{"id":2158779,"date":"2026-09-23T10:40:38","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T07:40:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2158779"},"modified":"2026-09-23T10:40:38","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T07:40:38","slug":"off-sick-you-need-to-phone-your-boss-back-to-work-adviser-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2158779","title":{"rendered":"Off sick? You need to phone your boss, back-to-work adviser says"},"content":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/019d\/live\/f9eba800-b730-11f1-9f81-a10976817ca3.jpg”]<\/p>\n

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People off sick from work should keep in phone contact with their boss, government-appointed back-to-work expert Sir Charlie Mayfield has said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Getting bosses and workers to have a conversation, rather than simply exchanging emails and sicknotes, could help get people back into work, Sir Charlie, who is leading the Keep Britain Working taskforce, said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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His latest report said health-related economic inactivity was costing Britain around \u00a3210bn a year in benefit payments and lost output.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Talking on the phone was just “one piece of the jigsaw” he said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The report calls for more workplace support for people with health conditions and disabilities and the establishment of a Workplace Health System alongside the NHS. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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But improving communication was also a way to “rehumanise” the workplace and help prevent people dropping out of work altogether, Sir Charlie said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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  • Why calling in sick makes you feel guilty<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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    The report does not suggest that someone struck down by flu needs to croak through their symptoms over the phone or that bosses need to provide down-the-line sickbed sympathy if an employee is off with food poisoning.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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    “I’m not worried about a day here and a day there. It is more about longer term issues,” Sir Charlie told the BBC’s Today Programme.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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    But he said Britain was doing a “poor job” of handling sickness in the workplace, leading to more people becoming disengaged and dropping out altogether.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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    “I have met so many people who have said to me, ‘You know, I was signed off sick and I was off sick for a month, two months, three months, and I had almost no contact with my employer’,” Sir Charlie said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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    Around 300,000 people leave work every year with a health condition, much of which is preventable, the report said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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    Sir Charlie said employees sometimes feared talking about long-term health issues with their employer.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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    “But the fear is also felt by employers as well because they’re afraid of causing offence or creating a complaint or a grievance,” he added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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    Fear on both sides can create a distance and lack of understanding, he warned, with longer absences making it much more likely a worker will drop out of the labour force altogether.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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    “If you can keep more people in work, there’s a massive opportunity for us to add billions to the economy and, frankly, to people’s livelihoods,” Sir Charlie said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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    “To get that, though, you need to have people talking to each other, and you’ve got to more actively manage sickness and ill health in the workplace.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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    Employers need to do more, he said, and employees need to engage with it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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    Other ways for bosses to support staff include ensuring access to treatments such as physiotherapy and talking therapies, he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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    [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/cq0lry248y2zo”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/019d\/live\/f9eba800-b730-11f1-9f81-a10976817ca3.jpg”] Getty Images People off sick from work should keep in phone contact with their boss, government-appointed back-to-work expert Sir Charlie Mayfield has said. Getting bosses and workers to have a conversation, rather than simply exchanging emails and sicknotes, could help get people back into work, Sir Charlie, who is leading the Keep […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[35,226],"class_list":["post-2158779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-bbc-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2158779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2158779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2158779\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2158779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2158779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2158779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}