How can employers deal with mental health sick leave?

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Employment law specialist, James Watkins, advises on the importance of an employer's communication with employees that have taken sick leave for mental health.

Transcript:

A lot of people who are on sick leave, particularly long-term sick, will worry about things changing while they’re on sick leave. A lot of my clients in my role as an employment lawyer suffer from mental health conditions and some of them are off for weeks or even months at a time and it can be quite unsettling if there are things going on at work that they’re not privy to.

So it’s very important that employers keep in touch with employees on sick leave, particularly I would say if they have a mental health problem because they might be more prone to becoming anxious about what’s going on in work, whether they will have a future within the company of the organisation.

Employers could, for example, when dealing with employees on sick leave who have mental health problems, the employer could suggest to that employee that they have a catch up meeting perhaps at coffee shops, some kind of neutral, quiet venue, or in a private meeting room somewhere. Or even, the employer could come to their own home to talk to them about whether everything’s alright, whether they could be making reasonable adjustments to help them back to work and what the latest is in relation to their condition.

James Watkins is an employment lawyer at Slater and Gordon Lawyers in Cardiff.