Many employees believe sick pay is a right not a privilege, but could refusing to pay up improve business by reducing the amount of absence claims that aren’t for genuine illnesses? Sarah Fletcher asked HR Zone members whether sick pay does more harm than good.
If you’re on the brink of death, too ill even to eat soup and watch daytime television whilst groaning melodramatically, being paid won’t be your top priority. If you aren’t especially ill the threat of losing your salary for the days you’re off work will provide the incentive needed to cast off the duvet and drag you into the office. Or so the argument goes. However, aside from the creeping sense that we’ve all been cast into a Dickensian workhouse in which you either work or starve, does this logic really carry a strong business argument?
Robert Carlin, director, Healthier Business Ltd
Almost 80 percent of employees referred to healthcare companies for illness are actually fit for work, claims director of occupational health solutions provider Robert Carlin: “I work on a daily basis with companies who have sickness absence problems and refer employees to our company. I think the sad fact is at least 78 per cent of the referrals we receive result in the employee being sent straight back to work as they in fact are not truly ill.”
Although many companies are afraid to address the issue, sick pay is the root cause, argues Carlin: “Full pay when someone is off sick only motivates a large majority of employees to remain off sick for longer than required.” Providing full sick pay for absent employees encourages the dreaded ‘nanny state’ in which individuals lose all autonomy. Is this what businesses really want?
Blame the employer
The business problems associated with employee absenteeism typically focuses on the staff that take time off, but as training consultant Nik Kellingley argues, the employer must accept responsibility and realise that poor management style creates these issues: “The main contributing factor to someone pulling a ‘sickie’ is that their work environment is so awful that there are days they just can’t bear to go in. The only way to address that is to make their environment a better place to be, but that would take courage beyond the abilities of most management teams in the UK. It would mean facing some of the unpleasant realities of the way so many companies do business and then actually doing something about it.
Nik Kellingley, training consultant
“Inspirational workplaces are not impossible to achieve – look at Google and the way they treat their staff. I have had the good fortune to work for two employers that made you want to come into work for all the right reasons… All of these employers paid sick pay at full whack, because the last thing you need when you are genuinely ill is to find your employer with his hand in your pocket.”
Motivation
HR consultant Peter Stanway agrees, arguing that the current debate on sickness absence and the role of sick pay “misses the fundamental issues about control and motivation”. Management technique is crucial to solving the problem – and the reason there’s a problem in the first place. Kellingley adds: “Again and again, British businesses look to use the stick (with no carrot) approach to staff motivation. Unfortunately it doesn’t work but it does increase staff turnover, morale issues, and decreasing productivity for ever longer hours. It would be nice to see HR as ‘strategic’ partners offering a new and moral alternative to this outmoded and failing approach.”
However, Carlin says that blaming businesses is merely an excuse: “I disagree that most people take sickies due to their workplace environment being so bad that they can’t face going to work. This is no excuse [as] most proactive companies take measures to ensure they have happy and healthy workforces. I think the problem lies with British society and not the business community.”
Solution
Whether the employer or the employee is responsible for dubious absence claims, businesses must take action to address the problem. Removing sick pay will create such resentment and a loss of morale amongst the workforce that the benefits of bringing employees into work will be far outweighed by the damaging impact of a drop in productivity. Address issues that staff have about their working environment and consider introducing health schemes into the business – it isn’t just a fluffy way of suggesting you care, it’s an active approach to a problem that, if ignored, could bring the business down.
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Who qualifies for Statutory Sick Pay (SSP)?
The majority of employees who are unfit for work through sickness may be entitled to SSP, but they must satisfy all of the following conditions:
- The employee has been sick for four or more calendar days in a row (this is known as the ‘period of incapacity for work’ (PIW))
- The worker is employed by you or has done some work for you under their contract
- They have notified you of their sickness within your own time limits or, if you haven’t informed them in advance of any set period, no later than seven days after the first day of sickness.
- The employee has earnings on which you are liable to pay employer’s Class 1 National Insurance Contributions (NIC), or would be liable to pay if their earnings were high enough
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Related features – Employee health:
2 Responses
Do you employ adults or children.
When employers treat employee like children don’t be too shocked when they act like children, strop, go off in a huff and not turn up to be bored and not recognised at work.
Employees respond positively when dealt with in an adult manner and genuine absence is so small that the resources of business should be bought to bear on helping valuable, trained, knowledgable resources back to work. Simple support, a thank you and acknowledgement prevent more absence than any cooked up management process.
We recently worked with a client that had an “outbreak” of illness in one department. The illness was a new autocratic manager with a style that the team disliked and so voted with their sick notes. The resolution came in the form of coaching and open discussion.
Duty of care and other issues
I think am not surprised that most people referred to Occupational Health are not sick, most people are referred because the employer suspects that there is a problem. Generally speaking those so referred have Monday or Friday Syndrome or a variant thereof. The problem with the stick approach is that by encouraging people who are genuinely sick to come to work employers could find themselves in breach of their Duty of Care responsibilities if infections are spread in the workplace