11 replies to this topic

[littleanna]

I only pay SSP -really to try and keep odd days down to a minimum -but
-feel mean when a genuine illness but I am scared to treat people differently and make exceptions
- staff that cant afford to stay off come in and spread their germs
- want to be fair to the whole team any ideas?

[enuffsenuf]

littleanna, on Jan 18 2012, 17:21, said:

I only pay SSP -really to try and keep odd days down to a minimum -but
-feel mean when a genuine illness but I am scared to treat people differently and make exceptions
- staff that cant afford to stay off come in and spread their germs
- want to be fair to the whole team any ideas?

i work in a pre-school and a day nursery at neither are staff entitled to anything more than SSP. I do not think you can make exceptions (I know it does seem harsh) but it one rule for all I believe or else you maybe accused of discrimination

[Inge]

ssp kicks in after 3 days, could you afford to pay that daily rate for the first 3 days of illness not much but would be something..

or the way my husbands company do it is give a max number of sick days paid and after that it goes to ssp.. but at the directors discretion they can pay for longer..this is in their terms and conditions for the job.. as an example while he was in hospital they paid and did not count it in the number of days allowed .

[toddlermaddness]

we are looking at our sick pay too.

some staff are entilited to ssp but not all, so looking into offering staff 5 days sick leave for the year but not sure if it will be at a full days pay or at a flat rate across the board.

Will watch this post with interest :)

[Cait]

I'd be tempted to check with ACAS to find out what the legal aspects are before making any decisions like that

[Deb]

I don't think its mean, just a fact of early years life, there isn't a bottomless pit of money and at least this deters some staff from taking advantage.

[DizzyLizzy]

My understanding is that as long as the conditions of sick pay ( how many paid days per year) are clearly stated on their contract you can make your own arrangements about how many days . I pay my staff 3 days for their own sickness and 3 days if their children are sick and need to take time off ( a maximum of 6 each year ) > In their contract the clause that explains this also says that extensions to this will be treated according to individual cases at the managers discretion.

[babyjane31]

We have the similar to dizzy lizzy in our contracts it states that all staff are entitled to 5 days paid sick leave and 3 paid parental days and that extensions to this may be possible at the discretion of the mamagement committee. So for example when a memeber of my staff was in hospital for a week and needed a further 2 weeks before she returned to work they agreed to pay her and equally when my daughter was in hospital for a month and I was off to stay in with her as she is only 5 they paid me full pay (even though I didn't ask for or expect it)

[toddlermaddness]

do you get paid your full pay or pay at reduced rate?

sounds like a good idea but its wheather pre-schools can afford it.

[lynned55]

It's very generous to be paid for being off sick with a child. My husband, son and two daughters all work in 4 different (very) large companies and none of them pay in these circumstances. The amount of sick days they get vary from company to company My daughter phones in sick (for herself if her daughter is ill and my other daughter who is an HR manager would in the case of something like babyjane had advise them to get signed off with stress.

The problem is as much as we would all like to pay staff when sick if you cannot afford to treat everyone the same then it can become very difficult. Over the last 2 years I have had staff off for broken ankle (6 weeks) a form of arthritis (4 weeks) and a child with appendicitis (3 weeks) Now if we had paid them al for all this time- we would probably have gone under even at a reduced rate & that's without all the odd days we have all had to have. Our contracts state just SSP but we do always try to pay the first 3 days or if it is an odd day sometimes staff are able to swap a shift, of course of all your staff are full time then this is not possible- but I do have 2 that aren't.

[Gezabel]

Wow! realising how lucky I am. Just returned to work on reduced hours after being off sick for over two weeks. Had full pay whilst off and returned to full pay even though I have halved my working hours for the rest of this term!!!

I can't remember the number of days but staff are also paid for time off for moving house, bereavment but not when own children are ill.

[debster]

We are fully paid for 5 sick days per year, we have only needed to pay ssp to 2 members of staff over the last 10 years.

Only 1 member of staff out of 5 has used all their 'sick' days for the year (april - april), and as long as this is not abused we will carry on paying it.

Interesting to know what others do