Summer is the season of absenteeism. Employers who ignore that reality pay the price

Technology has made remote work easier, but it has also made time theft easier. Photo by Getty Images/iStockphoto

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Every summer, businesses brace for the predictable. Vacation schedules fill up, staffing becomes tighter and productivity dips.

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No less common is the employee who extends that summer break with a conveniently timed medical leave or by turning remote work into something more akin to a paid vacation.

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Most employees are honest. Many are not. And employers who pretend otherwise discover, often too late, that good intentions are no substitute for good management.

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The legal challenges are obvious. Question an employee’s medical leave too aggressively and an employer risks allegations of discrimination or a failure to accommodate. Accept every request without scrutiny and the business may spend months operating short-handed while co-workers resentfully pick up the slack, usually knowing well that their colleague is not actually disabled but simply elongating their summer vacation.

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Fortunately, the law does not require employers to be either cynical or naïve.

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An employee has every right to take legitimate medical leave. But employment law has never said that feeling better at the cottage than at the office makes someone medically incapable of working. The legal test is whether the employee can perform the essential duties of the job, not whether they don’t feel their best or would rather be somewhere else.

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One of the costliest mistakes employers make is treating every doctor’s note as though it ends the conversation.

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A note saying an employee is “off work until Labour Day” may justify further questions, not only because the employer may suspect dishonesty, but because they have both the right and the legal obligation to understand the employee’s functional limitations before determining whether leave or an accommodation is appropriate.

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That is precisely why Functional Abilities Forms are so valuable. They require physicians to identify what the employee can and cannot do, rather than simply declaring that the employee should remain off work. Physicians are understandably more careful when asked to justify restrictions they may later need to defend.

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Then there is the newer phenomenon: the work-from-home “staycation.”

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Remote work has become an indispensable recruiting and retention tool. It has also become an opportunity for some to work from the beach, the golf course or another country without their employer’s knowledge — or, in too many cases, without doing much work at all.

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Technology has made remote work easier. It has also made time theft easier.

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The answer is not intrusive surveillance. It is competent management.

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Employers should establish clear expectations regarding availability, responsiveness, working hours, performance standards, travel outside the jurisdiction and occasions requiring in-person attendance. Employees cannot be disciplined for violating rules that were never communicated.