No sick pay for six months!?

alfie64

My company dosent pay anything,ive been off sick after having major surgery and have to feed my family on SSP(hard work) and ive been with them for 6 years

McKneff

Our company pays after 6 months.
3 months on full pay and 3 months on half pay.

heretolearn_2

It's becoming increasingly normal for firms to offer SSP only, and no company sick pay.

We changed to this a couple of years ago. We used to give full pay, but we had a couple of staff who had terrible 'Mondaymorningitis' or would go sick for ridiculous reasons (inflamed nostrils, anyone?) and in a small firm and team it was causing too much loss of money and work time. So we switched to SSP only and our sick rates dropped.

Puddings

I'm amused by 'inflamed nostrils'.

Our company sick pay is not available during any probationary period (normally 3 months but can be extended) but then we get 8 weeks at full pay and 8 weeks at half pay in any 12 month rolling period.

Most companies I've worked for do not have any company sick pay policy although it tended to be at the managers discretion.

gingerdad

heretolearn wrote: »

It's becoming increasingly normal for firms to offer SSP only, and no company sick pay.

We changed to this a couple of years ago. We used to give full pay, but we had a couple of staff who had terrible 'Mondaymorningitis' or would go sick for ridiculous reasons (inflamed nostrils, anyone?) and in a small firm and team it was causing too much loss of money and work time. So we switched to SSP only and our sick rates dropped.

We don't pay sick pay above SSP in our company either - and our sick rates is next to nill.....

Mudd14

Same here, SSP only.

Uncertain

qetu1357 wrote: »

Is this the norm nowadays?

To get back to your original question I doubt if any of us can really answer this.

It is certainly not uncommon for there to be a "qualifying period" for company sick pay if it is offered at all.

The problem is, as demonstrated above, people tend to think that their experience is universal.

At least a qualifying period is clear cut. For me a bigger concern is the growing trend for company sick pay to be "discretionary" rather than a contractual right subject to certain conditions. This means an individual has no guarantee if they will get more than SSP or not. Few would insure their house with a company who said "if you have a fire well will pay out - providing we still like you"!

pinkshoes

People tend to be less sick when they only get SSP!!

Uncertain

pinkshoes wrote: »

People tend to be less sick when they only get SSP!!

Or they stagger into work when the shouldn't, make costly or dangerous mistakes and infect their colleagues.

Depends how you look at it really!

lisyloo

Or they stagger into work when the shouldn't, make costly or dangerous mistakes and infect their colleagues.

This is an important point.
My employer used sick pay as a redundancy criteria.
Since then I used to struggle into work, even if I did nothing all day and had to lie down all day in a side room.

What is the point in that?

I do agree with people taking too many sick days if they are well re-imbursed, but the converse is also true.
Either people can struggle in and do nothing all day or spread their germs.
Also sometimes it better to take 1 or 2 days off and recover properly rather than spend 10 working days at 50% productivitiy.

I work in an office so it's ok to be snotty and snively, but I would not be impressed if I went to a bank or supermarket and someone was snively and sneezing their germs all over the place.

I think it works both ways.