Report stalled reintegration with UWV due to Corona vicissitudes

One of your employees has been ill for several months. Few suitable jobs could be found within the company, so you initiated discussions with the employee and company doctor about starting reintegration on track two. Even before you could engage an agency to supervise this track two process, Holland went into an intelligent lock down. Your company has been locked down for a few weeks now. You work from home and so do your employees. Your sick employee, who had picked up some administrative tasks to get into a work rhythm while waiting for the second track trajectory, is also forced to sit at home. Meanwhile, the deadlines in the law that deal with the counseling of sick employees continue to run. You wonder how the UWV will deal with this later, because reintegration is now completely stalled. The UWV has published new policies about this. The UWV is taking the situation into account, but sitting still is not an option.

The social consequences of the measures under COVID-19 mean that this also affects the way in which employers' reintegration efforts are assessed under the Gatekeeper Improvement Act (WVP). The UWV normally imposes a wage penalty of up to 52 weeks if too little reintegration has been done. The basic principle is that the UWV always assesses within reason whether all obligations have been met.

Because of the Covid-19 crisis, there may be situations that can lead to delay or complete stagnation of the reintegration. The UWV determines whether sufficient reintegration was reasonably done given the special circumstances and/or the expected process could/can not be followed.

The starting point for the assessment is still the Werkwijzer Poortwachter. If the assessment of the reintegration report leads to the conclusion that insufficient reintegration efforts are made, this can lead to a wage penalty. However, the UWV has recently started checking whether Covid-19 has (been) of influence on the reintegration process. As an employer you should actively point this out when sending documents to the UWV.

Report not complete, no signatures or late submission?

The UWV reviews whether the reintegration report is complete. If documents have not been included or have not been completed in full, the UWV assesses whether the absence of the relevant documents is acceptable because of the measures under COVID-19. This can only be done if the documents are explained why they have not been completed in full or why certain documents are missing.

The UWV's updated policy reflects, among other things, that documents can be exchanged electronically, even during a temporary business closure. Physical signatures on documents are not required. The employee can express his views on the reintegration in the appropriate documents.

The delivery of missing documents is normally subject to a deadline of 5 working days. If that deadline is likely to be exceeded by Covid-19, the UWV may apply a slightly longer deadline if there is an urgent reason from which it follows that the missing documents cannot be provided within 5 working days.

The employer is further expected to simply perform administrative actions. Contacts and examinations (by an employment expert, for example) can be initiated/executed by telephone and, if necessary, supplemented/completed at a later stage by actual physical actions.

A wage penalty is normally imposed to remedy shortcomings in reintegration. The employer must be able to do this. If this is not possible due to Covid-19, no extended wage payment obligation is imposed. If, for example, it is not possible to perform physically suitable work, due to a reduction in the supply of work as a result of the crisis or because a trial placement with another employer cannot take place because this company has also had to close down (temporarily), this must be explicitly reported to the UWV in order to avoid a wage penalty. Employers must therefore take action and actively mention 'sound reasons' themselves if the reintegration has stalled due to Covid-19. If the employer fails to do so, he still risks a wage penalty.

When is there no sound ground?

According to the UWV, research in track 1 can simply be carried out and track 2 trajectories can also be started, with reintegration agencies organizing their services remotely. So doing nothing and sitting still is not an option.

Similarly, impending inability to pay by Covid-19 is no reason to waive wage payment obligations and reintegration efforts. The fact that an employer cannot meet its payment obligations cannot mean that reintegration efforts should then be considered 'sufficient.' Nor can it count as a "proper ground" for those "insufficient efforts" according to the UWV.

UWV expert opinion

During the Covid-19 period, employers and employees can request an expert opinion from the UWV. This judgment will be carried out by the UWV as much as possible on the basis of documents and at a distance.

The UWV describes in its amended policy that it will not be possible to reach a substantive opinion in all cases, for example in connection with a necessary physical consultation with an insurance physician. If this is the case, in subsequent RIV assessments the employer cannot be blamed for not requesting an expert opinion in the event of stagnating reintegration, during this Covid-19 period. However, it does not relieve the employer and employee of the obligation to seek other ways to continue the reintegration as much as possible. Thus, remaining actively engaged with a sick employee is simply necessary even now.

After the Covid-19 period

Even after the Covid-19 period, the UWV will have to take into account WIA assessments that include a Covid-19 stagnation period. This means that even after this period the assessment must take into account the time during which the performance of reintegration activities was limited. The employer himself must actively motivate why and during which period the reintegration stagnated, if he expects the UWV to take this into account.

Advice to employer

Thus, the employer in the aforementioned example should simply contact an agency that would initiate the second-track process and continue discussions with the employee about reintegration work from home. The employer is also wise to inform the UWV of the temporary stagnation of the reintegration process when submitting the reintegration file. If the employer fails to do so, he will probably have to continue paying wages for longer.

Want to know more or have other questions about reintegrating sick employees? Feel free to call or email.