How to Successfully Bring a Stressed Employee Back to Work

Author: Majken Lorelei Matzau

Guiding an employee on stress-related sick leave safely through that leave and back into the job again is a path paved with pitfalls.

The biggest mistake companies make in this process is leaving it to the employee to judge when they are ready to come back, and how. So HR or the immediate manager says – with the best of intentions: "Now you just take care of yourself. Come in when you feel like it, and leave when you need to. And only do the tasks you feel good about."

And then the employee is left to their own devices. That means the employee has to negotiate with themselves – many times a day, every single day – and with everyone around them, about what should be done and prioritized. And then it is only a matter of time before the employee is signed off sick again.

Because an employee returning from sick leave is usually weighed down by guilt and wants to give something back, to prove that they are truly back. And that is when it always goes wrong.

How to do it

One of the most important tasks we carry out for our clients at Matzau Business Psychologists is therefore advising on how a workplace should handle this difficult process.

If you are one of those on sick leave, and are not fortunate enough to have a professional business psychologist steering the process, here is a tool for you. A manual for your HR department or immediate manager describing what they should be attentive to, along with a template for how to build a phased return plan. You may find it useful to send it to your workplace before you start back.

If you are HR or a manager yourself – here you are: a template for how to build a professional phased return plan for your employee. Without a phased return plan, you can be almost certain your employee will go down with stress again.

Although the number of months a phased return should last varies from person to person, I warmly recommend using the plan outlined here, which runs over three and a half months. That should keep you on the safe side, provided you also manage to balance the tasks the employee takes on during the period according to the criteria outlined below.

Dear HR / Manager

Your employee has been on sick leave with stress and is now returning to their job. You are probably a little uncertain about whether your employee is ready, and about how to handle the return from a leadership perspective.

I understand that. It is a difficult task if you have not had a professional assessment of your employee's stress condition, along with guidance on drawing up a phased return plan for the first couple of months.

Here are my best pieces of advice as a leader on how to bring your employee safely and securely back into the job.

1. The employee must be robust enough in their nervous system to have felt well during the final three weeks of the sick leave. It is fine for them to be a little restless and to feel a renewed appetite for life. But it is important that they do not overspend the energy that is beginning to return. You address this by making a concrete phased return plan.

2. A phased return plan runs over the first three and a half months the employee is back. The plan covers both the number of hours and the tasks the employee is to carry out during these months.

3. The purpose of the phased return plan is to reaccustom the employee's nervous system to being at work again. The employee's task is to follow the plan and to keep listening for their own signals.

4. Your task as HR or manager is to draw up the phased return plan – preferably together with your employee – and to follow up with them throughout the period at a weekly status meeting.

5. The employee should be on part-time sick leave for the three and a half months the plan runs. You begin with a working time of six hours per week and then slowly build up to full time.

6. A schedule of working hours must be drawn up for the employee, and it must be followed absolutely rigidly.

7. The tasks and the framework must be designed according to a plan like this one, which means the employee may only be available during the hours set out in the plan.

8. Draw up a list of the tasks the employee is to carry out during the period. Also draw up a list of the tasks the employee is not to carry out. The volume must not exceed the hours available to them, and the work must be light and safe. No demanding or complex tasks, and no tasks with tight deadlines.

9. The plan must be in writing and must be your bible for the months it runs.

10. An informational email should be sent to relevant colleagues and collaborators about when the employee is starting, which days and times they will be in the office, and how the process will unfold over the next three months.

It can be a good idea here to write that the employee is well, but that they are on part-time sick leave for the first three and a half months, and that they must not be disturbed with ad hoc tasks during the period.

11. If you have the option, place the employee somewhere quiet. Not in a thoroughfare office or in the middle of a noisy open-plan space.

Remember to follow up with the employee weekly. Better a slow, steered process than a loose and disorderly one. What never works is telling the employee to manage it themselves and listen to how they feel. Your employee almost certainly feels a great deal of guilt about having been signed off sick and wants to come back and contribute. That is why it stresses them further if they have to decide for themselves when they arrive and leave, and what they work on.

Good luck with a good and professional phased return. It comes back to you tenfold.

With warm regards,
Majken Lorelei Matzau

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