LAST time we considered the impact of long-term sickness absence on businesses and the procedure for dealing with it.

Of no less importance to companies are the problems of short-term frequent absence and poor time keeping. Here we look at how to tackle the serial abuser.

A case example is a joiner who has worked for a company for five years and in the past 18 months has been off 12 times.

His employer calls a meeting to discuss the issue with him.

The joiner says he has a back problem that is aggravated by his work. With the employee’s permission, the employer seeks confirmation from his GP and discusses exactly what exacerbates the problem.

He then puts the joiner into a two-man team to share his work and monitors the situation. No work is missed for three months, but in the next month the joiner is off four times, citing a number of reasons.

The employer should now set a further period of review, for example three or six months, including setting targets for improvement with a warning to the joiner.

If there is still no satisfactory improvement, a further warning should be given.

If there is still no satisfactory improvement, the statutory dismissal procedures can begin, starting with a letter informing the employee that dismissal is being contemplated, followed by a meeting to discuss the issue and, if necessary, an appeal.

Any employer who is unfamiliar with the procedural requirements should seek professional advice from the outset.

As with cases of long term sickness absence, employers should deal with short term frequent absence early.

If someone is not turning up for work on a regular basis, you should bring them in soon and explain that their conduct is being monitored.

If too much time has already gone by before you act, you should explain the problem to them and start with a clean slate.

There are several carrot-and-stick approaches that can be used to encourage good attendance, for example, incentives or setting a sick-day allowance.

There may be some illnesses suffered by staff with which you would rather they stayed at home but you should still have a procedure such as requiring them to provide a doctor’s sick note.

Be warned that what you as the employer consider to be performance management may be construed by the employee as bullying, leading to grievance.

If you are in any doubt, you should seek professional legal advice early.

■ Paul Hargreaves is an employment law specialist with BHP Law. He can be contacted on 0191-221-0898.