MONEY ISSUES AND SICK PAY!

Statutory Sick Pay (SSP)

This is paid for a maximum of 28 weeks and you can get £95.85 per week Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) however, employees must wait for

3 days when first going sick before they qualify for payment.

Not wishing to make life simple, there are also a few complexities with SSP such as linked periods and exclusion of staff earning less than the lower earnings limit. As these are complex areas, we recommend you seek advice from payroll or finance should any of your employees ask you about them.

Company Sick Pay

Unlike SSP, the rules for company sick are entirely at your discretion. Most organisations include details in the contract or staff handbook and ideally some guidance is given by the organisation in terms of how much should be paid to a sick member of staff, how long it should be paid for and when, if at all, you have the discretion to withhold payment for whatever reason.

TIP: if your organisation has operated to date with "well known" rather than written policies, perhaps now would be a good time to get it down on paper.

There are a couple of things to take in account with regards to company sick pay:

1) If you decided to use your discretion and pay part or all their salary whilst they are off, be careful about setting precedents, as you may not want to be bound to paying other staff whilst off on long term sickness. Why not make a note on their files as to the thought processes behind paying this member of staff for their length of service, previous attendance record, their combination to the business, their seniority etc. This should help you avoid setting any unwanted precedents.

2) Don't let a situation creep up on you. You might decide to keep on paying their normal salary when they have only offer for a week, but if you don't keep this under review, their pay may unintentionally continue for months on end.