Losing an employee to extended leave (or other, more permanent situations) causes pain on many levels. Even a temporary loss can mean costs related to training, recruitment, and strategizing. You face practical questions such as:
What are your legal obligations for both the company and employee?
How will their absence affect day-to-day operations and long-range plans?
Who will pick up their tasks?
Should you temporarily fill their position?
You also face emotional uncertainties, including:
How will their absence affect team morale?
How much institutional knowledge will the company lose?
How will their absence affect customer relationships?
What happens if the employee fails to return?
Don’t You (Forget About Me)
Unlike taking a break in our romantic lives, we can plan for both expected and unexpected leave time in our work world. When we implement a transparent process for helping employees and the company navigate absences, we can feel appropriately emotional for the person leaving instead of giving into panic and possible resentment for the situation their loss creates. Here are some ideas for getting ready for leave times before they happen:
Develop and implement a leave policy.
Work with the employee and your remaining team to plan in advance.
Develop a return-to-work program.
Ain’t No Sunshine (When She’s Gone)
Regardless of size, every business should create a policy that meets federal and state laws regarding leave and includes any additional company rules employees must follow. Leave time may be mandatory or voluntary, paid or unpaid, and needed for many reasons. Your written policy should outline the general and specific requirements employees must follow for various situations, and you should review this information with employees on a case-by-case basis when planning for their leave. As a manager, you should also make sure you understand your rights and obligations related to each leave type. You may need to consult with your legal advisors and/or human resources to ensure you’re meeting all requirements.
While spending time to implement a policy—or to learn its requirements if one is already in place—may feel daunting, having a pre-leave checklist to guide you helps prevent costly mistakes. It also allows you to focus on procedural needs, such as determining what work must shift to other employees and who is best able to pick up the new tasks.
I Don’t Like Mondays
Obviously, you can’t plan for absences due to unexpected illness or accidents. So, as part of your general advance planning, you can mitigate a sudden loss—at least from an operations perspective—by creating and maintaining job descriptions for each employee that detail the tasks they handle daily, weekly, monthly, and so on. For critical functions such as payroll or billing, maintain up-to-date, step-by-step instructions for these tasks and review often to ensure all details are captured in writing. Also maintain a reference sheet for logins and passwords for phone systems, utility paying, and so on, if doing so doesn’t violate your company’s information technology policies. If so, you may need to work with your IT professionals to determine an emergency plan for accessing this information safely if an employee becomes unreachable. You don’t want to suddenly discover no one else can gain access to critical files!
When possible, however, you should enlist your employees’ assistance to plan for a leave of absence. The person leaving should actively review their job description and update any missing or changed information. They should also provide notes on any institutional knowledge only they have, such as a client’s specific likes and dislikes that may not exist officially anywhere but in the employee’s head. It’s also a good idea for the employee to train those who will assume their tasks. This training maintains the current standard and may make the employee’s return easier.
Your other employees can provide helpful feedback about their bandwidth to pick up additional tasks, as well as anticipate any other concerns the team might have. While it’s important to maintain everyone’s privacy, communicating about the event creates better resilience and adjustment to the loss.
You Were Always on My Mind
Just as important as having a policy in place before your employee goes on leave is having a consistent strategy for welcoming your employee back. Return-to-work programs cost little to implement and provide many benefits, such as:
Ensuring equitable treatment.
Avoiding confusion and miscommunications.
Establishing timelines for the absence.
Maintaining communication lines.
One part of this program is having a communication plan in place so you can touch base with your employee at scheduled intervals, depending on their constraints and yours. Weeks of little or no communication can create anxiety on both sides, so planning to communicate—and remaining flexible if the plan must be adjusted—reduces worry and maintains a connection between your business and employee.
Another critical element to include is a return-to-work interview. This conversation should happen as the employee prepares to return. At this point, you or your company’s human resources representative can verify any necessary paperwork and confirm your employee’s fitness to work. If you are conducting the interview, be sure to record the details of this discussion and maintain the information in the employee’s records.
You must also adhere to all privacy rules during this conversation, but you should determine any limitations the employee may have or accommodations the company will make to facilitate their return. Some companies now hire intermediaries who will coordinate among insurers, providers, the employee, and your company to ensure all critical information is communicated while preserving privacy.
Additionally, you should prepare other staff members for the employee’s return by providing appropriate updates throughout the absence and requesting summaries from those who will transition tasks back to the employee. Including the other staff as needed in the process helps support team morale, while summaries provide a forum to communicate any process updates or new information the returning employee needs to know.
Reunited (And It Feels So Good)
Workplace absences can cause tremendous strife, placing burdens on both managers and employees. Developing a strategic plan to handle a wide variety of situations—from maternity leave, to accidents, to quarantining during a pandemic—better positions your company to weather planned and unplanned losses. While an absence is almost always felt, it’s easier to deal with if productivity remains stable and you can maintain your bottom line. Having clear guidelines to follow ahead of time will help you remain flexible while meeting your obligations to your employees and your business.
For more information on handling business challenges, visit Gillespie Associate’s Leadership Resources.
