The Employer’s Managerial and Supervisory Powers in Addressing Workplace Absenteeism

Abstract

The article analyses the scope and limits of the employer’s managerial and supervisory powers in addressing workplace absenteeism, with particular attention to absences due to temporary incapacity. First, it examines the legal configuration of corporate absence-management systems, their progressive digitalisation, and the impact of new legislation on data-protection, algorithmic management and artificial intelligence. Second, it argues for the inapplicability of the right to digital disconnect during temporary incapacity, as such a right would be incompatible with proactive absence-management models that yield better outcomes in terms of return to work. Third, it reviews the behavioural and medical control powers under Articles 20.3 and 20.4 of the Workers’ Statute and their declining usefulness in detecting and sanctioning fraud. The article concludes that the legal framework provides employers with fragmented and only moderately effective instruments, and contends that these should be reoriented—supported by collective bargaining—towards equally rights-protective models of absence management in which employers can adopt a more proactive, transparent and return-to-work-oriented role.