The return-to-work conversation: ten minutes on the first day back.
After every sickness absence, however short. It is the line-manager habit Acas and the CIPD both recommend in their guidance on absence, and the one that catches strain early.
Ten minutes in private on the first day back: how are you, did work contribute, what needs to change, and a date to check.
Someone is back after two days off. Most managers say “good to see you” and hand them the backlog. The ten-minute conversation that should happen instead is where you find out whether work made it worse, whether anything needs to change, and whether this is the first of several. It is also where the person finds out they were missed rather than merely counted.
First day back, in private
- Welcome them back and mean it. Ask how they are now.
- Ask whether anything about work contributed, and whether anything needs to change for the next few weeks: hours, load, a task they are dreading.
- Say what happened while they were away only if it is useful: who covered what, what is waiting, what can wait.
- Agree any adjustment, however small, write it down, and fix a date a fortnight on to check.
What it is not
It is not an investigation and it is not a telling-off for being off. If your organisation has a return-to-work form or a trigger-point process, follow it, but do the conversation first and the form second; people can tell which one you came for.
When absences add up
Two or three short absences in a few months is the moment to ask a gentler, longer question in the weekly one-to-one: how are things, really, and is there anything I should know. If what you hear is a health matter, involve your HR or occupational health route and keep the notes factual.
Write it down
Date, what they said, what you agreed, the date you will check. Over a year this is the earliest warning you have of someone carrying too much.
The clearest thirty minutes in your week.
Send us your last engagement survey and we’ll show you what it’s missing – no charge, no deck, no obligation. Or start with a pilot or a 30-minute conversation.