Who it’s for: Sense HR users who want to understand the Sickness process
Platform: Sense HR
Available on: Team / Professional / Elite / Enterprise
About Sickness in Sense HR
Sickness is recorded as an event in an employee’s profile Planner and company Calendar.
Depending on how your organisation is configured, an employee can:
notify sickness from their Dashboard for an authorised user to review and record
book their own Sickness event directly
report sickness outside Sense HR for an authorised user to record on their behalf
Sickness can be recorded for full days, part of a day or specific times, and can remain open-ended when the employee’s return date isn’t yet known.
Additional processes, such as a Fit note or Return to Work, can be triggered where required.
For general information about how event booking works, see:
Understand the different ways to record sickness
Your organisation decides how employees report sickness and who records the Sickness event.
Notify sickness
If the Dashboard sickness widget is enabled, an employee can use it to notify their organisation that they are sick.
The widget sends a sickness notification to an authorised user. The authorised user reviews the notification and can then record the Sickness event in the employee’s Planner.
For step-by-step instructions, see:
Book your own sickness
If Self-booking is enabled in the applicable Sickness rule in Event Manager, the employee can select Sickness through Book event and add their own Sickness event directly.
This doesn’t use the sickness notification and review process.
For instructions, see:
Record sickness for someone else
An authorised user can record Sickness directly for an employee where their permissions and the applicable Sickness rule allow it.
For example, an organisation may centralise sickness recording so that employees report sickness to their manager or HR outside Sense HR, and an authorised user records it in the employee’s Planner.
💡 Best practice tip: For the same group of employees, use either Sickness Self-booking or the Dashboard sickness widget as the employee sickness-reporting route rather than enabling both. Self-booking creates the Sickness event directly, while the Dashboard widget sends a notification for an authorised user to review and record.
If neither employee option is enabled, Sickness recording is centralised and an authorised user records the Sickness event on the employee’s behalf.
Record the Sickness period
A Sickness event can record an absence for:
full working days
part of a working day
specific Start and End times
several days with a partial Start date or End date
The options available depend on how Sickness has been configured for the employee.
Recording one sickness period as a single event helps keep one continuous absence together rather than creating separate Sickness events for different parts of the same absence.
Consecutive Sickness bookings can still be treated as one continuous instance for absence-scheme calculations. However, they remain separate Sickness events in Planner, event-based workflows can trigger for each booking, and the Fit note duration threshold is calculated separately for each booking.
Where the return date isn’t known, recording one open-ended Sickness event avoids unnecessarily splitting the same continuous illness into separate bookings.
For detailed information about full-day, partial-day and multi-day booking, see:
Record sickness when the return date is unknown
You don’t need to enter an estimated return date when an employee’s return date isn’t known.
Record the Sickness event as open-ended instead.
An open-ended Sickness event remains open until a return is recorded. This keeps the absence as one Sickness period while the employee remains off work.
An open-ended Sickness event continues to show in the employee’s profile Planner and company Calendar until it is closed. When opened, the Sickness record shows that no return date has been recorded.
The employee’s Dashboard sickness widget also shows that they are recorded as off sick.
For instructions, see:
Understand Sickness reasons
Each Sickness event has a Sickness reason, such as Cold or Flu.
Administrators configure Sickness reasons in Event Manager and can determine what additional processes apply to each reason.
Depending on its configuration, a Sickness reason can:
require a Fit note
require a Return to Work process
mark the absence as Paid
include the absence in the organisation’s absence scheme
use a configured Return to Work form, where available
Different rules can apply to different groups of employees.
For information about configuring Sickness and Sickness reasons, see:
Understand Fit notes
A Fit note can become required in two ways:
the applicable Sickness reason is configured to require one
the Sickness continues beyond the Fit note duration threshold
For the duration threshold, Sense HR uses calendar days, not the employee’s scheduled working days. A Fit note is required from the 8th calendar day of sickness. The duration threshold is calculated separately for each Sickness booking.
This means an employee can reach the Fit note threshold even if some of the days in the Sickness period aren’t days they would normally work.
When a Fit note is required, Sense HR notifies the employee and creates a Fit note required To Do so receipt of the Fit note can be tracked.
Understand Return to Work
A Sickness reason can be configured to require Return to Work.
The standard Return to Work workflow has two stages:
The employee receives a To Do task to complete and sign their section of the Return to Work form.
Their manager then receives a task to review, complete and sign their section.
The Return to Work workflow is complete when both stages have been completed.
