Case Study
Case Study – Staff Sickness Issue Resolved to All Round Satisfaction
CASE STUDY
The challenge
BIRCH-HR took on a new school and one of the first challenges was in respect of a member of staff who had been employed for 20 years. Unfortunately, this employee did not have the necessary qualifications. Only recently had this come to light, when a visit by Ofsted meant that everyone was asked for their qualifications.
The member of staff needed to be qualified to NVQ level 3. Obviously, even if someone has lost their certificate, there are ways that an organsation can obtain a copy of the qualification. Instead, the employee went off sick.
What we did
BIRCH-HR suspected that the individual concerned was planning to stay off sick for the period of entitlement to full pay, which was 6 months, and then to resign.
Consequently, BIRCH-HR explained to the member of staff that they were going to apply for the certificate on their behalf (the school is legally entitled to do this, because it is relevant to the job). As suspected, there was no record of the qualification in the individual’s name.
The next step was to Invited the employee in. The Union Representative intervened to say that the member of staff was off sick, and it was clearly not going to be an informal meeting as the HR team were involved.
Accordingly, BIRCH-HR suggested to the Rep that if the individual was not appropriately qualified, the School would be happy to support her to get qualified or find another position. The only proviso was that, If the school hadn’t received a response in 4 weeks, then the first formal attendance meeting would be scheduled.
The result
The Union Rep relayed the above information and the member of staff decided to resign with immediate effect.
The School and Union were very pleased with the way this matter was handled – utilising a robust but positive approach which really worked well.
A leading team of HR specialists, BIRCH-HR support members of the education, health and SME sectors by providing insightful HR consultancy services leading to effective solutions and cost savings. They work with organisations to manage HR policies, procedures and day-to-day challenges in the most proactive, straightforward and cost-effective manner. Their professional services result in organisational growth, positive change, cost reductions and improvements in recruitment, retention, management and leadership. Visit the website to find out more http://birch-hr.co.uk
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