Is medical force majeure and successful reintegration off balance? – Opinion

Absolute figures seldom tell the full story. It’s a fact that external services for prevention and protection in the workplace are receiving more requests to launch the procedure for ‘termination of the employment contract due to medical force majeure’. In this way, organisations can dismiss employees with a long-term illness for whom reintegration is not on the horizon (any longer).

A first nuance: 30% of such requests are actually made by the employees themselves, allowing them to leave the company and preserve their rights. And this is also the way we should look at reintegration: returning to work with the specific employer is not the only solution. In fact, we should think in terms of ‘reintegration on the employment market’. A trial conducted by Mensura and IDEWE in partnership with VDAB demonstrated that if you send employees who have been declared as permanently incapacitated to an employment facilitator, 23% are back to work within 6 months. After 12 months, this figure increases to 41%. That too is successful reintegration, despite medical force majeure.

The view of effective returns to work is distorted when we only consider formal reintegration procedures – the return to work journeys according to the official reintegration procedure.
After all, informal journeys are also possible, and involve much less administration.
Such processes are growing year on year. In the majority of cases they also lead to successful reintegration.

According to our figures at Mensura, smaller businesses, in which adapted work is challenging, make most use of ‘medical force majeure’. Take, for example, a small building company, with a handful of employees. If someone stops work due to back problems, it is almost impossible to provide adapted work.

Should we continue with more efforts to get the long-term ill back to work? Absolutely!
But it’s not only a matter of the employers’ responsibility. Work is part of the healing process. That is why we are appealing to all attending physicians: show what someone can do rather than focussing on what is no longer possible. I underwent a back operation myself early this year. A 6-week certificate of illness was soon shoved under my nose. Six weeks? Nobody asked what kind of work I did and if, for example, I could work from home. This is also the employees’ responsibility. They are free to debate with their doctor the best way to stay in touch with the workplace.

Finally: let there be a well-being and absenteeism policy in every organisation. The fact that employers are paying increasing attention to this is promising. Because even better than helping employees to reintegrate is to help prevent them falling ill in the first place.