Sick Pay

[printerbase]

I am just setting up a contract for a new employee and was looking for some advice concerning sick pay.
I know after 3 days the employee is only entitled to statutory sick pay (SSP) but what about if the employee is only off sick for 2-3 days ?

Should I just not pay them ? Give them full pay ? Or state that after 12 months service they will be paid full pay for the 1st week of sickness and then SSP ?

I am worried that an employee could have lots of single days of sick when they felt like it, I wanted to discourage this by not paying them but is that fair ? or am making the employee feel I don’t trust them ?

Any advice gratefully received.

Peter

 

[gj]

Hi Peter

I asked a good friend of mine, Angela Rhodes about this. She is an HR consultant and she said the following:

"It is increasingly common, particularly in small businesses, not to pay employees at all during periods of "sickness" apart from their statutory right to receive Statutory Sick Pay. It is seen by some as a little unfair so a good compromise may be that there will be no payment for periods of absence due to sickness during the probationary period (or first twelve months as you suggest) and then payment will be made for a total of a certain number of days in any rolling twelve month period.

If you require any assistance in drafting your contract of employment or any other employment issues please contact [email protected] who would be pleased to help you."

I have decided to change my own policy in sick pay - it is clear that some staff have a lot more time off in terms of the odd day here and the odd day there than some of the other staff. They may genuinely ill more, or they may take the day off at the slightest litlle "snivel", or they may be throwimg a "sickie". Whatever it is, I feel it unfair on the staff who do not have much time off that thoses who do get paid full pay.

It is bad enough the disruption to the workload etc as a result of staff absence, without paying them for not being there.

This is a significant shift in my thinking - I used to think it was only fair to pay people even if they were off ill, but we have had a number of staff over the last few years who seem to have a disproportionate amount of time off. I do not have the time or inclination to try to work out whether it was a genuine sickness or not - so it seems simpler to me now to only pay people if they are working, obviously subject to payment statutory sick pay.

Regards


Graham

 

[Ozzy]

I experienced the same issue as Graham a couple of years back .. and then foudn that the member of staff was taking sick days off to go help a friend in his own business now and again!

I adopt the following policy...
No sick pay during first 3 or 6 month probation period (depending on position).
After that no sick pay for 1st day sick, then next 9 working days at full pay. After that statutory sick pay.

If the staff member is off work for more than a week they have a "back to work interview" to ascertain what the problem was and if we can do anything help.
If the staff members manager feels that excesive time off has been taken they can hold the "back to work interview" at any time. Again this is to ascertain if the company can help in any way.

Funny enough this policy made a significant reduction in the number of the odd sick days taken here and there

 

[shuv]

Hi,

I think the answer depends largely on how you want to attract people to your business, what you can afford and how you want to retain any employees.

The fact that you are concerned about only paying SSP implies that you don't feel it is the right thing to do. However, in my experience, what you offer in pay, usually aligns with how much sickness an individual takes.

Tell me more about your thinking and I will help you establish a scheme that meets your needs.

Do you have just one employee or more?
How dependant are you on the employee?
Do you want to pay for short-term absence or long-term e.g. heartache?
Do you want to retain the employee or would you need to replace them quickly if they were off sick for a period?

Talk to me!
Siobhan
[email protected]

 

[printerbase]

Thanks everybody for your advice and sharing your experiences!

I will probably go down the root of no sick pay during probationary period and then no pay for the first day and then either one or two weeks full pay and then SSP.

It seems quite hard to get a good balance between being fair and not leaving yourself open to abuse.

Does anybody know if it is legal to have different sickness policies for different employees ? or must every employee have the same rights ?

At the moment being a small growing company I have a core of employees who I need to retain and keep happy and perhaps give them the benefit of improved sick pay but if I take more people on perhaps I don't need to offer these the same benefits.

Peter

 

[shuv]

You could have different sick schemes as long as their is an objective and non-discriminatory reason why. For example, you may have more favourable schemes for managers than employees in order to compete for employees in the market.

Whatever you decide, make sure you do not end up in a situation where you are deciding who to give more favourable terms to as you will be very exposed to discrimination claims and the equal pay act if for example , your male staff end up with a better scheme than you female. i would advise you to stick to one scheme until such time as you have clear distinct "levels of staff" whose terms attract a certain scheme.