On Elite and Enterprise plans, organisations can use Screen Designer and Automate to customise the Return to Work form and configure the workflow, so the process may differ from the standard workflow.
Where a Return to Work form has been completed, authorised users can access it from the related Sickness record.
Record a return from open sickness
When an employee returns from an open-ended Sickness period, an authorised user can Record return.
Recording the return closes the open Sickness event by adding the return/end information while keeping the absence as the same Sickness period.
If Return to Work is required for the Sickness reason, the configured Return to Work process then applies.
For step-by-step instructions, see:
Understand absence duration and the Fit note threshold
The duration of a Sickness event, continuous absence calculations and the Fit note threshold measure different things.
The employee’s absence duration is based on the working time they were absent according to their working pattern.
For absence-scheme calculations, consecutive Sickness bookings can be treated as one continuous absence instance.
The Fit note duration threshold is calculated separately for each Sickness booking and uses calendar days from the start of that booking.
📖 Example: Susan becomes ill on Friday and records Sickness starting that day. Even if Susan isn’t scheduled to work on Saturday or Sunday, both days still count towards the Fit note threshold because the threshold is based on calendar days, not scheduled working days.
If Susan remains sick, Friday is day 1, Saturday is day 2 and Sunday is day 3.
This distinction is particularly important for open-ended sickness, where both values continue to develop until the employee returns.
Understand permissions
Who can report, record or manage Sickness depends on both the feature being used and your organisation’s permissions.
For direct Sickness booking and management, Sense HR can consider:
the user’s Access Role permissions
the applicable Sickness rule in Event Manager
Event Manager permissions don’t grant access to an employee’s Planner by themselves. The logged-in user must already have the required access through their Access Role.
📖 Example: Susan is a manager and needs to record Sickness for Fred. Susan must have access to Fred and permission to add events to his Planner. The Sickness rule that applies to Fred must also have Allow booking by others turned ON.
🖊️ Note: Administrators can record Sickness for other employees regardless of the Allow booking by others setting in Event Manager.
For information about configuring permissions, see:
FAQs
Click for answers to frequently asked questions
Click for answers to frequently asked questions
Q: What is the difference between notifying sickness and booking a Sickness event in Sense HR?
A: In Sense HR, notifying sickness tells an authorised user that an employee is sick. The authorised user reviews the notification and then records the Sickness event in the employee’s Planner.
Booking a Sickness event adds the sickness directly to Planner without using the notification and review process. Which route employees use depends on how your organisation has configured Sickness.
Q: Can an employee add their own Sickness event to Planner in Sense HR?
A: Yes. An employee can add their own Sickness event directly to Planner if Self-booking is turned on in the Sickness Event Manager rule that applies to them.
If Sickness Self-booking isn’t available, the employee may instead use the Dashboard sickness widget to notify sickness, where enabled, or report their sickness outside Sense HR for an authorised user to record.
Q: What happens if Sickness Self-booking and the Dashboard sickness widget are both turned off for an employee in Sense HR?
A: If Sickness Self-booking and the Dashboard sickness widget are both unavailable for an employee, sickness recording is centralised. The employee reports their sickness using the organisation’s agreed process, and a manager, HR administrator or other authorised user records the Sickness event in Sense HR on their behalf.
Q: Can I record a Sickness event in Sense HR if the employee’s return date isn’t known?
A: Yes. If the employee’s return date isn’t known, record the Sickness event as open-ended. The Sickness event remains open until a return is recorded, so you don’t need to enter an estimated End date.
Q: Can a Sickness event in Planner start or finish partway through a working day?
A: Yes. A Sickness event in Planner can start or finish partway through a working day where partial-day booking is enabled in the applicable Sickness rule. Depending on the employee’s configuration, the Sickness event can be recorded using part-day options or specific Start and End times.
Q: When does a Fit note become required for a Sickness event in Sense HR?
A: A Fit note can become required for a Sickness event because the applicable Sickness reason is configured to require one, or because the Sickness reaches the Fit note duration threshold.
The duration threshold is reached on the 8th calendar day of sickness, regardless of how many scheduled working days the employee has missed. The Fit note duration threshold is calculated separately for each booking.
Q: Do weekends and non-working days count towards the Fit note threshold for Sickness in Sense HR?
A: Yes. Weekends and other non-working days count towards the Fit note threshold because Sense HR measures the threshold using calendar days from the start of the Sickness period, not the employee’s scheduled working days.
For example, if Susan’s Sickness starts on Friday, Friday is day 1, Saturday is day 2 and Sunday is day 3, even if Susan doesn’t normally work at the weekend.