The person returning to work may need familiar tasks without unfamiliar expectations about their recovery.

Coming back after illness or loss puts a person under two kinds of pressure at once. There is the work itself, which they may be glad to have, and then there is everyone’s interest in how they are doing, which turns every corridor into a small update. Some want to talk about it and some want a few hours where nobody knows, and you cannot tell which from the outside.

Give returning colleagues something real to do rather than protecting them from everything. Ask once what they would like from you, then follow it. Let them raise the subject if they want it raised.