to be annoyed at employers new performance related pay scheme?

[bosch]

Last year my employer (local council) put us all on new contracts (job evaluation, making sure everyone is paid fairly etc) and announced the intention to award any increments due(typically £3-400 pay rise in addition to any nationally awarded pay rise)only in relation to a performance related pay (prp) scheme.

Employer now says it won't pay increments for this last year 'because it hasn't got a prp scheme in place'. And it needs more time to work out a prp scheme. So for next year, you'll only get any increment due if you've 'not had too much time off sick'.

Thresholds are (from memory)

• having had more than 8 days off sick
• having had at least one day off for three consecutive months
• having had more than four weeks off in one go
• having a pattern of eg mondays and fridays off (pattern not explained - is one enough?)

Increments are not due to every employee every year. Typically (speaking as white collar/ office worker) you might expect to receive them for between 3 - 9 years after getting a job. So you'd need to get a promotion to start at the bottom of a grade and have the right to more increments.

I think this would penalise people who were genuinely ill in order to try to weed out the people who in the past would pull a sickie in the knowledge that it would not affect their pay at all.

Thanks if you've stuck with me this far.

Anyone come across anything like this?

PS - I have no problem with employer saying 'dire financial circumstances chaps, we can't afford increments this year'.

fairly standard in the private sector can come as a shock to public sector workers.

what does the union think about it?

Touche!

Thing is, I can abuse the system by calling in for a day's a/l on behalf of my children, or come into work when I'm poorly.

But why wouldn't your employer want to know when you're actually ill???

wot ruddynorah said. It doesn't sound unusual in the slightest.

TheArmadillo - union are not impressed but we're not a very unionised workforce. Have recently lost quite a bit of 'pay and conditions' in various ways. At worst, employer told us all it was going to (in effect) sack us and re-employ us on different terms and conditions and union confirmed this is quite ok/legal. Left wondering what rights we have at all...

Oh dear I think this might be where it starts, when the public sector start getting screwed something might have to be done about what the private sector have been faced with for a while, viva revolution

Are the sickness absences currently being managed? As part of my job I have to track sick/awol records and staff have to do a rtw interview when they report back (I don't do this). There's also stringent rules about how sick is reported in as well to ensure they get paid.

If the sick leave policy isn't being managed or enforced, it might be that they don't have much of a leg to stand on to use sick records as a basis for pay increments or bonuses this year.... but at the same time, it's pretty standard in the private sector. If the money's not there, it's not there.

We have pretty much the same procedures that you describe simplysally vis reporting sick, rtw interview.

I'm really shocked that the private sector is so unsophisticated in how it rewards staff though! I had two weeks off sick this year with tonsillitus - that would have triggered no increment for me this year. Doesn't that make you really pis*ed off?!

I imagined that with prp there would be some review of your performance (ie are you actually getting your work done) before pay rise or increment were awarded. How naive am I.

'unsophisticated' ?!

normal procedure would be you hit one of those thresholds and you get a written warning live for a year(and no pay rise) do it again and it's a final written warning (still no payrise). after that you're sacked.

there would also be performance indicators to meet around sales/costs/service/productivity etc etc. this process would mirror the absence management process.

similar for misconduct.

very very normal.

Well it's not quite as blanket as that - the reasons for the sick absence are looked at in context so if someone's had an operation or broken a limb then the process of managing them back to work doesn't kick in although the sick leave is still recorded for stats. it's really to catch out the people who have one or two days sick each month for this or that reason and aren't realising how it all tots up.

Although I like the sound of RuddyNorah's firm .

yes long term or underlying ill health absence is of course manages differently. but short term persistant absence is fairly straight forward. triggers are 3 occurences in 12 weeks, or 8 days in 26 weeks.

As a teacher who has had a few days off sick this year I would have no problem working under a scheme like this.

You should resign and come and work in the private sector.

But but but - you can't get a doctor's sick note for the first 7 days of any sickness, so you have no way of getting any independent verification of how sick you are.

I had two weeks off, second week for which I had a sick note. If you have four weeks off in one go you DEFINITELY have to have a sick note, why is that sickness a definition of poor performance?

The employers note also says that managers have no discretion - hit a threshold, lose the increment.

Depends on the job, if I am not in my pupils suffer. If I was off for 4 weeks my pupils would certainly suffer and as a result my performance would be poor.

If I worked in the private sector I would get a significantly higher wage (before increments!) but would expect to have much less job security ... And I'd have to sell my soul to the devil

In that case you have to pay for a private certificate for absences under 7 days. Most doctor's don't like it though.

If an industry has a poor sick record though it's very hard on the genuinely ill as everyone tends to be tarred with the same brush.

why twinsetandpearls? (to your first post)

but bosch, it doesn't make any difference whether you have a sick note or not. If you don't meet the attendance criteria, you won't receive the pay increment.

I bet it's a piss-arse piece of change not worth getting het up about anyway. Exactly how much will the pay increment be? Peanuts, probably.

But just because you get the lower wage it does not mean you can have more time off sick. If you work in the public sector you are paid by the tax payer and therefore I think it is reasonable for a strict sickness policy to be in place. If I dont come into work the tax payer has to pay my wage and perhaps the wage of a supply teacher and the students will receive an inferior lesson.

bosch - because I have worked with teachers who have called in sick for a sniffle or called in sick with a hangover. How can we lecture about the importance of attendence if ours is poor. Children need their teachers in school unless it is impossible to be there.

it isn't about how genuine a sickness is..it's about being absent from work.

you always get people saying oh but i couldn't help getting a cold.. but tbh we could probably all eat better, get the right vitamins in us, help our immune system better etc etc. where would you draw the line as to what illness should count and what shouldn't? at the moment anything covered by the DDA effectively doesn't 'count.' but even that can lead to a no blame dismissal.

Our drs have a note up in reception to the effect that they're not going to issue sick notes for the first seven days because nhs has agreed with employers the self cert process.

I am protected by the DDA in terms of absence management, if I have a day off work though I have a back to work interview. I am very very rarely off sick.