Companies to be urged to bypass ‘fit note’ system with health plans for sick staff |
A government-backed drive to keep people in jobs when they fall sick aims to set national standards of support that bosses will be expected to offer to help staff stay in or return to work. Sir Charlie Mayfield, the former John Lewis chair who is leading the initiative, told BBC’s Today programme: “I think where we start from is that currently we have a lot of fear – so basically when people get ill at work they generally fear telling their employer about it, and the employers are often fearful about talking to people about it – and so you create distance. And if you have distance when people are unwell, it really does not help to get this thing better.” He added: “We’ve got to figure out how we support [employers] to do that really well and then what we’ll be saying to government is ‘right, what government has to do is to create the right set of incentives that encourage many, many employers to get on board’.”
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