statutory sick pay in charities

[RadicalSoul]

Hi all, looking for your experiences so I can get a good picture of what the range is in the charity sector. I’ve just been offered a job with a smallish mental health charity and the contract stipulates SSP only meaning they would pay me 109 pounds a week if I was ill. I’ve never come across this before (even in two charities I worked for) and was pretty shocked, but they have made it seem like it’s standard. So my question to you lovely people: what have you seen in charities you have worked for and how big were they? Thanks a ton for sharing your experiences!

SSP here only on a temporary contract. Covering those on less then 12 months service so suppose it is good you aren't immediately got rid off.

Policies made up on the spot. Depends on funding is mentioned a lot to the point I query if the people being covered were temps themselves but admittedly that doesn't make sense.

I would say it is a small charity but frequently mixed up with a larger national name.

I worked for a small regional charity. Everyone got 5 days sick pay per year.

I was office based, so going in sick was inconvenient but not disastrous. It was downright dangerous for some of the support workers who worked with vulnerable clients though.

I work for a large charity (although no one has ever heard of us!)

4 months full pay, 4 months half pay after you've been there 2 years. Prior to that it's 2 weeks of each then 2 months of each, up to 4 months.

Just spoke the trustee that is running the charity from an HR perspective at the moment and feel a lot better about it all. She says she agrees with how I feel about it, but that they want to get the policy right so don’t just want to put in place something random. I still think it’s weird to have statutory levels in place rather than some basic addition, for example 3 days occupational sick leave in 12 months, and then change it when they’ve had time to think about it. Seems odd that the first employees would have to deal with the consequences of them not having had proper time to make a satisfying decision… but at least they agree that it wouldn’t be right for them to have their employees only get SSP. That’s a good start. Thanks everyone again for sharing your experiences! It’s been super eye opening and interesting and I appreciate it very much!

This sounds like it could be an answer to keep you quiet and satisfied so take the job but actually the enhanced sick pay is never going to materialise.

Is the workplace unionised?

The charity I left at the end of last year (toxic work culture) only paid SSP. medium charity with less than 10 staff. Prior to that I have worked in bigger and smaller and they have all paid sick pay.

@Invisimamma it’s a relatively new charity and they are hiring me to get get things set up correctly including their policies and strategy. If they lied to me they’ll have wasted their time hiring the wrong person. But I appreciate that in other instances your suspicion might have proven true - makes me sad 😔

@nettie434 I know this thread is a bit old now but I’d be really interested in knowing whcih charities you worked for ( I am some HR benchmarking for our small charity , so it would be super useful!). Happy if you’d like to share this privately instead! Thank you!