On 6 April 2010, the new statement of fitness for work, or "fit note" comes into effect. Doctors will be able to advise that an employee "may be fit for work taking account of the following advice" and suggest arrangements that could help the employee return to work. The fit note is intended to give employers and employees greater flexibility in managing sickness absence and result in fewer employees being signed off work when they could do some work with appropriate support.

The government chose late on a Friday afternoon when I suspect many of you will have already left work for the weekend to publish its response to its consultation on the replacement for the GP sick note, usually referred to as the 'fit note' although formally called the 'Statement of fitness for work for social security or statutory sick pay'.

The most obvious change following the consutlation with HR, GPs, occupational health practitioners, employers, unions and other stakeholders is that there will not be an option to say a patient is 'fit for work' as in the draft version. Instead the options will be: 'you are not fit for work' or 'you may be fit for work taking into acount the following advice'.

The reason given for this is that employees will be empowered to make 'their own positive decisions to return to work' and GPs will not have unnecesssary appointments - presumably because their patients assume they need a doctor's permission to return to work.

The fit note will work if it improves communication between GPs and employees and encourages a partial return to work rather than allow people to slide into long term absence and possibly incapacity.

I would urge caution about some of the legal advice I've seen saying that this means GPs will have to find out more about their patient's work environment. This is not supposed to be the case, according to Dr Bill Gunnyeon, the DWP medical director who led on fit notes.

Gunnyeon said in September 2009 that GPs 'don't have to be aware of the individual's job, they merely have to list any potential functional limitatiosn. It is for the employer to address this with the individual employee.'

Are you ready to do this employers?

I once spent eight days as a patient in an NHS hospital. When the consultant in charge of the ward eventually came round to see me with his entourage I tried to join in the conversation. There was an awkward silence and then he turned back to his clipboard and lackeys.  When I was discharged I had a chat with the same consultant in his office. We got on perfectly well and he treated me like an equal. The difference was that I was no longer a patient. I was a human being again.

With more snow forecast in some areas, employers are still facing the problem of how to deal with employees who can't get to work because of icy roads, disrupted public transport, or problems with childcare arrangements.

The BBC has published a Q&A on "winter chaos", answering employers' and employee's questions on employment rights relating to disruption caused by the snow.

A video produced by a union representing Disney employees in California has questioned Disney's approach to managing the risk of swine flu in its hotels and theme parks.

The video (on the Unite Here! website) highlights the issue of Disney employees attending work when they are sick with swine flu, in order to avoid losing out on pay.

With snow across much of country once again, your organisation may be affected, with employees perhaps unable to get to work because of transport problems. Take into account the need to be flexible and make sure line managers use their common sense when dealing with the issues that arise. Guidance and a model policy on severe weather conditions and their impact on the workplace are available on XpertHR:

• Severe weather and disruptions to public transport policy
• Dealing with employment issues caused by severe weather or disruptions to public transport - a guide [subscription required for both]

Four new frequently asked questions on swine flu in the workplace have been added to the XpertHR dedicated swine flu resources page.

We asked XpertHR subscribers to suggest any questions they would like answered on how to deal with the impact of swine flu on their organisation. We have added the suggested questions to the swine flu FAQs already published on the site.

Issues covered by the new questions include how an employer should deal with sickness certification when employees with swine flu symptoms are advised not to attend their GP, and the risk of employees coming to work when sick because of absence policies that trigger disciplinary action.

The draw for the football World Cup (on the BBC website) taking place in summer 2010 has now been made, while the England cricket team's defence of the Ashes begins in late 2010 and the rugby World Cup takes place in 2011. And of course we have the London Olympics to look forward to in 2012. XpertHR has published a model policy [subscription required] to help employers deal with issues that will inevitably arise during these major sporting events.

There is a large variation in the length of time different GPs sign employees off work for comparable conditions, even though there is government guidance setting out recommended timescales, according to a report on the BBC website.

Guidance from the DWP (PDF format, 223K) recommends an employee should be signed off for seven weeks after a hysterectomy, but only one in four GPs taking part in the survey recommended this length of time, with others suggesting between two and 13 weeks off work.

More than 13 million working days a year are lost due to stress, according to the BBC. Employers who continue to ignore work-related stress do so at their peril, as the link between absence and stress has yet again been confirmed by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence.

The number of new cases of swine flu in the UK almost doubled (external website) over week 42 of 2009 (12 to 18 October 2009), according to latest official data from the Department of Health. The number of new cases rose by 96% from 27,000 in week 41 (5 to 11 October 2009) to 53,000 in week 42. These figures strongly suggest that we are about to see the next wave of swine flu hit the UK. It is therefore essential that employers are prepared for the workplace impact of this new wave of the swine flu pandemic.

Yesterday, I went to the Public Service Partnership staff protection and wellbeing conference. Although the speakers were from the public and private sectors, some common themes emerged as to how businesses can improve staff protection and wellbeing.

• A complimentary copy of our report on best practice as soon as it is available; and
• Immediate access to the latest IRS absence rate data.

UK employers must prepare now for the workplace impact of a "widely predicted second and more serious wave of swine flu", which is expected to hit the UK over the coming weeks (external website) and result in a significant rise in absence levels, according to the CIPD and the Business Continuity Institute (BCI).

