Sometimes employment law can be difficult to understand. Here are three common workplace situations and their legal ramifications..

1: DISMISSAL DUE TO ILLNESS

There are three potential areas of legal exposure:

· Unfair dismissal;

· wrongful termination; Y

· discrimination

From time to time, an employee will have to leave their job due to long-term health problems. They may decide to quit or you may eventually have to consider firing them. It is beneficial to consider as many possible ways to help them get back to work – layoff should be a last resort and could be seen as unfair if not handled properly.

If continued employment is no longer possible because reasonable accommodation cannot be made, it may be fair to fire them.

The Fair Labor Act of 2009 states that an employer must not fire an employee because the employee is temporarily absent from work due to illness or injury.

The 2009 Fair Work Rules state that it is not a “temporary absence” if the employee’s absence from work extends for more than 3 months, or the employee’s total absences, within a 12-month period, have been more than of 3 months. The employer still requires a valid reason to terminate the employee, even if the employee has been on unpaid leave for three months or more.

We suggest that you ask the employee to provide medical information about their ability to work and what support they might need to return to work.

2: EVIDENCE OF ILLNESS

You can insist that employees provide evidence to the satisfaction of a reasonable person that they are entitled to sick leave, for example, a medical certificate or legal statement. That being said, there is no specific deadline, as the required deadline is “as soon as possible”.

For this reason, you should have as your motto a written policy that requires your employees to provide such information within a specific time frame. Your policy should also specify that your employees report their absence directly to their manager (when possible) or call their manager within a set period of time to explain why they cannot make it to work and when they expect to return.

3: REDUNDANCY NOTICE

When firing an employee it is necessary to notify them. The notice begins when the employer tells the employee that he wants to terminate employment. If you notify them of your layoff just prior to leave, the time spent on annual leave will count toward your notice period.