No sick pay -- can they do that???

Dormouse

Someone I know has just been offered a new job; however, the company have stated that one of the conditions is that during the first year of employment, the employee won't get paid sick pay.

Can they really do that??? Seems a bit unfair... :mad:

TIA

Broken_hearted

That sucks don't know if its legal someone with better knowledge will be along soon. Hugs

CIS

A company doesn't have to pay any sickpay in excess of statutary sick pay, which also means you wont get paid for the first 3 days of any sick period.

Dormouse

CIS wrote:

A company doesn't have to pay any sickpay in excess of statutary sick pay, which also means you wont get paid for the first 3 days of any sick period.

OK so does that mean that everyone gets SSP?

That encourages people taking off more time than needed, if you're not getting paid for the first 3 days... :rolleyes:

Bizarre.

CIS

Even people who get paid more their wages whilst sick get paid SSP.

My ex-employer usually paid you your wages with the SSP and did a counter deduction to offset the SSP against your wages.

Most, if not all employers who pay more than the basic SSP will run the same system.

I think it was Asda who stopped paying people for the first 3 days last year, one of the reasons was to cut sick leave and it also cuts the employers cost as they cant claim anything back for the first 3 days.

It also reduces the burden on the SSP system by reducing the payout the government needs to make.

McDuck

Dormouse wrote:

OK so does that mean that everyone gets SSP?

That encourages people taking off more time than needed, if you're not getting paid for the first 3 days... :rolleyes:

Bizarre.

Please explain this logic to me, I get presented with this 'fact' all the time, and I can never get my head round it.

My understanding is 1st three days are waiting days therefore no SSP. After that you receive the rate of c68 quid a week, if you come back to work (even at NMW) you get more!

Please explain so I understand why the system encourages people to take more time off.

trumpet_2

I believe if you have 3 days sick and go back to work for 2 days you will just get 2 days pay.
The company i work for only pays ssp no more, not fair when hard working employees are genuinely sick, but hey its only a 30 million pound company.

zzzLazyDaisy

Statutory Sick Pay is the money you are entitled to, by law, if you are off sick.

If a company chooses to pay its workers more than it is legally obliged to, that is great, but if they don't that is perfectly fair and legal.

Saying it is not fair because the company only pays what the employees are legally entitled to, is like saying it isn't fair that some companies only pay the minimum wage.

On the other hand, f you really think basic sick pay should be higher, you should lobby your MP for an increase in SSP

Mark7799

Seems quite correct - the last company I worked for didn't pay sick pay for anyone off in the first six months (SSP only)

dag_2

Can they really do that??? Seems a bit unfair...

Like CIS suggests, what it actually means is that you'll get SSP if you qualify for it - but that's it. No more. And yes they can do that.

Please explain this logic to me, I get presented with this 'fact' all the time, and I can never get my head round it.

There's actually two facts here.

The first is that you have to be off work for four calendar days in a row before you can qualify for SSP for any time off work. Each spell of absence that lasts for four calendar days or more is known as a "period of incapacity for work". Spells of absence that last less than four days are not counted.

If you have not been off sick for four or more days within the last eight weeks, then the first three days that you would normally have been at work are "waiting days". From the fourth day that you would have been in, you then qualify for SSP at a rate of 68 per week, like McDuck suggests. That means that if you normally only work one day a week, you have to wait three weeks before you qualify for SSP.

If you have been off sick for four or more days within the last eight weeks, then the waiting days that you had in your last "period of incapacity for work" (PIW for short) are counted out of your current PIW.

For example - if you normally work monday to friday, and last time you went off sick was on a friday and you came back on tuesday - then although you didn't get any SSP last time, you did serve two waiting days - Friday and Monday - therefore you only have to serve one more this time. If you actually received SSP for your last PIW, then you will have served all three waiting days already, so you will not have any more waiting days for your current PIW - you will start receiving SSP from day one.

PIW's that occur within eight weeks of each other are known as "linked" PIW's.

It's not just the waiting days that are affected by this - but also the 28 week limit. You can only get SSP for up to 28 weeks - and any SSP you've had in previous linked PIW's is counted out of this limit. However, once you've been back at work continuously for eight weeks - without going off sick for more than three days in a row - then the clock goes back to zero and you can get another 28 weeks SSP - though you have to serve another three waiting days too.

Just to clarify - since a period of absence of less than four days doesn't form a PIW, you never get SSP for absence of less than four days - but on the flip side, absences of less than four days can never be linked, and can therefore never affect the SSP you might get in subsequent absences. For SSP purposes, it's as though absences of less than four days don't exist at all.

Erm - is that making any sense?

Sorry if it sounds complicated, but it took me ages to get my head round this. I used to work for a big outsourced payroll bureau, and a nice man from the Inland Revenue popped over and explained all this one day.

From an employer's point of view, they can pay additional occupational sick pay - however, if they do, then they must make it clear in their own records how much sick pay is covered by the SSP scheme. That's because they can reclaim a fraction of the SSP they've paid, by offsetting it against national insurance payments to HM Customs and Revenue. But they must not muddle up the occupational and statutory, and reclaim for a larger amount of sick pay than that which is covered by the SSP scheme.

In other words, an employer who pays you occupational sick pay is not allowed to reclaim any more than they would have done if they had paid you only SSP.

I hope that's helping.

dag_2

Please explain this logic to me, I get presented with this 'fact' all the time, and I can never get my head round it.

Whoops - I've completely missed your point! I thought you wanted a clarification of the rules - oh well.

Anyway - personally, I do believe that the statutory sick pay system is set up in such a way that if a worker could choose between lots of short term absences, or a small number of long term absences, then they would choose the small number of long term absences.

However, most occupational scheme reporting procedures seem to exacerbate this. The post-absence interview, which many employers do but which is completely unnecessary for SSP purposes, is often about trying to prove that you're not a malingerer. If the thing that made you go off sick in the first place is in any way embarrassing (eg drugs, mental health, sexually transmitted diseases, or maybe you believe that you really are a malingerer) then the thought that you will be questioned about it might discourage you from returning earlier. Who's to blame for that? The government? Or the employer?

And besides - we're assuming that long-term sickness is a bad thing. From a staff planning point of view, it's a lot easier to manage staff with a small number of long-term absences than with a high number of short term absences. It's easier to plan - you know with a greater degree of certainty who's going to be in, and who isn't. Also, a high number of short term absences suggests underlying problems that aren't really being dealt with. Sometimes it's better that people take time out to deal with those problems properly, once and for all.

That's my 2p worth.