Fit notes still require improvement a decade after their introduction, according to a Howden Employee Benefits & Wellbeing study.
Howden polled 181 senior human resources, finance, and payroll experts and discovered that more than three-quarters (77 per cent) were looking for improvements to the advice provided on fit notes.
In contrast, only 2 per cent thought no improvement was required and 83 per cent of respondents said their organisation took any advice or recommendations given to them into consideration.
Research also found that almost half of employers (48 per cent) always follow and implement any advice given, with another 23 per cent noting some advice when it was deemed relevant. A further 12 per cent used the fit note recommendations as a starting point for their own investigations. When such recommendations were made, only 7 per cent of employers did nothing.
Howden head of benefits strategy Steve Herbert, says: “Fit notes were introduced in 2010 and were intended to be far less binary than the sick notes they replaced. So instead of an employee being signed-off all work, the new fit note was intended to focus on the work that an employee could continue to undertake subject to reasonable adjustments made by their employer.
“This was and is a great idea, but it’s clear that human resources professionals believe that fit notes often lack the detailed advice and guidance that would really help employers reduce sickness absence. In particular, it’s likely that guidance given is perhaps too generic and may not reflect the employee’s specific job role.”
Another issue raised by Howden’s research was the management of employee ill-health absences.
More than a quarter of employers (26 per cent) believed that their organisation had not accurately recorded sickness absences during the covid-19 crisis and another 42 per cent were unsure whether all absences for those working from home and/or on furlough had been captured. Fewer than one-third of employers (29 per cent) felt confident in their recorded sickness absence numbers since the start of the pandemic.
Herbert added: “Given that home working and furlough were both introduced in a very short period of time – and by definition introduced a physical distance between human resources departments and so many employees – it’s not particularly surprising that so few organisations really feel that they have a true grasp of their absence numbers since the start of the crisis.
“Yet recording and understanding absence numbers is a vital first step towards controlling workforce absenteeism and enables the employer to provide appropriate support to an ill employee at an early stage. So employers need to reconsider how they can measure absences, not least because flexible and remote working is likely to be a lasting legacy of the pandemic.”
