Human Resource Blog

How long should we give a sick employee to recover?

I am a small employer in FL, we have 6 employees. One employee has been sick on and off for a while. He has become unable to complete a reasonable days work. Last month he was off for 2 weeks then he returned for 3 days and was taken to the hospital in an ambulance. We have not seen him for the last two weeks. Our contract states that we define disability as 30 days sick and can terminate the contract at that point. If he had not come back while still unwell, he would by now have been off for more than 30 days.

I want to be fair as well as meeting any legal requirements, as small company I need to employ someone to do that job.

Well, you wrote the contract so you’ll probably have to abide by it and wait until the employee has been absent 30 consecutive days. This is a fine example of how being overly specific in written employee policies can create problems, rather than solve them. Many companies would simply have said that the contract could be terminated for “excessive absenteeism” without going into specific details.

Federal laws such as FMLA and ADA don’t apply to you, because you’re such a small business. But, you’ve hobbled yourself by requiring that employees be absent for 30 consecutive days before they can be terminated.

It’s possible that if you call the employee and offer to terminate his contract, he will agree. If he returns, you can give him a choice between terminating his contract or receiving a written reprimand for poor performance during the 3 days he was at work. You need to let him know that if he is at work, he is expected to meet the usual standards for performance. The other alternative would be for you to consult an attorney to get you out of the contract that you wrote.

Other employers should note that if you had more workers, you would be subject to federal regulations including the FMLA and ADA, and this answer would be different.