Small business sick employee

[pipsy76]

Hi, hoping for some advice please! We have a small family business with 4 employees which has been going for many years without problems.

Our newest employee has started having many regular days off sick for what I believe to be a genuine illness. She also has time off nearly each week to care for her young child when he's ill.

Unfortunately her illness/medication is also now affecting her work performance and productivity. I don't really know how to approach this as its not a situation we've had before.

Bottom line is we are paying sick pay on days nearly every week and our productivity has sunk with clients starting to complain.

Whilst I'm sympathetic where do we stand as a small employer , can this situation continue endlessly or do we have an legal options?

Sorry to those on the other end of the stick as employees but if our business sinks it takes all 4 employees down

what;s your sickness policy?

of course you have legal options - i assume there would be a protocol to follow though

ACAS give advice to employers as well as employees

Thanks rubyslippers that's the problem we don't really have a sickness policy it's all been so informal until now, but we've got to the point where we need one.

I'll definitely look at the acas website for some guidance.

Yes you do certainly have options but you need to pay for some proper advice. ACAS can give you a steer but are not always reliable and I certainly wouldn't rely on their advice to do something like take action against an employee like this with sickness problems and caring responsibilities. You need more specific guidance.