No Sick Pay, just SSP - normal, or a red flag for a Grad Scheme job?

[TooHot2022]

DS has just got his contract for his first job after graduating. It's on the grad scheme of a well-known name company (US-owned, if that's relevant). Salary c. £45k

I was surprised to see this clause regarding sick pay:

"If you qualify, you will receive Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) during absence. In our absolute discretion, we may choose to make additional payments to you (inclusive of SSP) during a period of sickness."

I've been out of the workplace for a while now, but I always had contracts stating a number of paid sick days (e.g.20) when you would be paid at your full salary rate before it defaulted to SSP.

Is this the new normal, or something to worry about/ ask questions?

Grateful for thoughts/ experience/ advice.

The lack of guaranteed sick pay would be a good reason to have a conversation with your son about saving his bonus and perhaps 10% of his wages into long term savings until he has 6 months worth of essential outgoings covered. He can then draw on this if off sick or redundant.

I've never been able to do this so not practicing what I preach but it would be a great attitude to start working life with.

I often think that after 20 years odd of working we should have some sort of buffer to cover a month or two out of work.

I only pay SSP contractually as so many take the piss but use discretion for others. I have paid up to 6 months for a few employees who have had serious illnesses/bereavements.

@Jalisco I most recently worked as a FD for a US tech company and everyone U.K. based got fully paid sick leave. They weren't (to my understanding ) special in the slightest.

It’s pretty common now to have sick pay discretionary in the private sector. It’s not a red flag imo.

I think many people don't realise how little SSP is until they have to live off it for any length of time!

I work in healthcare and see people that have quite a serious health crisis and are off works for months rather than days. Many of them think because they've paid into the system they'll get an income when they're off sick, but discover it's only about £100 a week!
None of us know what's round the corner and as PP has said, it's not always easy to have savings these days

I work for an SME. It states SSP in the contract, but in reality they pay normal pay. It really is just so they can rein it in if someone is off sick for months. They have private health insurance to help if that happens and some kind of guaranteed income scheme.

I've never had a job that only paid SSP. ( IT industry). All mine have required a doctor's note after 7 days, and max time off sick to six months before reassessment for suitability to do my job, but on full pay.

I've worked for companies up to 180,000 people.

American companies are famously mean spirited about holiday/sick pay. They generally treat their people horrendously. Can he find a better offer elsewhere.

He's an overpaid grad - with a bunch of perks he hasnt earned. And he will be a cost to the business for a while. Tell him to save his pay in the unlikely even he needs large amounts of sick pay

I’m FD at a mid-size UK based private company - the same clause is in our contracts but in practice we’re not as harsh as that. Unfortunately so many people take advantage when they know they’re getting full pay, it gives us a bit of flexibility when we know someone is genuinely ill rather than Bob who seems to have the last Friday of every month off.

@TooHot2022
Personally I would be worried in that for a 45k role for a graduate scheme that he could possibly find that stress is what could impact him and so I'd be wanting to view his potential to suffer in that manner as if so, a sick leave package maybe a reasonable precaution.

I don't see it as a red flag at all. It's at their discretion, to stop people taking advantage.

I had clauses like that in most of my permanent employment contracts (advertising/marketing industry and media companies) going back almost 20 years. (Rolling three-month contracts, which are common in media production, were a bit different.)

Most of the time, whether it was a day here and there for a cold/bug or longer when I had flu one time, my employer paid my full pay without questioning it. But technically, they claimed that they had the right to pay SSP only.

In practice, it does create something of a grey area where the company decides to wield its discretion. A friend/colleague of mine had to take some time off because her son was critically ill and they paid her full salary for almost a month while she was off. But they also reverted to SSP only when they thought someone was taking the piss — frequent Mondays off with 'migraines' or 'stomach bugs' for example.

@LoneParent1 At the risk of sounding like a snob there are plenty of highly paid industries with grad salaries even higher. Tech, finance, consulting, scientific research. Especially in London.

The grad scheme defers from a ‘normal’ job in that trainees usually rotate between departments, get extra leadership training. They’re groomed to be future leaders. Some schemes aren’t permanent, in others you get prioritised for promotion etc after it ends.

Being ‘signed off with stress’ is precisely the sort of thing only paying SSP contractually (but more at their discretion) is designed to stop. High pay doesn’t mean more stress (actually I’ve found that my higher paying companies treat us better, because it’s so expensive to recruit again.) and he’s a young person… no responsibilities other than work. What’s there to be stressed about?

