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Introduction to this document

Letter to sick employee postponing performance review

It’s not uncommon to commence formal performance management action against an employee but then for them to get signed off sick before the performance review meeting takes place. Use our letter to tackle this issue.

Too stressed to attend

Where you’ve arranged a formal performance review meeting under our Capability Procedure to review an employee’s poor work performance, you may have sent our Notice of Performance Review Meeting letter to them. In most cases, the meeting will then go ahead as planned. However, sometimes, the employee will get themselves signed off sick and you’ll be sent a statement of fitness for work (fit note). Usually, the fit note will state that the employee is suffering from anxiety, stress, depression or another form of mental ill health. Essentially, they’re saying that the threat of performance management proceedings has stressed them out to such an extent that they’re no longer fit to work. Alternatively, the fit note could be for something wholly unrelated.

Length of absence

If the employee is only going to be off sick for a few days (for example, they have a virus), it’s advisable to wait until they’re fit to work and then simply re-commence the performance management process. However, if the absence looks like it’s going to be rather more long term than that, use our Letter to Sick Employee Postponing Performance Review Meeting. It sets out that the performance review meeting has been postponed until such time as the employee is fit to return to work, but it goes on to provide that if their sickness absence becomes prolonged, you’ll contact them to discuss alternative ways of progressing the performance management process to a conclusion. It also says that if the employee fails to continue to provide certification of sickness absence, you’ll assume they’re fit to return to work and so will re-schedule the meeting accordingly.

Other options

As an employer, you must balance your need to conduct the performance management process promptly whilst the alleged poor performance issues are still “fresh” against the employee’s need to recover their health, even if you suspect they’re simply trying to buy themselves more time by being off sick. Be prepared to postpone a performance review meeting at least once or twice on the grounds of ill health. Then, re-schedule it for the week after the fit note is due to expire, i.e. when the employee is expected to return to work. If they’re then certified as sick again, write to them in a sympathetic manner and offer the following options for the performance review meeting:

to hold the meeting at their home, on neutral territory or by telephone/video call
to submit their written statement in response to the alleged poor performance issues if they feel they’re not fit to attend a meeting in person
to send along a representative to act on their behalf at the meeting if again they believe they’re not fit to attend personally.