Sick Leave and Light Duty

[Rowland]

The legislation does not prescribe light duty as an option when
dealing with a sick employee, but frequently doctors indicate this as
necessary for the healing process.

1. What is the legal position relating to light duty in terms of
whether this is permissible, how long should one be on light duty, and
what happens if there is prolonged requests for light duty, whcih
takes the employees away from the core duties he / she was employed?

If there is no legal what is the common practice relating to the same?
How can an employer go about terminating employment in the absence of
ill health retirement note?

Regards

Rowland

[shadreck dimingo]

That's a hard one Rowland, but a real live issue. The bottom is the employer may have conditions which are better than the minimum set in the labour act and may provide for such in the company's policies.

However, I can't immediately recall any law which prescribes light duty, but think it's applicable where one will be doing work of a nature which will be physically taxing, wherein the doctor would be saying while the employee is fit, he is not fit enough to carry out his normal duties and as such you can give the employee other duties which are less physically demanding or allow the employee to take breaks more frequently. However, in most instances, the worker seem to be the one who requests this from the doctor because s/he will be avoiding half pay or no pay while recuperating. My thinking is, if a Doctor writes a note suggesting light duty, in her/his assessment the employee is not fit to carry out his duties and I would take the period of light duty as sick leave.

I am not clear why you would want to terminate the employee. Assuming it's for ill-health, you need a competent authority, a physician, to examine the suitability of the employee for continued employment. Armed with the doctor's recommendation, you will then notify the employee of the employer's intention. All along, you need to be 'moving together' with the employee and avoid taking the employee by surprise or just sending the employee to this or the other doctor without them knowing what is happening.

Rowland

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shaddie

[Hopeson Chiswa]

Legislation does not provide for light duties, so accordingly we treat all light duties as off duty and do not allow the concerned employees to come to work. We find that we still have to recruit replacements for people on light duties. We discussed with the company doctor to give people off-duties rather than light dutieds for productivity's sake.

 

Thanks Hopesn Chiswa

[REASON MUTERO]

Hie Roland

In my view the issue of sick leave has not been dealt with well with
our legislation because once an employee exhausts the sick leave days
in terms of the Labour Act I like it where it says 90 days on full pay
and another 90 days on half pay.It is very important to note that when
an employee finishes 80 days on half pay and then that person is
declared fit to work but on light duties .The legislation

[REASON MUTERO]

Hie Roland
In my view the issue of sick leave has not been dealt with well with
our legislation because once an employee exhausts the sick leave days
in terms of the Labour Act I like it where it says 90 days on full pay
and another 90 days on half pay.It is very important to note that when
an employee finishes 80 days on half pay and then that person is

declared fit to work but on light duties .The legislation talks of fit
to work but not on what duties .To deal with this issue
the employer if there are requests to go on light duty it also depends
on availability of light duty because the duty of the employer is to
provide work failure to do so is tantamount to unfair Labour
practice.Prolonged requests for light duty where there is no such
light duty does not mean an employee cannot be retired on medical
grounds e.g a driver cannot request to be a receptionist so in my view
the company through its doctors can request retirement on medical
grounds but this can be done after the exhausting of the 180 days as
is prescribed by law