Amongst HR professionals, there is often discussion about how easily employees can get medical certificates when they are requested (usually after 3 days of absence).
However, if you have an employee who is delaying producing the medical certificate when requested (or totally unable to provide one), you have two courses of action to take.
1. you would not be obligated to pay sick leave (if the employee hadn’t exhausted their legal entitlement), and therefore it would be taken as unpaid leave
2. you would initiate a formal meeting to discuss a suspicion that sick leave has been misused (stating that the facts that gave rise to the suspicion is the inability to produce a medical certificate when requested). And in this formal process you would hear the employee’s response, as usual, and then make a call as to whether disciplinary action would be appropriate.
If the employee is found to have lied about being sick, this could significantly erode trust, which (as we know all too well) is the foundation of an effective employment relationship.
Tags: hr policies, sick leave