Can my employer do this? Is this even legal?

[Stroggle]

have the first 3 days sickness unpaid? Then ssp? So if I get a sickness bug I’m going to lose 2 days pay? I’ve never encountered this and I’ve worked in some Mickey Mouse places

I started a new job recently ( left again, as my old firm offered me a job ) and they had no sick pay for six months , I was astonished too.
When you looked at your details on their system, it said 0 sick days entitlement.
I hadn’t worked for a firm like this for 20 years.
And again the firm is a national large company, who in other ways is very good to its staff

Then you call HR and ask before signing the contract and giving it back to them.

It’s also not your employers fault that you are ill either.
Having been an employer ( small business) I tended to pay a few single days sick, I think it was 4-5per year but once they had used those days for the rest of the year they were not paid for the first 3 days of any subsequent illness.
Basically it gave them 5 “hangover recovery “ days. The single days off were always Mondays or Fridays.
One of the reasons that the NHS is on its knees is down to their generous sickness pay.

My old old employer offered either 5 or 10 days (I can’t quite recall, as I never took near the entitlement) my old offered 2 (I took both) and now it’s 1. I have 2 young children, who both seem to pick up every seasonal bug and get sent home. No family around for childcare. Not a situation I’d ever attempt to abuse but 1 day (actually 2 days too) isn’t sufficient

My current company pays 5 sick days in full per year. They don’t advertise it though, I only found out a year after I started because I was friendly with someone who covered that payroll. Everywhere else I worked only offered SSP.

Well you're legally entitled to SSP so your employers are breaking the law.

I had and was told the policies are on the HR system. I asked about maternity and normally that is my barometer on how a company treats its employees, specifically women and parents. It was less than I had before but not the minimum so again this is surprising

Employers are required by law to list details of sick pay in the contract of employment.

I work for quite a well known company- first 6 months no sick pay, then a week only until you’ve been there 2 years. Then only 2 weeks. Once you’ve been there for 5 years you get 4 weeks.
When I was looking for a new job I think there has been a change as most jobs seemed similar.

This. It's such a bizarre attitude. I work in HR (self employed now, thank fuck) and you can IMMEDIATELY tell how crap an employer is if they say "well if we offer better sickness benefits people will take the piss".

My husband gets 6 months sick, full pay. Private sector.

It says it’s listed in the policies as laid out on the hr systems on the internal intranet which may be subject to change or modification it does not specify what the actual policy is in the contract

In my company we go straight to 3 weeks paid sick leave in any rolling 12-month period (SSP only after that) as soon as the 6 months probation is up.

It's a pretty generous policy for sick leave.

My old old employer offered either 5 or 10 days (I can’t quite recall, as I never took near the entitlement) my old offered 2 (I took both) and now it’s 1. I have 2 young children, who both seem to pick up every seasonal bug and get sent home. No family around for childcare. Not a situation I’d ever attempt to abuse but 1 day (actually 2 days too) isn’t sufficient.

Surely you should be using parental leave to look after your children when they are off sick, or annual leave.

Good for him

Yes I was on that system for years.I get paid sick leave now thankfully

This is technically legal - as in, they can get away not giving particulars in the contract as long as they tell you where to find it, but subject to change is utter bollocks, as they would need to consult to make any contractual changes, and sick pay counts as contractual, however the contract is worded.

I'm on your side, if you hadn't noticed, OP.

Parental leave in my old company was defined as something else, getting sent home from school fell under what they deemed emergency leave. Same here but there is no dependents leave or parental leave policy (aside from 18 weeks unpaid)

annual leave policy states It needs to be booked in advance of the absence

You can use annual leave or lieu time to cover those first 3 days if required?

This really isn't that generous.

My previous job was SSP. Even when 11 of us were off with covid that we caught from one of the children in our care all we got was SSP.

new work which is LA pays for being off sick and I do think some people take the piss. Out of a staff team of 30 people I think there has only been 2 or 3 who havent phoned in sick this year!

Well then they should be dealt with individually. I'm so sick and tired of seeing substandard employers try to deal with pisstakers by putting in policies detrimental to the entire workforce, just because they can't be arsed to actually manage people.

i had, and 6 months full pay is good! It’s what I got in my old place.

Yes, I'm in a job with same sick pay condotions and people even talk about their sick days entitlement. It makes my blood boil and I find it hard to be civil to them. It was brought in to prevent financial hardship with good intentions but is abused and mocked. The sense of entitlement is staggering.