Sick or “Sick” Powder??

It’s that time of year here in the mountains where the weather can wreak havoc for business owners.  Not through flooding and hurricane force winds but through staff absenteeism when a heavy snowfall seems to oddly coincide with a wave of illness that runs through town…

So, what to do?!  There’s a number of factors at play here – first, let’s talk about the statutory side of this – the obligations between you, the employer, and your employee.  Assuming your Employment Agreement stipulates certain hours then there is an obligation on the employee to make themselves available for these hours.  But of course, sickness is an exception to this.  You can request a medical certificate, however, if they have been sick for less than three days the business must cover the costs of obtaining it.  So, whether you wish to pursue this perhaps depends on how big an issue it is.

If you take the employee on their word but then discover that they had in fact been up the mountain, it could be that a conversation is necessary – an employment relationship should be one of good faith, trust and confidence.  If this is damaged, you can go down the path of investigating if there is misconduct.  However, we would suggest having an informal conversation first, hearing your employee’s side of the story and letting them know the impact it has had on your business and what behaviour you would prefer to see in future.

The other aspect of all of this is the human and work culture side.  Presumably, your employee LOVES the snow – is there anything you can do to support this so that they don’t feel they need to pull a sickie?  Is there the flexibility in the business that if they can see a big powder day coming that they can work those hours at a different time, or swap shifts with someone else?  This won’t be possible for all businesses, but we would suggest thinking carefully about it, and if there’s not, explaining the reasons to your employees.   If you can figure a way to deal with this that encourages honesty and allows your employee to enjoy those one or two powder days (yep, the reality is they don’t come by that often!), then this could do wonders for their loyalty, productivity and your reputation as an epic employer. 

If you are looking for more guidance or advice on Employment Agreements, Employment Issues or facilitating open conversations, please reach out to our team and we can chat through some options with you.