Employers May Soon Be Immediately Informed of an Employee’s Sick Leave Opening

Since the year 2014, the Chamber has emphasized to the Ministry of Social Affairs that employers should be automatically informed if an employee has been issued sick leave. As far as is known to the Chamber, the Ministry of Social Affairs is currently developing the necessary draft and the amendment could enter the law already during this year.

Members of the Chamber have been complaining for years that at the moment the provisions regulating the certificate of incapacity for work do not allow the employer to see if and when a sick leave is started for an employee. However, this causes problems for employers, because when an employee is absent from work and does not inform the employer of the reasons, the employer cannot know if the employee is absent due to illness or has permanently left the job. Such situation is causing uncertainties for the employer and disturbs the economic activities of a company.

Therefore the Chamber has repeatedly proposed the ministry to change the currently applicable regulation so that the employer would receive an automatic notification on the first day of leave when sick leave is started for their employee. The contents of the notification would be only the fact of starting the sick leave and would not contain the reasons of the sick leave nor information on the specific doctor. This way a person’s right to privacy is not violated and it would give the employers more clarity in a situation where an employee is absent from work without notifying the employer of the reasons.

Due to the fact that the submission of the certificate for incapacity for work became electronic in 2015, notifying employers of the sick leave would not cause additional obligations for the doctors. Additionally, it would not be an expensive change, because in order to apply changes it would be necessary to introduce a respective IT solution and this would be a one-off effort.

The amendment has not been entered into the law due to the lack of suitable IT solutions. The Chamber is glad that a solution might be found already during this year.