Going home sick

[Jacksonln]

As a small business we only offer statutory sick pay. I'm aware that if an employee comes into work and later goes home sick this cannot count as a sick day. What isn't clear is what are the pay obligations. Do we have to pay for the full day, or do we just pay for the hours worked, what is reasonable?
Thanks

 

[ethical PR]

What does it say in your employment contract?

 

[Jacksonln]

Nothing about part days. The standard clause of days 1-3 inclusive are unpaid, day 4 is paid at SSP. But as law says part days do not count as a sick day this doesn't help me.

 

[Jacksonln]

Sorry, meant to say thank you for your reply!

 

[ethical PR]

No worries. Have you had a look at the ACAS website or called their hotline?

 

[Jacksonln]

I have searched all over the web but cannot seem to find anything. Thank you for the advice.

 

[Newchodge]

How is the employee normally paid? Are they paid a standard weekly or monthly wage, or are they paid by the hour?

 

[Jacksonln]

Morning. They are annualized salary, paid monthly.

 

[Newchodge]

then I would suggest that you pay hem normally for the day they went home.

 

[Jacksonln]

Thank you. That would have been my suggestion, but I am not convinced I will be able to convince Management of this. If we decided to pay half a day and then the afternoon is unpaid leave, is there anything legally wrong with this?

My other thoughts are - if the company always pays a full day regardless of time in the building are we a) encouraging presenteeism, b) giving staff an easy way of taking a days paid leave c) being unfair to those staff who live further away as more effort is required of them to show their face if they are unwell and d) related to the last point, encouraging staff to take unnecessary risk by encouraging them to try and make it into the office when they are ill. Just a thought. It just seems to me that sometimes a company trying to be fair to staff can sometimes be the opposite and have cause more potential problems.

 

[Newchodge]

If there is nothing in the contract, other than saying that sick pay is limited to SSP, then you may be creating a problem for yourself. If you paid hourly, the it would be easy to say that you have paid for the hours worked. As you pay monthly salary it is harder to do this. What would happen, for example, if there were appalling weather and the member of staff was allowed to leave early to ensure a safe return home. Would you pay them then?

I think you are in danger of over-thinking the issue with the various problems you foresee. If a member of staff got into the habit of coming in and then immediately claiming to be unwell, it would be a management matter. A one-off, which this obviously is, as you don't know how to deal with it, is not yet an issue.

 

[Jacksonln]

Thank you for your response Cyndy - much appreciated!

 

[Krystsina]

This is the exact reason why we come up with the new contracts for our employees: now they get paid by the hour instead of previously by month. It made our lives much easier: you worked X hours, you got paid for X hours.