Reporting that you are ill

Staff who are ill are obliged to inform the University of their incapacity for work and its anticipated duration without delay.

Corresponding information must be communicated to the relevant line manager by 10 am at the latest. Line managers may set an earlier deadline if necessary for work-related reasons.

If you do not take part in the test phase of the online form for reporting illness and fitness to return to work, please do the following:

Please send your notification of illness to your line manager by email and cc the krankmeldung@uni-due.de group mailbox. If a staff member reports sick by phoning their line manager, the line manager is responsible for sending a notification of illness with the necessary information to the krankmeldung@uni-due.de group mailbox.

Please facilitate a quick allocation of your email by specifying your organisational unit (division, faculty, central service or facility) in the subject line.

In case of a work-related accident, please also inform the Staff Unit for Occupational Safety & Health and Environmental Protection.

Important information for staff with statutory health insurance:

If you have statutory health insurance, you no longer receive paper certificates of incapacity for work (Arbeitsunfähigkeitsbescheinigung, AU). That means that if you are absent for up to three days due to illness, the sick leave administrators in the Personnel and Organisation Division can no longer tell whether you went to a doctor and a digital certificate was issued (elektronische Arbeitsunfähigkeitsbescheinigung, eAU) or reported ill without seeing a doctor so no certificate was issued (krank ohne AU).

This information must be included in the email so that, if a doctor issued a certificate for you, it can be retrieved digitally from your health insurance provider.

Here is a sample notification of illness by email:

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Proof of incapacity for work

As a rule, all staff members must see a doctor if they are incapacitated for work for longer than three calendar days. The University is entitled to reduce this period to as little as one calendar day.

• Procedure for staff with statutory health insurance:

With the eAU process, the doctor transmits a certificate to your health insurance provider digitally, stating the duration of and reason for your incapacity for work.

After the Personnel and Organisation Division has received your notification of illness indicating the duration (see sample email), they can retrieve your eAU from your health insurance provider.

Please note: With certificates of incapacity for work issued in a foreign country and in certain other cases (doctors who accept private insurance, gradual reintegration, rehabilitative treatment, work bans), certificates are still issued in paper form and must be submitted through the krankmeldung@uni-due.de group mailbox.

• Procedure for staff with private health insurance:

Nothing changes for staff with private health insurance (particularly civil servants), since they do not participate in the eAU process. They are still obliged to document their incapacity for work by presenting a medical certificate. Should the duration exceed three calendar days (i.e. counting weekends and non-working days), the staff member is obliged to provide a medical certificate confirming their incapacity for work on the following work day at the latest.

Scan the certificate and send it by email to the krankmeldung@uni-due.de group mailbox. Please facilitate a quick allocation of your email by specifying your organisational unit in the subject line. You must retain the original certificate for six months and submit it if requested to do so. It is not necessary to send the information separately to the responsible sick leave administrator, so this step can be left out.

In addition, staff members who are ill must inform their line manager of the expected duration of their incapacity for work. This also applies to each extension of the incapacity for work.

 

Online form for reporting illness and fitness to return to work

The online form for reporting illness and fitness to return to work is in the test phase and is currently being used by the following organisational units:

• Personnel and Organisation Division
• Finance and Budget Division
• ZIM
• Faculty of Computer Science

The online form can be accessed through the selfcare portal.

This handout explains how to use the online form (in German).

Here are some FAQs regarding the online form for reporting illness and fitness to return to work:

Do I need to report my illness using the online form even if I do not go to a doctor?

Yes, you must always report your illness using the online form so that the sick leave administrators are aware of your absence.

How do I use the online form if I become ill in the morning and my doctor’s appointment is not until later in the day?

As a rule, it is important that your line manager, and colleagues as necessary, be informed of your illness by 10 am at the latest. This rule is based on the possible need to find someone to cover or fill in for you or cancel appointments. The sick leave administrators within the Personnel and Organisation Division who, as you know, also receive the information via the online form, do not need to be informed of your illness by 10 am.

In other words, if you feel so ill in the morning that you need to see a doctor that afternoon, you do not need to report your illness using the online form immediately. The better course of action is to phone or email your line manager, and colleagues as necessary, by 10 am to inform them that you are ill and going to the doctor. After your visit to the doctor, you will know whether you have a certificate of incapacity for work and for how long. Then, however, you must report your incapacity for work using the online form, as this is the only way the sick leave administrators will receive the information.

Who completes the online form for me if my illness prevents me from doing so?

In this exceptional case, your line manager can complete the form for you. The name of the staff member affected must be indicated in the comment box.

Who reports my illness if I do not have access to the Internet, a computer or a mobile device?

Please ask your line manager whether they can complete the form for you.

How do I complete the form if I have two line managers?

You need to complete the form once only. Choose one line manager in the ‘Vorgesetzte’ (line manager) field and inform the second person using the ‘weitere*r E-Mail – Empfänger*in’ (additional email recipient) field. Use the same procedure to report any extension of your incapacity for work and your subsequent notification of fitness to return to work.

Do I need to report an illness using the online form if I need to stay home to care for a sick child?

If you need to care for a sick child, you are granted leave for this purpose. Do not use the online form to report this since you are not the person who is ill. The ‘Kind krank’ (child ill) procedure remains unchanged and is described here (in German).

What do I need to do if I start work but fall ill during the course of the day and need to go home?

If you fall ill after starting work, inform your line manager immediately. You do not need to complete the online form for that day.

If you are still unable to work the next day, please use the online form to report your illness.

Do my line manager and any colleagues I indicate in the online form receive the information I entered in the form?

Your line manager and colleagues do not see all the information you enter in the online form. They see only the information they need (name of the person who is ill, duration of the incapacity for work, names of individuals who are informed). Only the relevant department in the Personnel and Organisation Division receives the other information and uploaded documents. This procedure was approved by UDE’s Data Protection Officer.

Reporting fit to return to work

A notification that you are fit again to return to work is as important as the notification of illness as this is the only way to determine the exact period of your sick leave and thus to complete the process.

The procedure for reporting fit to return to work is the same as for reporting ill (informing your line manager and sending an email to the krankmeldung@uni-due.de group mailbox) and must be carried out on the day after your incapacity for work ends. Please also state your organisational unit (division, faculty, central service of facility) in the subject line of your email to allow faster allocation.

If you are off work on the relevant day (e.g. because you do not have a five-day work week or because it falls on a bank holiday/weekend), please report that you are fit again to return to work on your next working day at the latest. With such ‘late’ notifications of fitness for work, it is crucial that you indicate the exact date of your recovery.

If you go on leave immediately after being ill, you must report fit again to work before starting your leave by sending an email to krankmeldung@uni-due.de.

Going home sick

f you start feeling unwell while you are working and can no longer fulfil your duties, it is sufficient to inform your line manager accordingly. A notification of illness as described above is not necessary. Consequently, you do not need to report fit again to work if you come back to work the next day. The day that was interrupted due to illness is considered a full day worked. If you participate in the flexible working hours system (GLAZ), do not clock out on that day. Instead, book a correction using the workflow (absence type: ‘Krank nach Hause’) or a working hour correction form on the following day. Your individual target hours for the day will then be booked.

The above does not apply in cases where it is the other way around (coming into work late because you were not feeling well in the morning).

 Falling ill during leave

If you fall ill while you are on leave, please also inform your line manager of your incapacity for work and its anticipated duration without delay.

Days where you were unfit for work as proven by a doctor’s certificate will not be counted as leave taken. Instead, you can take the relevant number of days’ leave at a later point in time. A certificate of incapacity for work must be presented in such cases. Otherwise, it is not possible to use the days of leave later on.