Sickness help please

[Amelia1909]

Scenario
Employee off sick and not entitled to company sick pay just ssp. Offered half pay for two months as gesture of good will. Can we book part of that as his accrued holiday pay?
I.e he has 8 days of holiday left. Can we book 16 'half' days as annual leave. We are a small company and are really trying to support this employee but can not afford temp cover, half pay for 2 months plus accrued holiday on top.
Any views please?

www.gov.uk/taking-sick-leave

This might help. Says that you cannot force the employer to take sick leave as holiday, but the employer can request to do so.

That's great thank you will have a read.

Has he already been offered this? It would have been better to offer him less days of goodwill gesture sick pay and suggest he also use accrued holiday.

He could turn around and say no, I want to save my accrued holiday for after I return or in case I am sick for longer than 2 months.

I see this from both sides. I work in payroll of a small family firm who would struggle to finance anything more than SSP but I also have a dh who had to take a whole 6 months off work following serious illness.

Thanks for your comment.

He has had 3 months at full pay and 2
Months at half. He was only entitled to ssp throughout so I guess we feel he should allow the holiday to be used as part of his discretionary pay. Does that make sense? We are not trying to screw him - quite the opposite. He could have had ssp plus 8 days pay but has had a lot more. Does that come over right?

You can't make a retrospective decision like this.

He has every right to take his annual leave at a different time. Remember he also accrues annual leave entitlement whilst off sick.

The only reason he had to take it in December was because that is the end of the holiday year and he can not carry over statutory holiday.