How long can an employee be off work for? (for one reason)

This is a free article you might find interesting. It’s also a sample of our knowledge and how we can you get a bit better at your job, and/or how we can help you fix a problem. If you’re interested in our consultation services, contact us.

This should go without saying but disclaimer: The information provided below is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal, financial, medical, or other professional advice. You should consult with a qualified professional for specific advice tailored to your circumstances. 

If you’re interested learning more about this topic, we have courses: The basics of managing attendance covers this, or you can find all of our courses here.

At Pragmatic HR, we look to help you fix your people problems.  We talk about disciplinaries, performance, and all of the those intense issues, and for a lot of companies these are the hot issues that are hard to handle.  But long term incapacity is just if not more common, and while not as intense an issue, can be just as tricky.

What do you mean by ‘off work’? 

The most common reason we have is illness, but there are many reasons why an employee might be off.  The list below has a lot of overlap, but you’ll get the gist:

-        Ill or injured and unable to work at all.  Cancer, broken bone, head injury and so and so forth.  This does include a diagnosed mental illness.

-        A medical condition that makes their attendance unreliable.  This could be someone undergoing treatment, or has a condition that has good days and bad days, periods of illness and treatment.  This could be a mental health condition, Crohn’s disease, Gout, Eczema and so forth.  It is important that you have evidence of a medical diagnosis;  self-diagnosis is not sufficient.

A loss of a necessity to work.  Where the above are the loss of a physical capacity to work, there are other non-medical necessities on their part that they need to work, that can be lost.  For example, the right to work (e.g. visa, or professional license), or the means to work (e.g. car or drivers license).  It could even be geographical- the loss of a road or internet connection could separate the employee from their work.

It’s their fault not yours

This is an odd question, that it’s always there.  It’s a very reductive question to ask, and often it’s so simplistic it’s not fair (and if pragmatic HR has a mantra, it’s ‘simple solutions to complex problems don’t work).  But it’s important to recognise- this is not your fault.  It’s generally not the employer’s error that got us here (unless for example, it was a workplace accident), the lapse of the contract is on the employee side. 

For medical issues, it’s understandable that people may lapse on the contract- human bodies are squishy and fallible, and employers should be sympathetic that they let us down from time to time.  But while we should (and generally must) be patient and sympathetic to this, don’t lose sight of this fact; this isn’t happening to both of you (the employer and the employee) but to them, and you are being patient.

How much patience?

First you need to know how much you care.

I talk elsewhere about the problem of binary thinking.  The problem is that we think in yes/no, at fault/not at fault, care/don’t care.   For medical issues, put that aside- no one within the organisation ‘doesn’t care’ but the question is how much care is too much; when does the patience run out.

There are three dimensions in play;

-        How much does your organisation care and accommodate*.  Most organisations will take the approach of, we will do what we can, and take steps to move their work around, for the medium term, and generally this is the legal requirement.   

-        What is wrong with them/what has incapacitated them.  Some cases are heartbreaking- cancer is the classic, but there’s a long list of ailments that could strike someone down, so I’m not going to list them.  But there are other issues at the other end of the spectrum- jail time, loss of license are at the other end.  Injuries resulting from lifestyle (e.g. amateur kickboxing) probably sit in the middle. 

-        How long?  Are we talking weeks, months, or years?

 *This could be divided into two subparts; what business is your organisation in, and what are their values.  I personally don’t make this division, because I skeptically view all values statements as PR (see my PR as HR), but you might not be so skeptical, or you might have good reason to believe it’s not just window-dressing.

These three dimensions in combination, determine:  how long you care, and when does that patience start to run out.

So how long?

From the above question of care, tolerance and sympathy can vary, so there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach, and certainly get legal advice if you think you might be taking a hardline. But here are some suggested timeframes:

-        Until an opportunity for a remedy.  Some problems can be fixed and waiting until that fix (but not after) can be appropriate, especially if the next potential solution afterwards is unclear.  Typically, we are talking loss of access, car, license or visa, where a potential remedy is soon- their visa application is pending, they have applied for a work license.  Waiting until this, but not much longer after, that solution has failed may be appropriate.

-        The length of the treatment.  Some conditions have clear interventions followed by clear recovery times.  Think surgery- the employee has surgery in 2 months, followed by 1 month of recovery and rehabilitation.  Then you can fairly expect them back at work.  If they don’t make it back, then that intervention may not have worked, in which case you are looking at another intervention, at which point you may be able to say- ‘sorry we can’t wait another round’.

-        Six months.  This is a very rough rule of thumb, so don’t rely heavily upon this, but it’s always felt right to me when we don’t know when the employee will be off.  A six-month review is a reasonable timeframe to most people’s minds that the employer is being considerate and lenient, but after which they need to take a solid look at the situation.  I talk about this elsewhere- the sooner you put this to the employee (we will give you six months) the more acceptance you get of that final decision.

If you have 10 seconds, please complete this survey. It helps us know what people want to know.