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

[Allnamestaken]

Exactly. Remember employers have a duty of care to their employees (the sick ones and those around them).

the colleague who left was given every possible opportunity to improve, change roles within the firm, work for different people. Nothing worked and (realistically in this instance) they were actually taking the **** and milking the system. It would be completely wrong for the firm to allow this employee to constantly rotate through stress related sickness absence.

I think we should have a statutory and fair amount of sick pay for every employee - say 5 days a year at full pay. Anything more should be covered by enhanced benefits where the employer chooses or SSP. Generous sick pay has created an environment where people take the **** and do not take responsibility for their actions.

Honestly this has more to do with poor management not being able to identify and take the proper steps to sack this person. Employers have many options including home visits etc.
It just seems like most places have bad policy.

Managing them out is pathetic, i get that you feel its warranted in this situation but like i said, if they are willing to manage out someone for this how do you know they have not managed people out for far less?

It's dangerous and when a company starts doing this sort of shady **** its never a good thing, everyone will suffer.

I mean let us call it what it ******* is, constructive dismissal.

 

[RandomMonkeH]

I think you both may be talking cross purposes. "Managing them out" = "Sacking them", just with extra steps.

You cannot dismiss a person outright for being ill. Even if it is blatently obvious they faking it.

What you can do is have an apropiate policy in place, provide them with support and every opporunity to adjust their working pattern to manage their sickness.
Put them on an agreed plan with targets, and only when they demonstrate they are consistenatly unable (cba) to do the work, show them the door.
That way you have eveidence you have acted as a responsible employer and mitigated any leverage they might have at a tribunal.

how do you know they have not managed people out for far less?
It's dangerous and when a company starts doing this sort of shady **** its never a good thing, everyone will suffer.

I mean no offence, but this happens quite a lot in most organisations most of the time...
At the end of the day it is a business. There are (and absolutley should be) certain legal protections for workers, and there is also whats morally correct and fair.
But you also have to consider that it is nobodies "right" to work there. Contracts can be changed. They are not obligated to provide employment, or to appoint the most suitable/qualified person for that matter.

TLDR - 90% of doing business involves shady **** somewhere along the line.

 

[Allnamestaken]

Does not make it right and if you are being being treated this way for whatever reason you must make sure to document it.

Don't get me wrong guys i get where you are coming from and yes an appropriate policy handles these things relatively well. It isn't difficult but i see all too often companies having lack luster sickness policies, so they are just not equipping their management to handle these issues correctly.

 

[Resident]

Where I work it's statutory for the first 6 months of employment then it's 75% of your hourly rate x 39 hours.

My sis in law works for the NHS and sick leave is absolutely abused.
It's full pay from day 1 of your "sickness" & lasts 6 months. One staff member in her unit managed to abuse it for 3 YEARS.
She went off with "stress", had 6 months off, came back and then 2 weeks later, having only worked 6 shifts, went off again for another 6 months, rinse and repeat for 3 years until HR cottoned on. The staff member in question was on 45k+ so not an insignificant cost to the NHS as they had to hire someone to cover her position.
SiL says sickness abuse is rife within the NHS as there's little comeback.

 

[OspreyO]

I've only had jobs that have been full pay but I've never taken the pee eg between 1988 and 2017 I never had one day off.

We had a manager who use to come in sick a lot, half infect half the office and both the manager and the staff they'd infected productivity would drop through the floor.

That manager had a perfect record attendance record too.

 

[Nasher]

"I've never had a day off", but made half the office sick a couple of times a year.

Our place sends people home if they are obviously ill.

 

[Sgt_Pepper]

When I started my job i used to get paid 5 full sick days a year by the company, if you didn't take any of them my boss would put an extra five days pay in with your xmas wage. That lasted for a good while then the recession hit and it was stopped. Those where the days.

 

[memyselfandi]

No idea what the policy is at the current place, I know it changes for me last week as I was at of the probation period.

Previous place you could self certify on full pay for 5 days before needing a doctors note. Then it was at least 6 months at full pay and then it dropped to 75% afterwards. If you were off for more than a month then the companies health insurance company got involved. If you used the stress word then occupational health got involved straight away. I had six weeks off with stress at the start of the year and it was all handled reasonably well by the above people ... my direct manager on the other hand was a complete **** and got in a great deal of trouble over it with occupational health.

The company had one of those bradford factor rolling 12 month point tot-up things to see if people were abusing the system. But whilst most of the people I knew didn't abuse things there was one guy who had managed to be off for years literally and probably would keep on being so until such time they worked out how to get rid of him.