DWP response to consultation with PCS

PCS has been engaged in consultation with the DWP Attendance Management Policy Team on issues arising out of PCS policies and feedback from Branches on the application of DWP Attendance Management Policy.

This PCS Briefing provides a copy of a new DWP Policy Steer for the application of DWP Attendance Management Policy and Procedure issued in response to consultation with PCS. This new guidance was issued by email, by the Director for HR Services, in March 2017 to HR Directors and was also issued via the HR Business Partner (HRBP) network. The paragraphs in italic print are a copy of the guidance issued by the Director for HR Services:

Holistic, supportive and focus on health and wellbeing

Approaches to manage sickness absence must be holistic, supportive and focus on the health and wellbeing of the employee. When applying any part of the attendance management process, behaviours should be consistent with our Working Well Together Strategy. Applying policies too robustly and introducing additional measures to manage sickness absence across the business have made the process bureaucratic and in some instances oppressive.

This note clarifies how day one contact and keeping in touch arrangements should be approached to ensure employees are effectively engaged during their absence.

In addition, there is a significantly high non-compliance rate in relation to absence recording on RM and we are introducing a change in when the absence is recorded to address the issue.

1 Day one contact

When employees notify the Department that they are sick, they contact their line manager or, in the event that they are unavailable, another manager who works in close proximity, who is able to report the information to their line manager as soon as possible. In some areas, these calls are assigned to managers at a higher grade. This might be justified as a short-term measure, where steps are being taken to resolve a specific problem, but it should not be normal practice.  Ideally, employees should experience high quality, supportive day one calls with the line manager they know and are engaged with on daily basis.

2 Keeping in touch arrangements

Examples have surfaced of employees being required to call daily in circumstances where this is unnecessary and inappropriate.

Employees are required to keep in touch with their line manager during any period of sickness absence and agree a keeping in touch arrangement to ensure employees and their manager stay connected with work. It helps managers understand the likely length of an absence, identify the nature and extent of the employee’s condition and prepare for a return to work.  However, the frequency and method should be appropriate to the case, with the date and manner of the next contact agreed each time. 

3 Recording the absence on RM

Currently a high volume of sickness absence recorded on RM requires correction because the wrong sickness category was selected or the employee was not sick. It costs money to correct these. Therefore, when an absence is first reported and the discussion with the line manager suggests a likely return to work the following day, they should not report the absence on RM immediately. RM action should be delayed until day two when the nature of the absence may be clearer.

This ensures a more accurate way of reporting sickness absence on RM and will create efficiencies for the Department by reducing the volumes of retrospective changes, as the only way to do so is via the service request process.

Similarly, correctly reporting day one absence to line managers, as in 1 above, will facilitate this new measure.

The first call checklist has been updated to reflect the change.