'Bradford Factor' with sickness..

whattodo02

Hi,
am after any advice on the 'bradford factor'.. here is the story..

My oh received his wage slip yesterday and it had -£219.. we had no clue why this had been deducted, so first thing this morning he phoned and enquired and apparently its because his 'bradford factor' score is low, he now doesn't not get any pay if he is off sick(unless off for over 4 days, then SSP comes into place)!?
He was off last year with depression and stress (lots of family problems) and i think due to this he now seems to pick up everything going, especially now our children are at school bringing home all sorts, tummy bugs and what not.. so yes he has been off sick, but only because he was sick and his job is a vehicle technician, which includes driving, so he cannot go in when ill, not only because he is being sick etc but because its not safe to drive and fix cars!!

So i just wondered where we go from here, if there's anything we can do.. they have said they 'apparently' sent out a letter at the end of November declaring this, but we have not received any letter, the first we knew about it was £200 pounds less wages this month..

Any ideas would be much appreciated,

TIA..

scooby088

Best thing to do is contact wages department..but my understanding of bradford factor is every incidence of sickness is given points. I think he should be given ssp for sickness but some companies don't pay sickness beyond a point set out in his contract of employment and i would suggest you refer to that as he may have used up his sickness entitlement.

Judith_W

At stated SSP only kicks in after 3 days so before that is company discretion. There should be more information in the employee handbook or a sickness policy you can look at.

heretolearn_2

Hi

They have a policy of discretionary sick pay and if they don't give it to people who have a lot of sickness after a certain amount, then that's their policy. They don't have to give anyone any company sick pay.

On the Bradford factor - this merely records the number of sickness periods and the number of days. The type of sickness is not relevant and it isn't any kind of judgement on whether they believe it was genuine or not. Employers cannot make that sort of judgement. All sickness is treated equally - if you go over the amount 'allowed' before action (whether that be removing company sick pay or a disciplinary, or both, according to their policies) that's all their is to it. Your OH shouldn't feel it's any kind of personal judgement on him. They aren't disputing his sickness is real.

Just that there are limits to how much companies will pay out in salaries for people who aren't working. This is why we have SSP.

Andy_L

The bradford factor/formula is a way of "scoring" absences from work. It weights lots of short absences more highly than 1 long absence under the theory that someone who has lots of 1 day sickness absences is likely to be taking the p1ss than someone who has, say, 2 weeks of in one block

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradford_factor

Uncertain

heretolearn wrote: »

They have a policy of discretionary sick pay and if they don't give it to people who have a lot of sickness after a certain amount, then that's their policy. They don't have to give anyone any company sick pay.

Well, we don't actually know that from what we are told here.

The OP's contract may well say that company sick pay is discretionary but it is worth checking carefully.

It may also be that he has a contractual right to a certain amount of sick pay according to a laid down formula.

It certainly wouldn't be the first time I've seen an HR department get this wrong. A common situation is that newer employees are on a different and/or tighter arrangement that longer serving staff and that the firm (deliberately or otherwise) applies this incorrectly.

whattodo02

Uncertain wrote: »

Well, we don't actually know that from what we are told here.

The OP's contract may well say that company sick pay is discretionary but it is worth checking carefully.

It may also be that he has a contractual right to a certain amount of sick pay according to a laid down formula.

It certainly wouldn't be the first time I've seen an HR department get this wrong. A common situation is that newer employees are on a different and/or tighter arrangement that longer serving staff and that the firm (deliberately or otherwise) applies this incorrectly.

I've tried to find it in his contract, but it says 'refer to (a certain) booklet' but can i find this booklet... no!! he has been working for the company for almost 10 years..

littleboo

As has been mentioned, the Bradford Factor is a way of measuring the impact of sick absences. You need to ask the company to provide the relevant policies. You should also check that the company has delivered on their obligations in the policies, ie return to work discussions, issuing attendance warnings etc

Evilm

Here is an easy reference table for what his bradford factor will be: http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/humrs/resources/Bardford%20Factor%20chart.pdf

(Ignore the colours as that is the organisations personal cut off - I'd love to have that cut off as my cut off is about 25 before the first " monitoring" discussion. His contract or company handbook should have the cut offs in it.