Sick leave follow-up

Follow up sick employees effectively

4human HRM has been working with sick leave follow-up since 2007. Our targeted focus is to provide managers, HR and employees with an intuitive tool to simplify and streamline this follow-up. In parallel with the focus on sickness absence follow-up, it has always been important to be able to integrate absence with the customer's payroll system as well as any absence/hour and planning systems at the customer to ensure the totality of the transaction process.

Download our guide on 7 things that slow down your business when you don't follow up on sick leave, and understand how to deal with the challenges that come with it. Feel free to also listen to the podcast that provides insight into how our customer, Pipelife focuses on reducing long-term sick leave.

Guide: 7 things to streamline your business with sick leave management

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Why use 4human's sickness absence follow-up?

2007: 4human HRM delivered in 2007 to Gilde and Prior (Nortura) Norway's first sickness absence follow-up module, closely integrated with the payroll and time/absence system.
2011: 4human HRM was the first in 2011 to submit the 9-week report directly to NAV.
2014: 4human HRM was the first to send follow-up plans directly to NAV
2014: 4human HRM was the first to send follow-up plans electronically and directly to the GP via Altinn
2018: 4human HRM was the first to receive digital sick notes directly into the HR system

Combine with the service 4humanHealth which is Helsetelefonen in collaboration with Volvat. Read more here.

Sickness absence follow-up in 4human HRM provides managers and HR with excellent support for following up on employees on sick leave:

With visual absence calendars
Pattern-based notification processes
Intuitive support processes
Good help guides and texts

This makes the job of managers and HR much easier. At the same time, the tool ensures that employees are followed up in a good and correct way.

Today, more than 300,000 employees in Norwegian companies are followed up by the sickness absence module in 4human HRM, and the vast majority of our customers have achieved a reduction in sickness absence of 1% points or more after adopting the solution during the first year of operation. We have customers with 80 employees who have reduced short-term absenteeism by 5% points and saved more than 2 million in the first 6 months, to companies with 7,000 employees who have saved tens of millions. The ROI figures are based on customers' own calculations.

Key features of 4human's sickness absence follow-up and follow-up of the sick employee in practice

Important features of 4human's sickness absence follow-up are that the system is integrated with the customer's existing systems such as payroll and time & attendance systems. 4human HRM gives managers a good overview of which employees should be followed up based on the absence input, which is either integrated with the time/payroll system or registered directly in 4humanHRM.

Managers have an overview of absence patterns in a visual absence calendar. The system notifies the manager what to do, based on standard follow-up rules that have been set or custom rules on how the company should follow up the employee.

The manager will get good notifications and guidance texts on "what do I do now?"
Invitation to sickness absence follow-up calls directly from the system to the employee's email calendar
The follow-up meeting is documented and logged in the solution
The follow-up meeting is sent to the GP and directly from the system via Altinn and to the Electronic Patient Record (EPR) system.
Follow-up meetings are documented and logged, and sent directly to NAV and EPJ
The system follows up all "stop" points that are important in the sick leave follow-up process
The system notifies of the activity obligation the employee has at the 8 week point
The system follows up until the sick leave follow-up is completed or resolved
Employees can confirm/sign the content of the follow-up plans digitally
Very good reports and statistics in the solution

What is sickness absence follow-up?

It's easy to fall ill, and this of course also applies to your employees. The employer has the main responsibility for making adjustments and following up on the employee, and must facilitate the employee's rapid return to work. That's why it's important that the employer maintains close contact and dialog with the employee on sick leave.

Sick leave follow-up digitally

All sickness absence follow-up is handled in 4human HRM. All sickness notifications can be received directly from NAV/Altinn and directly into 4human HRM. All follow-up plans are implemented in the system, so you have an overview of all dialog in the solution. All follow-up plans with full history can then be sent to the GP and NAV - digitally.

Requirements for sick leave follow-up

The employer is responsible for following up the employee when the employee is sick and on sick leave.

The system can be configured to follow up all absences and patterns of absence, e.g. frequency of absence, the system will then notify the manager so that you can work preventively.