Also OP my DP has this in his contract (startup). But they do give him full pay when off sick.
Perfectly valid designed to stop people taking the P.
Also bear in mind that on a graduate scheme he’ll have the graduate retention team still looking out for him - so if his specific LM or team treats him unfairly there’s avenues to complain and get moved.

Its very rare that a high paying company doesn’t give sick pay for genuine reasons …

Being ‘signed off with stress’ is precisely the sort of thing only paying SSP contractually

Believe it or not, workplace stress is an injury to the mind and does actually exist. If someone is off with work related stress it’s usually down to the workplace environment and is a Heakth and Safety issue which the workplace are obligated to correct.

And if they don’t, they are open to being sued. So, maybe be best I pay full pay eh? Show that you are trying to help instead of dismissing it.

Workplace is a real thing and has environmental causes, yes.
However

1. It’s also the No.1 excused used by pisstakers. It’s very easy to get signed off with stress.
   There are several threads on here telling people to just get signed off. And when I worked with public sector orgs there were constantly people off on ‘stress’. No issues. They told me themselves they fancied a break!

2. Sometimes the nature of the job doesn’t suit. As a dev I had to take incident calls, debug in front of customers. This really stressed some people out . Don’t know why when the role said operations support engineer and clearly stated the description. They thought they could just hide behind a screen, code and let other people do the talking =•=

I personally don’t like the ‘company discretion’ idea. If someone’s line manager is a crackpot they could very well withhold sick pay (although there’s usually someone else to complain to in large companies). However I can also see why they don’t want pisstakers.

Also to add @ArseInTheCoOpWindow this could be mitigated by requiring anybody going off with stress to have lodged a formal complaint first. If it’s an ongoing issue then it should have been reported. Even if nobody does anything about it it’s still justification.
Keeping quiet and suddenly going off doesn’t make sense.

It’s not always about job suitability though. It’s usually about company culture or bullying. I was off sick twice with stress. However I’d done the job for 26 years before getting I’ll health retirement. Was l unsuitable for that job for 26 years?

But that’s just your experience. You personally had done the job (the exact same job?) for 26 years, got bullied, and retired at the end of it.
How can you claim that it’s ‘usually’ company culture based on your limited experience?

My experience as an individual will also obviously be limited but I’ve worked across various jobs roles, industries and cultures. It depends on the company.
There’s a lot of ‘sick pay’ culture in certain orgs. The people who took pride in their work didn’t go off sick. They just left. The ‘sick pay’ lot were the ones who had the manager’s favour, collected pay increases and stay because they won’t get as good a deal for doing no work at all (and in fact creating more problems rather than solving them!)

In any case this isn’t really relevant for a graduate’s first job. Who knows the permanent contract may include proper sick pay, but if that’s that important he can always get another job.

I didn’t get bullied at all.

I had lovely line managers

It's a very common thing in the private sector. It doesn't mean they won't pay you in full but give discretion

Entirely normal.

It's something I now consider when looking at overall packages.

And bizarrely, I think, I've personally found I'm less inclined to take sick days now that I know my cover is very comprehensive, than when it was SSP only.

I think, note think, it's because the culture is different. I previously took sick days when I wasn't "up for work" which looking back, was where my brain absolutely hated what I did and I found it too exhausting.

Now I enjoy what I do, even the tedious parts, and have autonomy
..makes the world of difference.

So back to the point, I think it's perfectly normal.

I personally don’t like the ‘company discretion’ idea. If someone’s line manager is a crackpot they could very well withhold sick pay

I think at the company's discretion is also legally very questionable. How do you ensure people are treated fairly and there is no unconscious bias?

@TooHot2022
I think he should also consider future development and likely future earnings. Regardless of what anyone says, starting on £45,000 is very good. It’s what an experienced teacher earns. So he’s to be congratulated. Grad jobs are a starting point. What does the future look like at the company? Are they paying a premium to get the best? Few roles are available at a higher starting salary and often the increases are big down the line. He needs to weigh everything up. Including where he might live and what his living/commuting costs are. What does he envisage his future looking like?

If it’s Law, it will be seriously hard work. Finance and Consulting too. But I’m sure he knows this. People change companies if they don’t want to continue. My DD is a self employed barrister. Not working = not earning. No shortage of lawyers wanting to be barristers!!