Sir Charlie Mayfield, the government-appointed back-to-work expert leading the Keep Britain Working taskforce, has a radical proposal for the nation's workforce: when you're off sick, actually talk to your boss. On the phone. With your voice. Like it's 1997.

His latest report argues that health-related economic inactivity is costing Britain around £212m a year in benefit payments and lost output. Getting bosses and workers to have an actual conversation, rather than simply exchanging emails and sicknotes, could help get people back into work, Sir Charlie said on Wednesday.

To be clear, the report does not demand that someone struck down by flu croak through their symptoms over the phone, nor does it require bosses to provide down-the-line sickbed sympathy if an employee is off with food poisoning. "I'm not worried about a day here and a day there. It is more about longer term issues," Sir Charlie told the BBC's Today Programme.

But he said Britain was doing a "poor job" of handling sickness in the workplace, leading to more people becoming disengaged and dropping out altogether. "I have met so many people who have said to me, 'You know, I was signed off sick and I was off sick for a month, two months, three months, and I had almost no contact with my employer,'" Sir Charlie said.

Around 300,000 people leave work every year with a health condition, much of which is preventable, the report said. Sir Charlie noted that employees sometimes fear talking about long-term health issues with their employer. "But the fear is also felt by employers as well because they're afraid of causing offence or creating a complaint or a grievance," he added.

Fear on both sides can create distance and lack of understanding, he warned, with longer absences making it much more likely a worker will drop out of the labour force altogether. "If you can keep more people in work, there's a massive opportunity for us to add billions to the economy and, frankly, to people's livelihoods," Sir Charlie said. "To get that, though, you need to have people talking to each other, and you've got to more actively manage sickness and ill health in the workplace."

The report calls for more workplace support, external support for people with health conditions and disabilities, and the establishment of a Workplace Health System alongside the NHS. Other ways for bosses to support staff include ensuring access to treatments such as physiotherapy and talking therapies, he said. Improving communication was also a way to "rehumanise" the workplace and help prevent people dropping out of work altogether, Sir Charlie said.

So there you have it: the solution to Britain's sickness crisis is apparently a phone call. Employers need to do more, he said, and employees need to engage with it. Groundbreaking stuff.