Employers and employees should agree on how to stay in touch during absence and how much contact is reasonable.
There are some types of absence where keeping in touch is not usually needed. For example, if an employee is on holiday. However, the employee might still ask their employer to update them about certain things while they're off.
There are other types of absence where an employee might want regular contact. For example, to know what's going on at work while they're on maternity leave.
When talking about keeping in touch, the employer and employee should agree:
- how often the contact should be – this will depend on the employee's individual circumstances
- how to contact each other, for example by email, phone or face-to-face meetings
- who the employee will be in contact with – this might be their line manager, another manager or an HR manager
Keeping in contact is a good chance to check on the employee's wellbeing and see if they need any support.
Depending on the circumstances, any meetings might be called 'welfare meetings'.
If someone's off because of a mental health problem
An employer should have appropriate contact with an employee who is off sick because of a mental health problem. Employees can benefit from keeping in touch.
Employers should agree the purpose, type and level of contact with the employee. This is to make sure it's useful and not overwhelming.
The employee might find contact too difficult. In this situation, the employer could ask if there's someone else they can check in with. For example, a family member or close friend.
Find out more about supporting mental health at work
Keeping employees updated while they're off work
Employers should update employees who are off work for any reason about:
- promotion or other job opportunities
- redundancies
- reorganisations that could affect their job
By law, an employer must tell employees about those things if they're off work because of:
- maternity leave or anything related to pregnancy
- adoption leave
- ordinary or shared parental leave
- paternity leave
- parental bereavement leave
- time off for dependants
- jury service
- study leave or time off for training
This is so that employees are not treated worse because of having time off.
In some circumstances, an employer could be discriminating against an employee if they're off work and miss something important.
Find out more about discrimination at work
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