On the 6th April next month[1], the government’s new medical certification scheme comes into force replacing the current “Med3” sick note system. It was decided to do away with the scheme because it focussed too much on what employees could not do and not enough on what they could. In other words, a person was either too sick to work, or they were well and it ignored any, temporary or rehabilitative options that there might be to allow the person to remain in work. For instance a person with back ache might be fit to work provided they did no heavy lifting or were allowed to get up and walk about every hour to ease discomfort whilst sitting. With a Med3 that person can’t go to work despite the fact that they could do light duties. The government’s aim, of course, is to reduce the number of days lost to sickness and the number of people from claiming benefit. The government has long been exercised by how to reduce the number of people on long-term sick leave, suffering from chronic conditions and the new “fitness to work” certificate tries to remedy that.
Yesterday Ian Barratt of Mind Strengths Ltd published his “Seven Top Stress Management Tips for Employees”. Today I am publishing my “top tips” for employers hoping to avoid claims for stress at work from being commenced against them.
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Seven Ways for Employers to Avoid Stress at Work Claims
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Age Discrimination, Bullying & Harassment, Contracts of Employment, Equality, Personal Injury, Race Discrimination, Religion and Belief Discrimination, constructive dismissal, disability discrimination, stress at work
ACAS, bullying, constructive dismissal, discrimination, harassment, how do I cope with stress, HSA, HSE, Ian Barratt, Management Standards, MHSW, Mind Strengths, Personal Injury, Protection from Harassment Act 1997, stress at work, stress+management, TUC, victimisation
As promised last Monday, I am delighted today to welcome my first guest blogger, Ian Barratt (pictured, right) of Mind Strengths Ltd, to present his Seven Top Stress Management Tips on this third Monday of January, the allegedly most miserable day of the year. Ian is a qualified stress management consultant speaker and author. His book “The Phoenix Strategy”, co-authored with Amanda Robinson was published last October. Mind Strengths Ltd is a consultancy company offering workplace strress management , wellbeing and support services. Tomorrow I will look at how employers can minimise the risk of being sued for stress at work by employees.
Age Discrimination, Bullying & Harassment, Contracts of Employment, Equality, Personal Injury, Race Discrimination, Religion and Belief Discrimination, constructive dismissal, stress at work, unfair dismissal
constructive dismissal, discrimination, employees, how do I cope with stress, Ian Barratt, Mind Strengths, Miserable Monday, occupational illness, Personal Injury, Protection from Harassment Act 1997, stress at work, stress+management
simply having a wonderful Christmas time ...
Everyone is producing reviews of the decade at the moment – they seem to be everywhere in the newspapers and online. I was taken by The Independent’s sports poll in which Thierry Henry is a leading candidate for “Villain of the decade” for his recent handball against the Republic of Ireland, presumably on the basis that it is still fresh in everyone’s minds (and isn’t The Independent Irish-owned?). That’s always the problem with these polls, it becomes hard to remember who the villains were in 2008, let alone 2000.
Personnel Today, a very useful website for HR and employment law matters has published an article on what steps employers can take – click here to visit it.
There are also RSS feeds so you should have no reaosn not to be fully up-to-date!
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Well, since I jumped on the Swine Flu bandwagon with my post last week, I thought I better stay there for a bit longer.
In that post I wondered just what precautions an employer could be expected to take to avoid the risk of being found liable to an employee for contracting swine flu at work (always assuming that it could be proven that the infection was picked up in the workplace). My view then (and now) is not much, beyond promoting good hygiene and not insisting on ill employees coming into the office to spread their germs. Business Link, the organisation for employers, has provided guidance on their website - click here to go to the site.
Thanks to Annabel Kaye of Irenicon (@AnnabelKaye) for bringing the article in MailOnline to my attention, via Twitter. The full article can be found at www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articles-1201371/Bosses-risk-lawsuits-staff-swine-flu . Apparently, according to the Mail, employers need to be getting worried about the risk of being sued by employees who catch swine flu from doing their jobs . The article quotes lawyers and other commentators who point out the risk of increased litigation.
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Swine Flu – should employers worry about being sued?
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