Off sick? You need to phone your boss, back-to-work adviser says
Relying on text and email means sick workers disengaged and were less likely to work again, says Sir Charlie Mayfield.
**Off sick? You need to phone your boss, back-to-work adviser says**
People who are off sick from work should stay in phone contact with their boss, government-appointed back-to-work expert Sir Charlie Mayfield has said.
Sir Charlie, who is leading the Keep Britain Working taskforce, said getting bosses and workers to talk rather than just swapping emails and sick notes could help people return to work.
His latest report said health-related economic inactivity was costing Britain about £210bn a year in benefit payments and lost output.
He said on Wednesday that speaking on the phone was only "one piece of the jigsaw".
But he added that better communication could also help "rehumanise" the workplace and stop people dropping out of work altogether.
The report does not say that someone hit by flu must croak through their symptoms on the phone, or that bosses should offer down-the-line sickbed sympathy if an employee is off with food poisoning.
"I'm not worried about a day here and a day there. It is more about longer term issues," Sir Charlie told the BBC's Today Programme.
But he said Britain was doing a "poor job" of dealing with sickness in the workplace, which was causing more people to become disengaged and leave altogether.
"I have met so many people who have said to me, 'You know, I was signed off sick and I was off sick for a month, two months, three months, and I had almost no contact with my employer'," Sir Charlie said.
The report said around 300,000 people leave work every year with a health condition, much of it preventable.
Sir Charlie said workers sometimes feared discussing long-term health problems with their employer.
"But the fear is also felt by employers as well because they're afraid of causing offence or creating a complaint or a grievance," he added.
He warned that fear on both sides can create distance and a lack of understanding, and that longer absences make it much more likely a worker will drop out of the labour force altogether.
"If you can keep more people in work, there's a massive opportunity for us to add billions to the economy and, frankly, to people's livelihoods," Sir Charlie said.
"To get that, though, you need to have people talking to each other, and you've got to more actively manage sickness and ill health in the workplace."
He said employers need to do more, and employees need to engage with it.
Other ways bosses can support staff include making sure they can access treatments such as physiotherapy and talking therapies, he said.