London Luton Airport – Sickness Absence Procedures and Staff Handbook

Client: London Luton Airport Operations Limited
Sector: Aviation / Airport Operations
Work: Employment policies and procedures

I advised London Luton Airport Operations Limited in connection with proposed changes to its arrangements for the reporting and management of employee sickness absence.

Working with the airport’s management and HR team, I reviewed the existing sickness absence policy and the interaction between the organisation’s HR Manual and Employee Handbook. A particular issue was how proposed changes could be implemented while taking account of the existing contractual position and the way in which handbook policies had historically been communicated to and accepted by employees.

The work included considering the contractual status of the relevant policies, the implications of changing existing sickness absence procedures and the appropriate approach to updating the Staff Handbook.

The advice was designed to enable the HR and management teams to introduce clearer sickness absence reporting arrangements while reducing the risk of inadvertently changing employees’ contractual rights or creating avoidable employee-relations issues.

Key areas advised on: sickness absence reporting • HR policies • Staff Handbook • contractual status of employment policies • implementation of policy changes