Poll: How much do you think sick pay should be?

How much do you think sick pay should be?

  • No pay

    Votes: 12 5.9%
  • Statutory sick pay

    Votes: 16 7.8%
  • Half pay

    Votes: 27 13.2%
  • Full pay

    Votes: 139 67.8%
  • Other (specify)

    Votes: 11 5.4%

  • Total voters
    205
Joined
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This thread is off the back of the Beeb running a story today about employees who feign sick and thus take sick leave more often than they should do.

Can we have a poll please Dons? :)

1. No pay
2. Statutory sick pay
3. Half pay
4. Full pay

I've worked in places where it's been no pay, half and full. Casual jobs / 6th form etc was zero pay and we just covered each other and swapped shifts.

Personally, I think that half pay works the best. Place I used to work for, private sector computer company. What you had left were those who took the average 3-5 days off per year for D&V and flu etc. For hospital appointments, full pay was still given as long as you showed your appointment letter. For GP appointments you just worked your time back.

Another good idea I think is the company that my friend works for, customer services, again private sector. Sick is full pay, but any absences over a certain trigger point per year and you lose your annual bonus. I think that's a good incentive because again it just leaves you with the people who take 3-5 days off. Anything more serious like an operation or a bad injury, would be manager's discretion as long as you showed your papers and it wouldn't count towards the trigger point.

Then there is public sector (NHS and the MOD) where you get full pay for 6 months. One of my colleagues goes off for stress virtually every year, sometimes twice. It's always 4 weeks off, then 4 weeks phased return. Plus, she only works 3 days a week to begin with and gets 41 days annual leave pro-rata! Meanwhile, there are 3 full-timers with the same job spec and they manage fine. In another department, someone played the stress card again, took 6 months on full pay. Shortly after it switched to half pay, she returns. Bleeding obvious! It always seemed to be the stress card yet we worked in fairly cushy admin jobs.

What are your thoughts and what are your usual sick pay arrangements?

My current arrangement: I'm still public sector, but we have a good track record now. Me + 2 colleagues have the same role. One of them had 4 days off in the past year, so not too bad. Then me and the other one had zero in the past year, but we've both had a cold at some point and we were allowed to just work from home. This helped us to get better quicker and not pass germs around. At the same time, we still put in the hours and doesn't get counted as an absence. It also means less paperwork and manager's time not being wasted with back-to-work interviews etc.
 
Soldato
Joined
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6,358
The place i work they do pay full rate up to a certain amount of weeks then after that period it drops,What to i dont know as ive never been off long term,But imo i think this system works okay,Sure we get the odd few people who pull a sicky day and forget and slip up so we know they were lying about been ill that day,but i think this happens in every work place tbh.

i dont agree with no pay because if your genuinely ill i dont think more stress should be put on you about not been paid.
 
Soldato
Joined
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Location
Nottingham
When I had my company it was contractually statutory but with the option of full pay on a case by case basis. It was never abused though and we paid full pay every time.
 
Soldato
Joined
5 Aug 2004
Posts
2,691
If it's a few days then no pay, use your holiday entitlement to cover it, that's what I've always done. Increase SSP value but also extend threshold for it to activate so that only the genuinely sick receive it and the dossers who want a week off sick get nothing.
 
Associate
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2,209
Full pay for 6 months saved me a lot of stress while i was off ill this year, working in education.
After than half pay for whatever...

Folk do take the **** but then its up to managers and doctors to sort this out and deal with people that are blatantly being asshats. I can assure you i was off for something a little more than some admin person under "stress"...
 

SPG

SPG

Soldato
Joined
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10,231
Full pay, if you are off more than 5 works days in a row you require a Dr`s note then its down to company discretion. Minimum for me is 3 months, but then its company discretion.

If you trigger an abuse level of the system then it the above gets removed, then you lose sick pay benefits which has happend to some our staff, then 6 out 10 they leave..some folk just lack moral fibre.
 
Soldato
OP
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Quite a range of answers there guys :)

Post #6 about using holiday pay does sound a little bit harsh but I guess it depends on how many holiday days you get off per year. If you only get the statutory minimum (20 days + 8 bank holidays) and you had to take 4 of them off as sick, then that's quite a big chunk out of the 20 days. Kinda equally as bad was a private sector firm I used to work for gave us the minimum 20 days, but we also had Christmas shutdown which automatically knocked off 5 days. This meant that we could only take 3 full weeks off for the rest of the year.
 
