Much is said about the important role that line managers have in reducing sickness absence – particularly long term absence – yet there isn’t a great deal of guidance around for them. A new ‘Competency Framework for Managers to Support Return to Work’ has been produced by a research consortium and funded by the British Occupational Health Research Foundation. It’s a very straight forward and common sense approach which I think is worth sharing. However, its success will very much depend on the organisational support available to line managers as they can’t do this on their own.
Without a supportive organisational culture, effective sickness absence policies and endorsement from the executive, line managers will find it hard to implement the recommendations.
Similarly, if there is poor HR and Occupational Health support, they will struggle to achieve the benefits of following the framework. There would be little point in asking line managers to use it if the organisation did not have the basics in place beforehand.
Before employers give the guidance to anyone, they need to be comfortable that as an organisation, they are able to preach what they want their managers to practice.