Hi there, what Victoria says definitely resonates about different offices/cultures around this. I also think it’s the age old thing of when there is then an absence issue, it can feel like a real gear change to roll out processes when there are concerns if you haven’t done that previously. Equally have the DHR voice in my head of don’t create your process around the minority as this won’t be an issue for the majority! I also think if you have strong management capability, able to address any issues well and a good culture around absence management, the self-certification part is less of a concern.

No problem – I often think about this kind of thing. It feels a bit clinical/process heavy to me, asking for a self-certification form when someone has had some time off sick, but it always feels like that play off between those more common scenarios when there’s no concern vs the absence management situations where you need evidence of process.

That’s a very good point Jo – I suppose potentially with a sticky sickness case or where there might have been onus on the employer to spot something else happening (e.g. stress/mental health issues) a self-cert may be a more reliable record (sickness can be logged on our HR system by employee/manager and the reasons are categories). But again – this is for the minority cases isn’t it. Overwhelmingly, I agree with you it feels heavy handed for most scenarios.

Hi all.  We use self-certification forms but more for to understand if there are any adjustments we need to make and/or support them with.   I suppose its about how the form is written and how the information is then used.