Sacking for sickness

antw23uk

Hi all, hopefully I can get some guidance/ advise please.

I have a friend who runs a small grounds maintenance business with one client, a large business park. Its him and three staff.

All staff are PAYE but there is no written and therefore no signed contract for the staff. They know when to start and finish and when to go home, the friend isnt very business savvy and has kept things rather informal!

A new member of staff (just over three months) has very unacceptable levels of sickness and is being rather blatent about taking days off sick. For example she has exhausted all her paid holiday already so when she requested a day off it was denied ... she phoned in 'sick' instead!

My friend wants to let her go but he isnt sure how or if its just a case of saying thanks but no thanks, goodbye!?

I said I would ask around and he is going to ask his accountant for advise (she holds his hand whilst starting/ running this business and they are friends)

There is no contract, no written and signed rules and regulations for the staff but I've told him to hold fire for now because I'm worried she will bring up unfair dismissal in some way or something!
Thanks in advance

Oakdene

Someone else will be along soon to confirm or correct this but I think that unless you have been employed for more than 2 years your employer can sack you if they wish, as long as its not for something which can be viewed as discriminatory.

Undervalued

Oakdene wrote: »

Someone else will be along soon to confirm or correct this but I think that unless you have been employed for more than 2 years your employer can sack you if they wish, as long as its not for something which can be viewed as discriminatory.

Yes, that is correct although if the person has been employed for more than a month they are entitled to one week's statutory notice (unless their contract specifies more).

gettingtheresometime

Your friend may want to start being more formal with his attitude to employing staff.

It's all very well be a flexible employer (my hubby is one as well!) but when people start taking the proverbial he & the staff need something to refer to if disciplinary actions are needed.

antw23uk

gettingtheresometime wrote: »

Your friend may want to start being more formal with his attitude to employing staff.

It's all very well be a flexible employer (my hubby is one as well!) but when people start taking the proverbial he & the staff need something to refer to if disciplinary actions are needed.

Thank you all I will let him know and yes, agreed .. he is somewhat frustrating at the best of times! Think Ostrich and sand! :mad:

getmore4less

Friend needs to get on top of basic employment law and put some basics in place to make it clear what the particulars of employment are re pay holidays....

this concerns me.

A new member of staff (just over three months) has very unacceptable levels of sickness and is being rather blatent about taking days off sick. For example she has exhausted all her paid holiday already so when she requested a day off it was denied ... she phoned in 'sick' instead!

does said friend understand the rules for holidays?

In the absence of anything we can assume they are on statutory holidays 5.6 weeks per year.

if they have only worked there around 3 months lets say 4 by the time he sorts this out that would be 1.87 weeks, 9+1/3 days for a 5 day week worker.

if they have taken more than this they can deduct that from the notice pay.

One assumes they are not getting paid for the days off sick as SSP does not kick in till day 4.

I think the friend should plan an exit for this person with the intention to recover any overpayment.

I suspect the person might just stop tuning up when put on notice so recovery will be a problem but cutting the losses if they are unreliable may be worth it.

The other option is to recover all the overpayments from the next pay cycle(overpaid wages can be recovered without notice or agreement)

Then give notice and if they don't turn up then they don't get paid notice. That might salvage some money and they may just quit.

antw23uk

Thanks getmore4less

I should imagine he will just want to cut his losses and move on but I will certainly try and give him this advise, thank you.

From what I can tell I think she has literally worked for him for three months and been off for a month of that for various sickness/ holidays but I dont know all the details obviously.

He does need to get his act in gear and I will be pushing him to do this. I was pretty shocked when he said the staff didnt even have contracts!

getmore4less

They do have contracts just not written ones,

The problem is the actual contract will be combination of anything written(like a job advert/offer) and verbal like "you get X" , this leaves things wide open for missunderstandings

TBagpuss

Yes, he can dismiss her by giving her 1 weeks notice (or more if the contract, even if it is not formal, provided for more). He would be sensible to simply tell her that it is not working out, rather than explicitly referencing the sickness. It doesn't sound as though there is any suggestion that she has a disability (in which case it would be potentially discriminatory to dismiss her, if the reason for doing so was related to her disability) but bringing up her sickness might then make things a little awkward if she did then try to claim that it was due to disability or pregnancy.

Also, while it is not a strict requirement to have a written contract, employees must be given written particulars of their employment within 2 months of starting - https://www.gov.uk/employment-contracts-and-conditions/written-statement-of-employment-particulars.

He should make sure that he correctly works out whether she is owed anything for holiday pay accrued but not taken, and that he gives her the correct final pay.

And then he should get his act together and get proper written contracts / particulars, and a formal sickness policy put in place for future reference.

[Deleted User]

If there's any hope of riddance, the person could be job seeking and this might not even need be a worry to your friend with any luck.

I knew of a sick employee returnable with the this gift - they had found a much better paid and more convenient job and needed to leave immediately dispite the employer bending over back wards to the point where others were unable to take holiday.

How do these people do it. Granted it always happens to the face fits type of people.

Perhaps it's why we do need the referencing culture back, I see why now.

ohreally

Any disabilities at play?