Most employees have days when they don’t really feel like going to work. But few people resort to the tactics used by one hotel cleaner. According to the BBC website, Steven Reid dragged a razor down his face and struck his head with a boulder on his way to work to get the day off. Unfortunately for him, his claim that he had been assaulted led to a fine for wasting police time. After the case, Reid - who is now unemployed - said: “Looking back, I should have just phoned work and asked them for the day off.”

For other interesting employee reasons for absence, see Jay Shepherd’s Gruntled Employees blog where he lists the excuses for absence, lateness, etc given by just ONE office worker. To give you a taster, the following all feature:

• my cat is in traction following an unknown injury
• I just need a day to clean my house (used five times)
• my co-worker made me laugh so hard that my asthma is acting up.

Sickness absence levels in the NHS are one and a half times that of the private sector, with more than 45,000 NHS workers calling in sick every day, according to the Times website.

Employees at Harrogate Council have made it the healthiest council in Yorkshire (external website). An investigation has revealed that staff at the council take an average of 6.8 days off sick per year, which is almost half the number of sick days taken by employees at Hull Council. The national average for private sector sick leave is six days per year.

Swine flu and the workplace - it comes as no surprise that many of the most frequently accessed FAQs on XpertHR throughout July were on this subject (see Swine flu - guidance for employers for up-to-date information and guidance). Other popular questions cover breaks for new mothers to express milk and the special rules for employees made redundant while on adoption leave. Most employers are aware of the laws protecting employees made redundant while on maternity leave, but remember that they apply to employees of either sex on adoption leave too.

A "fit note" that will replace the employee sick note is closer to becoming a reality, as the government consultation  (PDF format, 2,098K) on reforming the GP medical statement commences. One of the main proposals is a new "may be fit for some work now" option, which will help doctors liaise  with employers about possible ways to ease the employee's return to work.

How do you apply the Bradford factor to part-timers, to avoid inconsistency of treatment between part-timers and full-timers when it comes to absence management? This is a question that we’ve noticed several HR professionals have been asking of late.

It seems that the chances for ordinary British folk in the sporting arena are on the up. Since last weekend, we now have our very own British Formula 1 world champion, Lewis Hamilton, and - paving the way for even more greatness in the future - the John Lewis Partnership (no relation) has announced that it is offering support for its staff if they wish to compete in the national sporting arena, or become sports coaches.

Warning: Don't read this if you are of a nervous disposition or you're having your lunch break. The BBC reports that more than one in four commuters tested by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine had faecal bacteria on their hands. Yuk.

As if employers don't have enough to contend with in terms of sickness absence, another issue has been highlighted recently: websites selling fake doctors' sick notes.

IRS is currently offering free benchmarking reports on UK employers’ absence rates and labour turnover levels in exchange for information about your own organisation’s figures for 2007.

In exchange for providing (on a confidential basis) your organisation's staff absence and turnover figures, we will provide you a free copy of the results of our research as soon as they are available. You’ll also gain access to a copy of our findings for absence and labour turnover rates in 2006 immediately after you complete the online questionnaire.

Throughout January the questions you asked most often covered a variety of subjects including: return-to-work interviews; “last in, first out” as a redundancy selection criterion; grievances raised after the employee has left the company; pregnant employees who have used up their company sick pay entitlement; and whether or not there is a statutory obligation to pay employees for their rest breaks. The month's top 10 questions are listed below – simply click on the links for the answers.

What with annual leave entitlement now standing at 24 days, and a rise to 28 days on the cards, plus in most instances eight or nine bank holidays on top of that and a host of arrangements for special leave, you might think most people get enough days off.

It is that wonderful time of year once again when absences soar as people go down with nasty bugs.

The new year special for 2008 appears to be norovirus – better known to most of us as the winter vomiting virus. And what makes the bug's day is when people return to work and school after the holidays so it can really spread around the place.

Several of the most frequently asked HR questions throughout November concern sickness absence and cover the issues of covert surveillance where there are suspicions about the genuineness of the sickness, decreasing pay to reflect a phased return to work, and payment during the notice period where sick pay has been exhausted. The subject of rewarding low sickness absence also features.

Two in three employers believe that return-to-work interviews have cut absence rates, our latest IRS survey (subscription required) shows.

Our survey of 182 employers, covering 705,000 employees, shows that return-to-work interviews are highly effective in recording and managing absence.

But employers are growing increasingly frustrated with line managers' lack of commitment to using return-to-work interviews to manage absence.

If you turned up at work today only to be confronted by a virtually empty office then, instead of starting to panic about your employees' whereabouts, you should have checked the calendar. A quick glance at your, no doubt slightly tacky, corporate promotion desk calendar would have confirmed it was Friday, the day most likely for your staff to have found something to do other than pitch up at work.

Click here to complete our benchmarking survey on return-to-work interviews to ensure you receive a complimentary copy of the final report.

A return-to-work interview can be an effective tool in managing and monitoring absence within organisations - that is clear from IRS's latest research (subscription required). But the role of line managers is key to ensuring just how effective this absence-management tool can be.