Man of Honour
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I think it should be dealt with on a case by case basis. Claims that the existence of fraud by some people justifies not having sick pay for any people are just dishonest excuses. I'd rather have a company be honest and say "Go die in a ditch, peasant". Same thing, just expressed honestly. I think a better way to deal with fraud is to at least attempt to deal with fraud rather than dismissing all cases because some cases might possibly be fraudulent. Imagine if insurance companies never paid out on any claims because some claims are fraudulent.

It bothers me to see people unable to have medical treatment that would significantly improve their lives because they can't afford to go without an income while the treatment is being done. I think that should bother everyone.

Half pay is useless for low-paid jobs because it's not survivable. Again, "go die in a ditch, peasant" would be better due to being honest. It's also counter-productive even from a genuinely sociopathic point of view because it results in people with contagious diseases coming to work, being unable to work effectively and infecting other people. It also results in injured people coming into work and worsening their injuries. Both those scenarios end up costing the employer more than paying minimum wage sick pay for a short period of time would.

I'm wary of simple answers to complex questions.
 
Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2012
Posts
8,332
It's a real tricky one.

My current job it's full pay unless your off for months, combined with the ultimate in flexi time and decent holidays, so there's not much motivation to take sick days unnecessarily, even when I am sick If something needs done urgently I'll come in and get it done (then go home and feel sorry for myself).

But the reality is that kind of scenario is very open to taking the Mick and I can certainly understand why it's not a normal state of affairs. It's a shame because if you could trust people to be honest then you could be more lenient for the genuine cases rather than forcing people to go into work with the flu and infect everyone rather than get a disciplinary.
 
Associate
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Depends if we are talking about short term sickness or longer term sickness due to a major illness.

Personally my employer pays up to 10 days at full pay for short term sickness. However there are a number of trigger points to keep people in line. Technically you could hit a trigger after just 3 days sickness.

Longer term sickness they will pay full pay for up to 1 year officially. However someone at work was out due to cancer and they paid full pay for almost 20 months, then offered an additional 3 months phased return to work.

I have no doubt that there are some people who abuse the system, especially with short term sickness however they are the exception rather than the rule.
 
Soldato
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last place I worked was no pay for the first 1-3 (not sure...wasn't a job with any prospects) days then moved to full pay but you'd need a 'sickline' for anything more than 7 (calendar) days, not sure when it moved to a lower rate after that
 
Soldato
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Are we talking short term oer long term? For the short term I think it depends upon your role and should be part of the remuneration package. If you're an easily-replaced minimum-wage erk then it should be the statutory sick pay; if you're a highly skilled professional and a critical part of the team then full pay would not be unreasonable. For the long term, I don't know.
 
Soldato
Joined
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Posts
9,595
Full pay. Sure some people play the system but if you are ever in a situation where you are off properly sick the last thing you want is the stress of money worries.

A pay penalty also means people will come in when they shouldn't and just spread it to everyone else.

Lastly as the bbc article states in some situations employers bring it upon themselves by having no flexibility for workers when they need it.

Still I'm sure it wont be long until employers will require access to your Fitbit / apple watch / latest health gizmo logs to verify your sickness :eek:
 
Soldato
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A pay penalty also means people will come in when they shouldn't and just spread it to everyone else.

This. If I didn't get paid when sick then I'd be in the office regardless of my fitness to work. I might not get any work done, take longer to recover, and infect everyone else, but at least I'd be there getting paid.

However as it is, I chose a decent employer, so I can take a few days rest to recover properly.
 
Caporegime
Joined
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Posts
58,898
Should be full pay for a few weeks really - covers things like suddenly having your appendix removed, or perhaps catching some serious DnV etc.. also covers people with chronic conditions that might be acute at times and need time off... without needing so much time off that it becomes unfeasible to employ them.

6 moths off for stress... jog on tbh... they're taking the Mickey and there is a reason why they're in the public sector and will happily stay in that public sector job.

I can totally understand a GP saying to someone they need to take 2 weeks off now and doing that either from their holiday allowance or from 2 weeks signed off sick... and that also being a flag to management to perhaps review whether they do need more staff/have they given this person too much work or perhaps is this person in the wrong job, isn't very competent at it (thus the stress) and needs a PIP/chance to improve but also potentially getting rid of them 6 months down the line if others are able to cope with a similar level of work.... obviously with that option the PIP in itself can then be a trigger for more stress so perhaps a frank conversation is needed too and an explanation that they're willing to support the person improve but also they're open to them perhaps moving to a different role they might be better suited to.
 
Soldato
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United Kingdom
Are we talking short term oer long term? For the short term I think it depends upon your role and should be part of the remuneration package. If you're an easily-replaced minimum-wage erk then it should be the statutory sick pay; if you're a highly skilled professional and a critical part of the team then full pay would not be unreasonable. For the long term, I don't know.

This. Depends on your role.
 
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