Location: Northern Ireland
Rep.of Ireland
Location: Northern Ireland
Rep.of Ireland
Managing Sickness Absence in NI

Managing Sickness Absence in NI

Join us at our upcoming event in association with A&L Goodbody LLP focused on managing sickness absence in Northern Ireland. This event offers a valuable opportunity to gain insights, practical strategies, and up-to-date guidance from industry experts who’ll provide you with actionable strategies that you can implement immediately within your organisation. 

After attending this event you will:  

  1. Ensure Compliance and Mitigate Risks: you’ll be informed about sick leave policies and legislation specific to Northern Ireland. Our event will provide you with the most up-to-date information on legal requirements and guidelines.  

  1. Gain a comprehensive understanding of your obligations as an employer, including reasonable adjustments, allowing you to minimise risks associated with sickness absence management. 

  1. Gain a Competitive Edge: Efficient sickness absence management directly impacts your organisation's bottom line. By attending our event, you'll gain the knowledge and tools necessary to optimise productivity, reduce absenteeism, and drive better performance. We’ll help you help you use occupational health effectively and implement your organisation’s capability procedures successfully.  

  1. Achieve better outcomes in balancing holiday rights during sick leave:Gain valuable insights into key areas such as holiday entitlement for employees on sick leave, pay entitlement when taking annual leave while on sick leave, and the right to carry over annual leave. We will also explore the impact of recent case law on sick leave and holiday entitlement. 

Who is this event for?

This event is designed for employers, HR professionals and those with line-management responsibilities.  

Why should you attend?

  1. Ensure compliance and mitigate risks with the most up-to-date, Northern Ireland specific information on legal requirements and guidelines. 

  1. Gain a comprehensive understanding of your obligations as an employer in NI. 

  1. Acquirethe knowledge and tools necessary to optimise productivity, reduce absenteeism, and drive better performance.  

  1. Achieve better outcomes in balancing holiday rights during sick leave.  

Price?

Standard Rate: £245

Early Bird Rate: £195 (Ends 27th August, 5pm)

Save an additional £20 if you pay online with credit or debit card at time of booking.

In association with:

Programme

9:20am 

Welcome & Introduction  

With Christine Quinn, Legal Island 

9.30am 

Sickness Absence Management in Practice 

Gareth Walls, Partner and Head of Employment, A&L Goodbody LLP, sets out the legal principlessurrounding absence management and provides insights into current absencetrends including: 

  1. Overview of the laws impacting on/governing sickness absence in Northern Ireland. 
  2. Ensuring compliance with disability discrimination legislation. 
  3. Developing/supporting robust absence management practices from trigger points to return to work processes. 

10.10am 

Screen Break 

10.20am 

Case Law Round-Up 

Aisling Byrne, Partner, A&L Goodbody LLP, unravels the complexities of key absence-related cases and highlights the invaluable lessons they hold including disability-related issues and reasonable adjustments. 

Aisling will: 

  1. Advise on how the outcome of these cases should influence the way you handle absence, including long term sickness absence, issues in your organisation.  
  2. Explain best practice and approaches for reducing absence rates, including the implementation of reasonable adjustments. 
  3. Examine what reasonable adjustment you need to consider in practice in relation to: 
  • Trigger points in your sickness absence policy. 
  • Reviewing stages within absence management processes. 
  • Facilitating an employee’s return to work where practicable without delay. 

11.00am 

Screen Break  

11.15am 

The Tricky Questions 

This is your chance to put your questions to the Employment team at A&L Goodbody LLP! 

Aisling Byrne returns with colleague Shirley Blair, Of Counsel A&L Goodbody LLP to discuss some of the more difficult questions that arise in practice when it comes to managing absence including: 

  • What constitutes a disability under NI law?  
  • When does sickness absence become ‘long-term’? 
  • What is ‘reasonable’ when it comes to maintaining contact during absence? 
  • What about GDPR and the return-to-work interview? 
  • At what point should I make a referral to Occupational Health? 
  • What if an employee refuses to attend an Occupational health appointment or refuses to consent to the report being shared? 
  • How should we handle concerns about the appropriateness of an employee’s actions or activities whilst on sick leave? 
  • How do I handle an employee going on sick leave during a disciplinary investigation? 
  • How do I demonstrate ‘reasonableness’ in arguing that absence is too high for the organisation to sustain?   

Got a tricky question of your own? Drop us a line before the event and we will put it to the experts at A&L Goodbody LLP – gosia@legal-island.com 

12pm 

Screen Break 

12.10pm 

Holidays and Sick Leave 

Balancing holiday rights and pay during sick leave can be a conundrum in HR. Gareth Walls answers your questions including: 

  1. What is the holiday entitlement foremployees on sick leave? 
  2. What about pay entitlement when taking annual leave while on sick leave and the right to carry over annual leave? 
  3. The impact of the cases of Harpur Trust v BrazelandAgnew. 

12.50pm 

Q&A with Garth Walls 

1pm 

Event Close 

Testimonials

"The information and advice given was so practical." Paula Silcock, HR & OD Officer, Lisburn & Castlereagh City Council

"Practical nature and pragmatic approach from qualified solicitors who can give their insights and share knowledge." Maeve Gorman, HR Business Partner, Baker McKenzie

"The question section was helpful and hearing about real life tribunals and outcomes." Leanne Swan, HR and Admin Support Worker, Women's Aid ABCLN

 

Presenters

  • Aisling Byrne
    Aisling Byrne Partner
    A&L Goodbody LLP

    Aisling Byrne is partner in A&L Goodbody's Employment & Incentives group in Belfast and has over 20 years' experience in advising on employment and equality law. Aisling advises on contentious employment litigation, employment aspects of commercial transactions and procurement. Aisling is qualified to practice in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, and she is a qualified mediator. She also specialises in data protection law and she has both Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP/E) and Certified Information Privacy Manager (CIPM) qualifications. She regularly delivers training to businesses on GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018 and she advises on a broad spectrum of data protection issues including data breaches, data protection impact assessments, data subject access requests and data sharing agreements.
  • Gareth Walls
    Gareth Walls Partner & Head of Employment and Incentives Group
    A&L Goodbody LLP

    Gareth Walls is a Partner and Head of the A&L Goodbody's Employment group in Belfast. Gareth represents a number of local, national and international brands in business support, strategic workforce planning and high-profile tribunal matters. He also has significant experience advising stakeholders on complex redundancy, re-structuring and TUPE issues. Gareth is an accomplished commercial litigator with particular emphasis on procurement challenges and injunctive relief in the Employment context, as well as being a sought-after speaker on Employment issues in Northern Ireland.
  • Shirley Blair
    Shirley Blair Of Counsel
    A&L Goodbody LLP

    Shirley Blair is an Of Counsel in A&L Goodbody's Employment and Incentives group in Belfast and has over twenty years' experience advising on Employment and Education law. She advises on the full spectrum of contentious and non-contentious employment law matters for clients in all sectors. Shirley specialises in complex discrimination proceedings in NI Court of Appeal and is a qualified Solicitor Advocate. She has gained substantial expertise in High Court litigation, particularly disputes pertaining to restrictive covenants, injunctions and Judicial Reviews concerning schools. Shirley is the NI Chamber of Commerce representative on the Employee Relations Roundtable – a federation of the Chamber, CBI, IoD and the LRA that lobbies the NI Government. She is the NI contributing author to the book "Professional Secrecy of Lawyers in Europe".

Event details

Duration

9.20am - 1pm

Date

08 October 2024

Location

Online

Price

Standard Rate: £245 + VAT

Save an additional £20 if you pay online with credit or debit card at time of booking.