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Introduction to this document

Internal announcement of employee’s return to work

Use our statement to announce to other staff that an employee is returning to work following long-term absence due to either sickness or maternity, adoption or shared parental leave or a career break.

Internal team statement

Whilst you don’t have to formally let other staff know when an employee is returning to work following their long-term absence, doing so can help ensure their return goes smoothly. Don’t send our Internal Announcement of Employee’s Return to Work out to the entire workforce though; confine it to the employee’s team or department, as those are the ones who will be directly affected by the employee’s return. Our statement covers three long-term absence scenarios - sickness absence, maternity, adoption or shared parental leave, and a career break.

Sickness absence

When using our statement for a return from long-term sickness absence, it’s important that you don’t breach the employee’s confidentiality. Therefore, our statement says nothing about either the employee’s reason for sickness absence or their current state of health. Indeed, it explicitly asks staff not to ask the employee any intrusive or personal questions about their absence or health. Rather, it’s left to the employee to decide for themselves on their return what they want to say to work colleagues about these matters. Our statement then asks for staff assistance in helping the employee settle back into work, e.g. by making them feel welcome and by answering any questions they may ask about recent workplace developments. Ideally, you will cover most of the employee’s questions anyway, and deal with any housekeeping and operational matters, in a return-to-work meeting held on their first day back. Finally, there’s an optional paragraph you can use where the employee is returning to work on either a phased basis or is being temporarily reassigned or permanently redeployed to a new role. It may be that you agreed this as a reasonable adjustment for a disabled employee under the Equality Act 2010, or it may simply have been a practical way of getting the employee back to work from long-term sickness absence. Our statement deliberately doesn’t go into any detail about the agreed temporary or permanent changes to the employee’s role, working hours, job duties, etc., as it’s nobody else’s business. It also asks staff not to ask questions of the employee about the changes, nor to make any adverse comments. Rather, staff are asked to raise any questions they might have with their own line manager.

Maternity, adoption or shared parental leave

Our statement here is a shorter version of the sickness absence one. It covers helping the employee settle back into work and then there’s an optional paragraph to use where they’re returning to work on a part-time basis or with a flexible working arrangement. It again asks staff to raise any questions they have about the changes with their line manager, not with the employee.

Career break

The career break section simply covers the request for help in settling the employee back in.