Short Term Absences: tackling the ‘Monday and Friday’ sick days

I realise that this is an old thread, but have come across this in search of an answer to what you have talked about.
I work for a small employer and our wages are worked out on Sage Payroll. If an employee has a week off Monday to Friday and so is paid 2 sick days and 3 waiting days, if a couple of weeks later they have Thursday and Friday off and are then back on Monday, how should their days off be entered onto the payroll system?
If only Thurs and Fri are put on, the employee will not be paid sick pay as it needs to be four days off in a row, but if Thurs, Fri, Sat and Sun are put on, then the computer will pay sick pay for Thurs and Fri. So it is up to the person who enters the computer info to decide if the employee gets paid for those two days off or not.
From the employees point of view, if they are asked if they were ill over the weekend, it is in their interest to say yes they were, so they get their 4 days counted.
I know that paying a couple of days sick pay is not a huge amount of money, but if the employee is likely to be having quite a few days off for treatment or feeling unwell, then a lot of money could be paid out.
So is there any concrete information anywhere, to help decide?

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This post has been removed because it contravened our guidelines.

This post has been removed because it contravened our guidelines.

If you are sick on Friday, and are well on Saturday and fit for work, your absence was 1 day (assuming your normal working days don't include Saturday and Sunday). If you are still sick on Monday, you have been sick 4 days.

Statutory Sick Pay covers weekends as does the 7 days self certification rule, for example if you are sick on a Monday through to the following Monday and return on Tuesday, you have been deemed sick for 8 days and need a Doctors note.

Colin

Correct me if I'm wrong but surely you would need to fill out some sort of form on return to work, and if you noted that your illness lasted from say Thursday to Saturday (inclusive) then the matter wouldn't, well; matter.

Another point on this, If you were taken ill on the Thursday and then were seen out on the Saturday evening could the company reprimand you for not recuperating properly?

This looks like a company owns your life, I know a lot of managers that think they do, but surely this isn't law?

I realise this is an old thread, but it doesn't seem to have reached a conclusion. For the puposes of recording sickness, can someone please tell me whether an employer is allowed (or even required?) to deem that any employee who is off sick for one day only on a Friday is also sick on the following Saturday and Sunday, and hence to record a total of three days' sickness? I'm talking about office workers who work a standard 38-hour week, Monday to Friday. I'm not talking about longer-term sickness of a week or more.

Thinking about it, it could be a real reason why the sick leave as published for the public sector is so much worse than that for the private sector. I understand current figures are around 9 days compared with 6.3. One report I saw said this was entirely due to 'long term absences being higher - short term figures were similar'. Well, long-term absences will be higher if weekends are counted in the public sector but not in the private sector.

Bozena has actually given me a basis for why it is done - I work in the public sector - but not why we cannot enter when we are 'fit to work' on our system - it will only accept the day you actually returned to work, and therefore Friday afternoon (unless we do return that day), Saturday or Sunday (these not being working days) are not accepted as legitimate responses.

Glenn, as far as work is concerned yes, it does only apply Mon - Fri. You seem to be confusing a period of illness with the number of working days lost due to that illness. It does not matter how many days the sicknote covers only the number of working days lost should be recorded.

I still hold to my original point, if I fall sick just as I finish work on friday but am well and back in on Monday, you're saying that I should report this to my employer, are you?

Very rude to assume we don't already have a robust Absense Management Policy Glenn - we do.

And I had a great (v. healthy) weekend thanks, you?

Where a day's pay is based on the number of calendar days in the month (as in the public sector) staff are deemed to be off sick until the day the return or ring in to say they are fit to return to work (irrespective if that day would be a working day) - similarly if an employee takes Friday as unpaid leave in August they would lose 3/31ths of their month's salary. To get round this if staff (who typically work Mon - Fri) are off sick Wed, Thurs & Friday if they ring in on Friay and declare they are fit to return to work they will not be deemed off sick over the weekend.

In the private sector pay is based on the number of actual working days i.e. in August 21 and therefore sick pay is not paid for days ill at weekends

My employer deals with this simply...

If time is taken off at the end of the week, when I return to work after the weekend they simply ask when I would have been fit for work. If this was a Saturday then that is fine.

Thanks Mark, so when you're GP gives you a sick note that just applies Monday to Friday does it? If you self-cert (up to 7 days) that just applies to Monday to Friday?

Be very interested to have a look at your sickness absence management Policy (assuming you have one that is)

Have a great weekend, sick or not!

How can anyone be absent from their place of work at the weekend, when they are not surposed to be there in the fist place? Only Lost working days should be recorded, not weekends or Bank Holidays.

Sickness absense should be recorded in relation to working days lost only. Surely that's all the employer is interested in? What if i fall ill on a friday afternoon, make it to 5:00pm then start to recover on Sunday and i'm back in on monday? According to some comments above it sounds like you're saying that this should be recorded too? Ridiculous. If this is followed through logically then if i am off sick over a weekend my employer owes me two days off in lieu. Sorry just not going to happen anywhere in this country.

