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It was reasonable for an "empathetic" employer to propose disciplining a worker who failed to improve his poor attendance levels over several years, despite three absence management plans, a commission has found.

In mid-2018, Queensland's Metro South Hospital and Health Service began managing the nursing assistant's high absence rate, holding numerous meetings with him over the following 10 months.

The employer asked him to explore with his family some strategies that he and/or it could implement to reduce his absences to a "more acceptable level", but he was unable to identify any.

The employee subsequently signed an absence management plan (AMP), which would end if he demonstrated, at the end of a six-month period, that he had decreased his absences to the yearly award entitlement of eight days (or below 4%)...