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

@MsCactus wait until you find out that if you earn less than £123 per week you don’t even qualify for ssp - you get a big fat zero pounds. (Unless you have a generous employer who’s sick pay is above mandatory minimum ssp)

That would be the government's fault

To me it’s utterly shocking

the industry standard is income protection, CIC, LI, DiS, 6 months Mat pay, 38 hols, esp at my level, 10% + match pension- I’m really shocked at reading these policies

This is such complete bollocks, because when you're doing recruitment if someone has a history of moving from job to job after 3 months or whatever then they just don't get hired. It's an invented scenario. I work in HR and never come across it.

Disagree. There needs to be an easy out for both employer and employee if it isn't working.

Under 2 years service there is always an easy out, certainly for the employer.

Of course they don't because they won't get the decent sick pay unless they stick somewhere. That's the point.

You just said you'd get people going from job to job just to obtain the sickness benefits. That would flag up in recruitment. And it never does.

No you wouldn’t, you might get one or two that take the piss but you deal with that on an individual level.

for instance I took 2 days sick last year and none in my probation despite being entitled to pay

I said "otherwise"

The concept of dealing with issues on a case by case basis is utterly alien to so many employers. So many have literally no idea how to actually manage people.

But you don't. I work in an industry where generous sick benefits from day one of employment are the norm, and it simply doesn't happen. It's a fallacy employers use as an excuse not to offer proper benefits.

It's hard to prove if someone is genuinely ill or having a day off

I find it hard to believe people would go from job to job just living off sick pay until they are sacked. In my work place it’s paid and we don’t seem to have any issue with high sickness levels and I’ve worked here for years.

This attitude represents everything that is wrong with general UK workplace culture. Every day I think my lucky stars I no longer work as internal HR because it is so depressing dealing with attitudes like that.

I work for a county council and they do this.

Then wonder why they struggle to recruit.

In all my working life (30+) years never experienced it before. Worse, no one tells you until that first time you're sick!

It’s not being a charity looking after your workers Panca. For some people the loss of 3 days pay could literally mean they can’t afford to pay the bills that month so they end up going in when they are sick and passing it onto everyone else.

No, I wasn’t legally entitled to/am not currently entitled to SSP and although one of them was definitely breaking the law it wasn’t on this.

Yes, such a backwards attitude. Workplaces that care about employee wellbeing get much more from their employees with much higher levels of staff retention and satisfaction.

And they probably pay below market rate for the jobs as well.

Takes me back to when I was internal HR and constantly banging my head against a brick wall as senior management moaned about how they couldn't recruit, when they offered only the statutory benefits.

@gnarlynarwhal how did you guess?

I've only stuck around as I have young DC and need to be local. As soon as that changes I'm off.

Some companies care about that. Others clearly don't and can't afford to pay people who aren't working. Choose where to spend your money wisely. People who don't care about slave labour they aren't going to care about someone getting SSP. I personally think the 3 days needs to be reduced to 1 day unpaid.

@Clytherow don't get me started on the rest of their failings. 🤦🏻‍♀️

Work somewhere else then