Is this legal in employment?

[Isthebusstillrunning]

An hourly paid job that has a 'bonus rate' attached to the hourly rate. Paid monthly, each month you'll be paid the bonus rate as long as you aren't off sick. If you're sick or absent, you'll lose the bonus rate.
Aibu to think this is not legal? It's punishing people for being sick.
Ofc there are always people who take the piss and skive sometimes but we're human, sometimes we are unwell and it cannot be helped.
I find it outrageous and have never heard this before.

Thank you, that is reassuring.

It's still a shite policy though

But they’re not asking for 100%, because they’ve split it down month to month. So you can still be genuinely sick or take the piss sometimes and still get the bonus in other months.

The thing is, there’ll be someone monitoring the impact of the policy. Like the PP who said if they lost the bonus, then in that month they’d stay off longer. Some like the me of the 90s will be doing the stats on that. Like if you see a pattern that average sick duration is 3 days, except when day 3 is 1st of the month 😉 So they’ll be calculating the increase in sickness vs the decrease.

Then why employ you at all?

If you are contracted to be paid the non bonus amount then it is perfectly legal. You receive a bonus for “hitting the target”, whether that target is 100% attendance or 50 sales a day every day for a month. There will be people that aim for 100% attendance to achieve the bonus and people that don’t particularly care about the bonus so take time off as and when they want. So long as you’re still receiving your contractual pay for the hours you work I don’t see the problem.

The way I see it (same as others here) is that you get paid for your hours worked, if you've worked all your shifts / days then you get a bonus. Same as other bonuses, it shouldn't be relied upon - it's a bonus!
Anyway, you question was is it illegal? It's not. And judging by your comments on this thread you are not willing to accept YABU.

I don't need to 'accept' anything, thanks.
I said, if it's legal, fair enough. I guess you missed that.
Doesn't mean I have to agree with it.

Always find it so weird how people on here think you have to agree with every single post. No, I don't, people are allowed to disagree.

I don't see how it's any different from unpaid leave for grief, or ssp? In both you're losing your normal wage?

And just to annoy you more. I think ssp is zero money for the first 4 days

You're more likely to pick up a sickness bug where people are incentivised to come into work even when sick. This factor in itself would piss me off.

I can guarantee some of these posters rushing to tell me how unreasonable I am and being all snippy being would hate it if it happened in their job 😂

I remember when the new sickness policy was brought in at the care home I worked in. It stated that we would get called to a meeting and have a ‘warning’ if we had 3 or more sick days in 6 months. I questioned what would happen for those of us with long term health conditions. I got told that I was out of order for daring to question the policy as I had embarrassed the regional manager for asking in the staff meeting (!) and if I didn’t like it, leave. So I did!

And another job which paid a sick bonus. I also thought it was discriminatory against those with chronic conditions/disabilities; but again was told that is just how it is 🙄

As I haven't had a day off sick for about 3 or 4 years, I wouldn't complain.

It's. A. Bonus.

How is it punishing people for being sick, exactly? It's an incentive.
If you didn't get a bonus because you'd failed to meet targets would you whine that you'd been punished for not working hard enough?

It's pretty outdated. They are encouraging presenteeism - valuing physical presence over productivity. Someone sick at work won't deliver as much than if they were well, but they get their bonus anyway. It's counter productive.

And it undermines wellbeing in the workplace.

Clearly it's been a systemic issue in your place of work for this type of policy to be drafted at all, but there are many other, fairer, ways to deal with it than this.

So no, YANBU.

often salaries are made up of base pay and benefits.
in my previous job base pay was a fraction above minimum wage. added was perfomance bonus, attendance bonus, contribution to dc school/nursery, holiday pay etc.

I know of somewhere that offers £600 bonus once you have passed 6 month probation

If you have sickness in any of the months you loose £100

If it takes you 8 months to pass probation you still get the £600 or minus £100 for any month you had sickness

If I'm honest, if there was a monthly bonus/thank you for not being off sick I'd grab it!! I'm still getting paid my basic If I need a sick day so I'm not worse off

have it our place. it's 3 percent of your salary paid at Xmas. it's quiet rigid even if you take one hour sick you loose the full amount. get what your saying especially after covid it seems very harsh. however i will say it's a nice payment at Xmas time. I very lucky haven't had to take time off sick. it would have been in place in a few places I worked in but would have been a percentage of the amount of time you were off sick in previous jobs. not illegal and quiet common in production factories here

‘Punishing people for being off sick’? 😂😂😂
It’s actually ’rewarding people for attending work everyday they are scheduled’.

Not sure what’s illegal about it🤔😂

Honestly. I’d love it! I’m paid to go to work. An extra bonus would be exactly that a bonus!
In the 2.5 years I’ve been in my current role, I’ve had 5 days sick, that was five consecutive days. So the other 29 months I’d have received a bonus. Sounds good to me!
I guess it’s only an issue to people taking an odd day regularly.

I wish my work would do this.

Most staff are employed to do 4 x 12 hr shifts a week, constantly changing but always making sure that you're rostered to do your fair share of weekends.
However, the "sickness" rate is horrendous - amongst the younger staff - who will often be ill for one or two shifts then simply pick up cover shifts the same week (for others who are "sick").
This basically means that they are picking and choosing their shifts, without losing money but leaving the place short on the weekends or the 4th shift in a row that's they're down for (happens on occasion that schedules end up with no free days between)
I and a small handful of others never miss a shift unless absolutely and utterly necessary and all we get for it is getting slammed, trying to keep up with work on the less desirable shift days with less than a skeleton crew. I wouldn't mind getting a bonus for actually making the effort to attend work when work schedule me.

I wonder if this bonus incentive has come about to tackle this type of issue and not actually to punish those who are genuinely ill.

Legal. I worked in a school where the pay was marginally (2.5.%) below the standard teacher wage but if you didn’t have more than 2 days off per term or 5 over the year you got a 5% bonus.

I’d hate that! But actually I very very rarely get sick so I would be getting a bonus!! Woohoo!

Anyway, OP you need to reset this in your mind as you get your base pay and some months you’ll get a bonus.
And yes this isn’t how I get my bonus paid (it’s performance based), BUT it’s made clear that it (my bonus) is discretionary and I can also do a very good job and still not get paid 100% bonus (as money needs to be kept for the highest performers).

So I kind of see it along those lines… both of us are not going to get it all (and it doesn’t matter if we agree or disagree with it).

I'd love it if I were paid a bonus for not being off sick. It would also make up for the extra work when colleagues are off-sick.