1-16 days absence

Follow-up of absence from day 1 to 16, with activity plans and documentation of the process

4 weeks of follow-up

Follow-up and documentation of absence follow-up conversation after 4 weeks, the plan should be sent to the GP. The purpose of this is to look at the Status - Measures and progress of the case, this conversation should be sent to the Doctor to look at opportunities to get the employee back to work faster

7 weeks follow-up (Dialogue meeting 1)

Within 7 weeks at the latest, the employer must invite the employee on sick leave to a dialog meeting.The aim is to discuss what needs to be done to prevent the sick leave from becoming unnecessarily prolonged. Among other things, the possibilities and limitations of the employee will be discussed.The follow-up plan will also be updated during the dialogue meeting. In principle, the employer and the employee should be present at this meeting, but other parties may be called in if appropriate (e.g. the occupational health service, sickness officer or NAV). It should also be clarified whether measures are relevant in the workplace.

8 weeks

Check whether the employee's duty of activity has been complied with. This means that the employee must also be willing to adapt/look at opportunities to return to work.

9-25 weeks

The next stop is basically not until after 26 weeks. From an HR perspective, this is a very long time for a statutory requirement for follow-up. In 4human HRM, we have set a standard that the system should encourage the manager/HR to talk to the employee every month. These conversations can then be logged in the system.

26 Weeks - Dialogue meeting 2

Conversation Within 6 months, NAV shall invite the employee to the second dialog meeting. The NAV office must invite the employee and employer to a second dialogue meeting.Both parties are obliged to attend and work-oriented measures must be considered. It is possible to hold the meeting at an earlier date if one of the parties so wishes.

27-52 weeks

The system continues to notify follow-up meetings every 4 weeks (can be parameterized)

Dialogue meeting 3

New assessment of the employee on sick leave

Within one year at the latest, which is the maximum period for sickness benefit, the NAV office must reassess rights and the need for work-related measures. If it is clear that the employee on sick leave cannot return to the workplace, the case for dismissal can be considered after one year.The Working Environment Act's provision on protection against dismissal due to illness applies for the first 12 months. S

Unfair dismissal can therefore be considered, but there will often be no basis for it. It is only in cases where it is clear that the employee cannot return to work that dismissal immediately after the expiry of the protection period will be considered justified.

Sickness absence follow-up is integrated with Altinn, NAV and doctors

4human HRM is integrated with Altinn, NAV and GP. 4human HRM uses a business certificate from Buypass for receiving and submitting digital sickness notifications to/from the GP/NAV.

Benefits of good follow-up of the sick employee

Nobody wants to be ill in the first place, but once an employee is ill, it is important that the employer identifies whether the illness is caused by conditions in the workplace. At the same time, it is important to identify minor absences of an employee over a period of time so that this can form the basis for mapping and documentation.

We have examples of employees at our customers who have had small absences over a period of, for example, a period of 6 months due to migraine, so the system has notified the manager of "frequent" absence to the manager. In some cases, this has led to the employee receiving a decision that migraine is a chronic disease, which in turn means that NAV pays for the employee's short-term absence.

Before an employee falls ill and receives sick leave, it is important that you set up routines for managing sick leave.

How should the employee be followed up?

It's important that you inform your employees about the process and what they should know if they fall ill. It's important that you make as many arrangements as possible for your employees, should any of them fall ill.

Conduct a conversation with each of your employees and map out the points in advance. Is the employee able to work 50%? Are alternative work assignments possible? Is it possible to reduce working hours? Can the employee use a home office?

Once these points have been reviewed, it will be easier to decide what to do should one of your employees fall ill. Reservations are of course made for each individual employee's situation.

Our sick leave module provides:

Documentation of frequent absences for further dialog with doctor / NAV for assessment of chronic disease
Forms the basis for routines for sick leave and opportunities for adaptation
How should the employee be followed up?
Residual working capacity - reduced working hours
Identify alternative work tasks
Use a home office
Provides opportunities for documentation and notifications and through this forms the basis for close and good follow-up