“Our employee came into work but left partway through the workday on account of sickness.”
How should we classify this authorised absence? How does this affect their SSP entitlement? There is currently no common law right to be paid during any period of sickness. As such, an employee who leaves work early or is sent home due to sickness would not be entitled to remuneration unless there is a right to such payment in their contract of employment.
In this scenario, the employer has discretion as to how they account for the day in question for management purposes. The majority of HR systems have the ability to record half days, for example where half a day’s holiday is taken, so if possible the system could record half a day’s sickness absence.
However, the employee’s entitlement to statutory sick pay (“SSP”) is dependent on them having a day of incapacity within a “period of incapacity for work”. This is defined within the relevant legislation as four or more consecutive days. Therefore, an employee who only works part of day would not be entitled to SSP for that day, and the period of incapacity for SSP purposes would only be triggered from the subsequent day.
If you have any queries about sickness absences and how this might impact on your organisation, please do not hesitate to get in touch with our employment team or call 0151 236 8871.