Situation NOW

T

Part time student employee (mail filer) comes in today and says he can't lift anything because he hurt his back over the weekend. We do not have a light duty position available. He does not have a doctors note stating that he can't lift, even if he did, his job requires lifting. What do I do with him: send him home and require a medical release to full duty upon his return.

Thank you.
-T

pork1

T: First thing I would do is to get him to fill out an accident report, which locks down the circumstance as being an injury from other than work activity. I would then dismiss him telling him to see a physician and return to you with written authority to return to full time duty or to be laid up for x nu8mber of days. Given the company can stand to loose the manpower for the physician designated time, I would ride with the person and get a temp hire person to come in to do the work, while he is laid up sick. Given the repair of his body is going to take longer than the company wishes to give, I might choose to terminate as a medical disqualification and move on to another physically able part-time person.

PORK

HRinFL

I agree with PORK that you need to compete an incident report and document that the injury is not work related. I also recommend that if you decide to give the ee the time off to recover, that you get the release prior to allowing him to return to work.

Have you had situations in the past that are similar? If so, follow what action you took then. Do you have an attendance policy? If so, I would follow the guidelines outlined in the policy. So, if the ee can miss X number of days before exceeding the policy, explain that in order to remain employed, he will need to be released to full duty prior to that date, or he will be discharged.

T

Thanks for your quick responses.

-T