problem or experience difficulties with an employee’s absence.
