Amid soaring absence rates many employees are now being accused of abandoning their employment, but there's a high threshold for establishing this in a dispute, a lawyer says.
A manager with post-traumatic stress disorder has accused an employer of having "no care factor", claiming that with the right support and adjustments, she could have returned to work.
Simple email communications can wield enormous power in helping to prevent and defend disputes involving absent workers, according to an employment lawyer.
An employee let his family circumstances cloud his judgement of an employer's return-to-work requests, seeing them as "pushy and unwelcome" when in fact they were reasonably "firm", the Fair Work Commission has ruled.
The Fair Work Commission has ruled a remote employee who ignored directives not to work during a shut-down period, then didn't log on for two weeks, was justly sacked.
An employer victimised a complaining employee by preventing her from returning to work after a psych injury, despite her full capacity, a commission has ruled in ordering $36k in damages.
It was not unfair to medically retire an employee who had been on leave for more than two years and whose mental state deteriorated "simply at the thought" of returning to work, the Fair Work Commission has accepted.
A "wave of uncertainty" is causing hybrid employees not to use their sick leave, but this is driving up toxic presenteeism, a wellbeing specialist says.
It was reasonable for an "empathetic" employer to propose disciplining a worker who failed to improve his poor attendance levels over several years, despite three absence management plans, a commission has found.
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