Stress and Harassment

Jayn Bond - Workplace Law Network
Online advisor - 85 posts

Hi Natalie
You need to deal with this issue both under your absence policy and your grievance policy. If your employee is off for 3 months or more then you need to be seeking medical advice (with his consent) so that you can plan his return. If he feels that his stress is being caused by his line manager, then that is a grievance, and you need to investigate it. Therefore you also need to be exploring with Mr X how this harassment is occurring so you can then investigate it. You also need to be talking to the line manager to ascertain whethers/he has any idea why Mr X should be feeling harassed. Sometimes employees feel harassed when they are in fact being performance managed or it may be that he is indeed being bullied.
Stress can come under the DDA but needs to either continue for 12 months or be expected to continue for more than 12 months - your medical advice should clarify this point.

Tony Williams
Member - 17 posts

Natalie

'Stress' is not a medical condition, but sometimes people who are under prolonged stress develop clinical depression and/or anxiety, although technically this should be called 'adjustment disorder'.

Many individuals signed of by GPs with 'stress' are not clinically unwell but may become unwell if they remain off work because the issues remain unresolved. It is therefore very important to plan a return to work as soon as it is both reasonable and practicable to do so in order to mitigate this effect. It is very important to maintain contact with the employee on a regular basis (weekly is reasonable) while they are off sick, preferably not through the line manager in this case. Three months is a very long time to wait, and at this point most employees will begin to find it much harder to return to work.

If there is no previous history of mental health problems or stress-related problems, it is unlikely that the DDA will apply, however if there is a history of a substantial and long-term impairment from depression or anxiety, it may apply in which case you do need to consider adjustments both now and for the longer term.

His GP is unlikely to understand these issues and may not give you appropriate information or advice in his report. You could ask if there is a previous history of stress-related illness, depression or anxiety and if there is you may wish to assume the DDA applies. Alternatively you could seek advice from an occupational physician or nurse who understands the application of the DDA.

Carole Simmons
Member - 52 posts

Oh dear Tony your opinion of GP's is obviously not very high is it? I cannot agree that GP's just willy nilly sign people off with "Stress" just for the sake of it. Then wait for them to develop a "real" clinical illness to justify their certificate as you would have it.

Of course its always good to get an employee back to work as soon as possible but only when they are well enough to do so, whatever they have been signed off with!

As for your comment about a GP not being able to understand these issues, I think you do them a great disservice. Are you suggesting that a nurse is more qualified to comment on a patient’s suitability than a GP who may well have specialty knowledge and have known the patient for many years. That was a very broad statement and bad advice.

Jayn's advice was spot on.

Craig Stuart
Member - 85 posts

Hi Natalie

Just to add that you may want to consider drafting and implementing a Bullying and Harassment Policy. Most organisations use a specific policy rather than the grievance policy to deal with these cases. It would also send out the right message to the workforce that it wil not be tolerated. This may avoid the issue in the future.

Emma McAuley
Member - 16 posts

Hi natalie, my advice is as follows:

1) Address the grievance by inviting the employee to attend a meeting with you to explain the nature of his grievance, so that you have a full understanding of the complaint and his / her allegations. At this meeting you can discuss if the stress is exclusively caused by the manager, or if there is anything else that you should be aware of, affecting your employees health. It might also be worth discussing what other support you can offer as an employer (counselling etc) I would also advise that you discuss with the employee the possibility of appointing an objective alternative manager to conduct the subsequent investigation, so that you can be involved as an advisory HR presence (I have assumed you are in HR here) rather than the investigator.

Once you have the allegations set out in front of you, then you (or the investigaing officer) can begin an investigation process of interviewing the alleged harrasser, any witnesses or colleagues who may be able to offer you some perspective on the issues raised. Then once you have all of the evidence you can arrive at your conclusion as you normally would after an investigation.

2) Stress is a reaction to pressure and any OH physician or GP worth their salt will advise you to be careful to resolve the causes as soon as possible, to avoid further metal and physical symptoms creating a DDA issue for you.

3) If the stress has been solely caused by the reported perceived harrassment then you should remove one by reolving the other. If there are other factors, you may need further intervention such as medical reports, counselling support etc. Either way, you will need a carefully planned and managed return to work plan for this employee if he or she does return once the problems have been resolved.

Hope this helps

natalie connolly
Member - 2 posts

Thank you all for your comments.

Suzanne Summers-Coles
Member - 2 posts

Carole
I agree with Tony's advice. I have worked both as a GP practice nurse and Occupational health advisor. Occupational health physicians and nurses have an understanding of the workplace health issues that a GP may not and will be able to advise on workplace rehabilitation and application of DDA. There are few GPs in the UK who have additional OH training.

Tony Williams
Member - 17 posts

Carole

I fully appreciate that some GPs provide excellent advice on fitness for work to patients and employers. My comments do not represent my own views, but are based on evidence. GPs are in a very difficult position because they have no training in occupational health and they are expected to be the patient advocate. The NHS today emphasises that all clinical care should be patient-centred, with patient choice and autonomy underpinning all decisions in primary and secondary care.

A recent study showed that 60% of GPs will just give a patient a sick note if asked or if they think that is what the patient wants, taking the view that ‘the patient knows best’. A recent government report looked at the reasons behind sickness certification by GPs, and this was a key driver for the report by Dame Carol Black published earlier this year.

The Black report heavily criticised the current practice of sick note provision by GPs and recommended an alternative process. It also found that most GPs do not feel appropriately trained to give occupational health advice, including the provision of sick notes. They are unlikely to have knowledge or understanding of the DDA and are not therefore in a position to give appropriate advice in relation to it. An occupational health nurse has significantly more training in occupational health than a GP, and would therefore often be in a better position to advise on fitness for work and the DDA.

Some GPs have the Diploma in Occupational Medicine and a few have higher occupational medicine qualifications such as AFOM/MFOM or an equivalent qualification from overseas and will therefore be able to give sound occupational medicine advice. They will have some ethical constraints if they are expected to be both GP and OHP to a patient, and employers should recognise this.

Carole Simmons
Member - 52 posts

Thank You for your last post Tony, which put like that rather than the original one, sounds rather better.

Maybe I have just been lucky with the GP's I have had contact with but I have difficulty with this 60% as I have yet to find a GP who will just give a patient a sick note when they ask for one. One wonders what the leading question was on that study to get Doctors to admit to that. I don’t doubt that there are some out there that do but to say that almost 2/3rd's of GP's do it is amazing.

I fully agree that a fully trained Occupational Health Nurse would be better qualified against somebody without suitable experience. However if there was not a suitably qualified nurse available a GP had to be better than somebody with little or no medical training as in some companies HR Departments, who don’t seem to see the benefit of employing in house OHA's.

James Fairchild
Member - 254 posts

I agree with Tony. The difference as I see it is that a GP has a duty to his patient, whist an OHP/OHA has a duty to the employer.