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Employees Returning to Work on Light Duties or Reduced Hours
We commonly encounter situations where the employer has felt obligated to allow an employee to return to work on either light duties or reduced hours (or a combination of those things). This can be the case even when light duties or reduced hours do not suit the business needs or other factors make this option unsuitable (for example, health and safety in the workplace).
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Under the Accident Compensation Act 2001, ACC can give you written notice that it has decided it is reasonably practicable to return the employee to the same employment in which he or she was engaged when the incapacity commenced. Such a decision means that ACC has decided to provide vocational rehabilitation to the employee. If you receive this notice from ACC, you have a mandatory obligation under the Act to take all practicable steps to assist the employee with his/her vocational rehabilitation plan. However, if you do not receive the written notice referred to above, our view is that you are under no obligation to permit an employee to return to work on light duties or reduced hours, particularly when this does not suit your business needs or this is unsuitable for other reasons. You should consider any request to return on light duties or reduced hours in good faith. Having done so, you are quite entitled to take the position that
before the employee can return to work, he or she must be fully fit for all of the duties of the position and to work the hours that the employee was employed to work before the medical absence. We have had employer clients experience pressure from ACC (or providers acting on their behalf) in relation to the provision of light duties or reduced hours. Sometimes, employees themselves can also have the expectation that there is an automatic right to return to work on light duties or reduced hours. If you do decide to permit a return to work from a medical absence on light duties or reduced hours, then we recommend you timeframe how long you are prepared to permit this for. This is because otherwise, this situation can then go on and on, start adversely affecting your business, and be difficult to extract yourself from.
Danny Jacobson and Trudy Marshall are Partners at Employment Lawyers Tauranga and they specialise exclusively in employment law. They operate our Employment Helpline for NZCB members: phone 07 928 0529. (The above is by its nature general, and is not intended to be a substitute for legal advice.)