Sorry Glenn but i don't agree with your 'absense is absense' statement. I work Mon to Fri, not Mon to Sunday. I am not absent Saturday or Sunday whether i'm ill or not.
It is also possible to be well on Saturday then fall ill again Monday morning with something else. You should not assume that because someone is off on Friday and Monday they were also ill in between. Obviously if the friday and monday sickness becomes a trend you have an issue, but if it happens once?

Maybe employers that included weekends as part of the sick record, would be happy to pay for days 'off' sick at the weekend?

Thought not.

But is it really fair (and I mean in terms of natural justice not some contrived protocol) that someone who is absent towards the end of the week and returns to work on Monday is deemed to have been sick on Saturday and Sunday too?
To avoid discrimination surely we should make the assumption that those taking sick leave at the beginning of the week were also sick over the preceding weekend.
Thus an absence on Monday becomes 3 days, just as Friday absence does.
Of course, you'll be able to maintain accurate statistics by recording all of the people who felt a bit under the weather ringing in to the answerphone on Saturday to flag up their absence on the following Monday. That is if there is any recording time left if those who were absent on the Friday have left messages to say that they would be back on Monday.
This is, and always has been, unfair and illogical. I know, I've been there.

Then of course if you fall of the roof while recoving your football at lunchtime the employer will claim that your not at work and therefore not their problem so I would supect if sick or not in your own time why should they care anyway....

Comes down to the essense of an employment contract being founded on equitable expectation of mutual benefit that so often is not backed up any form of 'relationship management' that could be charactorised by 'Positive Regard'.

Little wonder 'truth and honesty' is being recognised as a missing link in the employer employee relationship today where too often each is worried about the other taking advantage or liberties at their expense.

It has sort of resulted in a 'Behavioural Aparthied' where if one is compliant and stays under the radar all goes well but, if someone pops their head above the 'them and us' fence to draw the attention of management to a little concern or problem they find themselves out of the communications loop, marginalised and on the end of a campaign of 'approval deprivation'.

Not long then before absense management is paying all too much attention to the odd day off for whatever reason, hatch, match, dispatch, trip to see bank, accountant, rescue a friend, relative, house viewing or whatever quick fix that results in an implausable excuse because it is either private or manager can not be trusted to give you a day for fishing because the weather is just right.

People perhaps, not human resources, sometimes need a break, time out from the rat race as a coping strategy in order to recover a little composure, recharge their batteries get over the stress of working under pressure.

Take that away from them and they are going to suffer far more performance anxiety and breakdowns as the emotional demand of working in toxic workplace cultures pushes them over the edge and someone is going to rock up to work with a "I hate Mondays" T' shirt and a machine gun in their lunch box.

fair point but absence is absence. If you use the Bradford score then this would be highlighted but the fact remains that if you do not work weekends and are off sick from the wednesday then call in late on the Friday to say I'm feeling better and hopefully will be in Monday. If you're not in Monday then you're sick over the weekend.

It all comes down to having a robust Policy in place and using it

Quality not quantity.

As far as I know the 7 day plan was to cover people who worked 7 days a week, I agree with all the previous points about the unfairness of an extra 2 days being aded to your sick recored just because you happen to be off over a weekend.

However the company should record only lost working days not the weekends if you do not work at weekends, so if falling sick on a Wednesday until the following Monday should be recorded as 3 Lost working days, but it is still 5 days from the date of your sickness started until you returned.

I feel a new universal form is required that both the lost working days and the lost non working days are recorded, so any employee can show the difference to a new employer should the need arrise, as there is a big difference between a person who is off work for 4 weeks = 20 working days and 4 weeks = 28 days in total including weekends.

Kevin, you could call an answerphone if there's no-one in the office, there IS a way around this believe me. The weekend is relevant, as if you're sick before it then you may be sick during and after it, you do not suddenly become well because it's a day you're not supposed to be at work.

I take your points but the starting point has to be a robust sickness absence Policy, and an effective OH service.

Glenn,
Good point. Who exactly would you call on the Saturday to notify that you're well enough to work, and hope still to be so on the following Monday? Surely if your working week is Monday to Friday the weekend should be irrelevant, whether it follows or precedes your sickness absence.
What fuels the angst caused by official statistics are the scaremongering stories about x million working days lost by UK businesses to sickness. How much is accounted for by, for example, Thursday, Friday and the following weekend? What percentage of the damining statistics is attributable to non-recoverable legitimate rest days?
I suspect that most people will make the effort to start the week despite feeling off colour over the preceding weekend only tofall by the wayside later in the week when, of course, they're hit by the double whammy.
IMOH except where long term chronic sickness absence is concerned the weekend/rest days should't be counted. The current system only serves to discriminate in favour of the (potentially malingering) absentee who fails to turn up at the beginning of the week but penalises those who absent themselves towards the end of the week.
Compare the sickness absence record of someone absent Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday (3days) with his workmate absent on Thursday and Friday (4 days). If you only look at the stats and not the context who's the employee with the better attendance?

interesting thoughts on this. If you are sick then you are sick, regardless of what day of the week it is. If you are sick Friday, but well on Saturday then there should be a Policy in place whereby you can call in to say you are now well, otherwise you should be classed as sick until you return to work.

Of course this can cause as many problems as it solves. Ideally you should have a robust sickness absence Policy and this should be used in conjunction with HR and Occupational Health.