First, try all other options before involving the company doctor.

There is a lot of ignorance about the path you can take when an employee drops out. Traditionally, many employees, but also employers, believe that the company doctor is all-knowing, while he only performs a medical assessment. After that, you yourself look together with the employee at which tasks are still possible. Our belief is that the answer to this question mainly lies with the employee themselves. Therefore, give him or her more control.

Changing Absence Landscape
The absence landscape in the Netherlands is changing, also due to corona. People have more anxieties, develop (vague) complaints, or run into issues. This can be at work, in their private life, or a combination of both—it all becomes too much. Absence is lurking. That’s why, when someone calls in sick, it is smarter to first have a conversation: what does someone still want and is able to do?

Efficient Approach
The goal is for the employee to recover as quickly as possible. Once someone feels good again, he or she becomes valuable to the company once more. This is a win-win situation. Usually, only the medical aspect is considered, for which the company doctor provides advice. But there are many more levers you can pull. The employee is best placed to indicate which levers those are. We therefore advise employers to first have a good conversation. Ask the employee what is not going well and what caused them to drop out. Use this information to adjust the working relationships or the content of the work so that someone can recover sustainably. In many cases, this can prevent the (costly) route to the company doctor.

Give the Employee a Voice
In practice, I notice that employees are afraid to take control. The Gatekeeper Improvement Act is in force, so I have to follow a process and the company doctor will decide what needs to happen—that is often the (old-fashioned) way of thinking. But if you give the employee a clear voice, you will achieve your goal as an employer much sooner. Reintegration is really just careful collaboration. If people feel part of the reintegration plan, they return to the organization much faster.

Prepare Well for the Company Doctor Appointment
If an appointment with the company doctor is needed for medical reasons, we advise the employee to prepare well for this conversation. We have developed a tool for this, a simple aid. It is a short questionnaire that the employee fills in themselves, which makes them concretely think about what the triggers are at work. This also forces someone to indicate what they are still able to do, and where opportunities and possibilities lie within the organization. The result is an effective conversation with the company doctor. If there is already an action plan that has been agreed upon, the company doctor will be more likely to approve it.

Getting Everyone on the Same Page Quickly
The old-fashioned attitude of ‘I am sick, now a path will be mapped out for me’ is something we at De Verzuimmakelaar want to move away from. The sooner employer and employee are on the same page, the sooner someone recovers and returns. And that’s win-win: the employee is fit and happy, and the employer has a fully functioning team member again.

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