Wellbeing | Should employees be allowed to take sick leave for period pains?

By Mick Farry – Employee Relations Specialist, Moorepay

According to a recent UK-wide survey, 26% of employees feared their manager wouldn’t consider period pains or PMS symptoms a legitimate illness, and therefore not a good enough reason to be absent from work. As such, up to a quarter of those surveyed admitted to lying to their manager about their true reason for absence.

How should employers approach period pains when cited by an employee as a reason for absence? Are they a good enough reason for employees to be absent from work? And should an employer’s obligations extend to allowing ‘period leave’?

Absence procedures and stigma

Employers should have an absence policy in their employee handbook and a procedure in place for reporting absence. Following that policy, they can seek an explanation for an employee’s absence and many employers will do this, as a matter of course, by conducting a face-to-face ‘return to work’ interview on their first day back. Managers conducting the interview should continue to use this as an opportunity to prompt the employee, get a fuller picture and assess for signs of an underlying medical condition.