Nav sharpens sick-leave duty to work as much as possible

Sick-listed employees are now told, as a duty rather than advice, to work as much as they can: while the old page said you should work a little if you canNAV, the revised page says you shall work as much as you canNAV, adding that full or partial work can speed recovery and that a full working day is not required. The employer keeps the duty to adapt the job as far as possible so the employee can stay fully or partly at work, and the employee keeps the medvirkningsplikt — the duty to say what they can and cannot do so the absence lasts no longer than necessary.

The sharper change sits in the 8-week aktivitetskrav. The page previously said the requirement means being active if you can, for example working some or taking part in treatment such as consultations, medication or other help from health personnel.NAV It now says the requirement means being active if you can, for example working some or taking part in arbeidsrettede tiltak i regi av Nav.NAV Treatment is no longer named in the page's examples of qualifying activityNAV; the examples now point at work and Nav's work-oriented measuresNAV. Nav monitors whether the person is active and asks for more information when needed.

Refusing to cooperate still carries the same sanction. A sick-listed person who without reasonable cause refuses to take part in follow-up or to try adaptation can lose the right to sick payNAV, and the same applies to refusing offers the statute lists — treatment, rehabilitation, work adaptation and work trials, or work-oriented measures — as well as to skipping the follow-up plan, the dialogue meetings or the work-related activity itselfLovdata. Medical reasons that clearly prevent activity, and workplaces where work-related activities cannot be carried out, remain the exceptions.

The surrounding rules are unchanged: partial sick leave can be graded down to 20 per cent within the 52-week maximum; the employee and employer draw up a follow-up plan within four weeks and hold the first dialogue meeting within seven weeks at full sick leave; Nav joins the second dialogue meeting within 26 weeks and assesses work-oriented measures at the latest when the sick-pay period ends.

Legal basis is folketrygdloven §§ 8-7 a and 8-8 on follow-up and the member's duty to take part in work-related activity, reported through Nav's guidance for sick-listed employees.