6. Medical Examinations

the medical examinations or reports. The opinion of the Company doctor or occupational health practitioner shall be final and conclusive • To discipline and ultimately terminate the employment of an employee who has an unacceptable sickness record compared to the Company’s norm • Interview any employee on their return to work following an absence to establish the reasons for the absence and whether any further investigation is deemed necessary • Claim back from the employee the cost of sickness payments made, should the employee have successfully claimed or been awarded damages from a third party on account of such illness or injury. To provide objectivity in managing short-term absences, the Company has introduced a formal absence monitoring system. The scheme ensures that all employees are treated fairly and consistently when dealing with absence from work and will differentiate genuine reasons for absence from more questionable absences by identifying frequent, short-term and unacceptable absence patterns. Every employee will have a return-to-work interview with his or her manager immediately following a period of absence. These discussions are not disciplinary interviews; they are designed to understand the facts surrounding the absence and will be used to complete the employee’s absence certification record and to provide advice on areas of concern and/or draw the employee’s attention to unacceptable trends and/ or review the need for job modifications and/or agree future actions. If disciplinary action is warranted as a result of the absence, then this will be dealt with separately using the Company’s disciplinary procedure. Each absence will generate absence points, which will accumulate over a rolling 52-week period using the following formula: • P x P x T

• P is the number of Periods of absence and T is the Total number of days absent For example: • 5 incidents of a 1-day absence will generate an absence score of 5 x 5 x 5 = 125 • 1 incident of a 5-day absence will generate an absence score of 1 x 1 x 5 = 5 Whilst absence monitoring is a continuous process, the following ‘Trigger levels’ are set to identify when an employee’s absences have reached a level that require disciplinary action to be taken (and assume no existing warnings in effect). All actions will be consistent with the usual disciplinary rules and procedures. • 60 points Verbal Warning • 150 points First Written Warning • 350 points Final Written Warning • 730 points Dismissal Absences that will not attract a score under the scheme are: agreed holiday, authorised absences (e.g. jury service, TA, compassionate leave, specialist medical/antenatal appointments) and pregnancy-related illness. Continuous period of long-term sickness (longer than 14 days) will be scored as 1 incident of 15 days, regardless of its actual length.

6. MEDICAL EXAMINATIONS

Employees joining the Company may be required to pass a medical examination by one of the Company’s Doctors or an occupational health practitioner before their appointment is confirmed. In addition, employees may be required to attend a medical examination by one of the Company’s Doctors or an occupational health practitioner at any time during their employment with the Company. This will be particularly necessary when the employee, as a result of his/her job, comes into regular contact with substances governed by C.O.S.H.H. The Company also reserves the right to test employees in order to detect the presence of alcohol and