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Return to work interviews are effective in encouraging an expectation of a high attendance because you can:

• Find out far more information, face to face, about why an employee has been off work. You will obtain more information than if you relied on an employee’s self certificate or doctor’s medical certificate, such as early signs of stress-related absence or health and safety problems.
• Establish if there is an ongoing ill-health problem. You can find out early if you can offer help to prevent another unplanned absence or remove a barrier to the employee working at normal capacity (this might involve a reference to an Occupational Health Practitioner or a temporary adjustment to working arrangements, etc).
• Send a clear message to employees that you take absence seriously.
Return to work interviews are very effective in discouraging casual absence. They also give you a chance to check employees are fit to return to work, update them on what happened during their absence and let them know they were missed.

If you are not sure that they are fit to return, you should seek medical advice.