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Posted By Victor Meldrew
News that Tesco, in an attempt to cut levels of unplanned sickness absence is introducing, only in it's new stores, a trial scheme not to pay workers who take a day off sick. Under the scheme, workers will not be paid for the first three days they are absent. This scheme is also supported by the USDAW Union.
So, my question is: if this scheme is eventually adopted and becomes common practice throughout the UK what, if anything, could this do to accident rates? Will they reduce because 'we don't get paid' will the scheme have no affect or will the statistics increase and hence compensation claims because 'we don't get paid'?
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Posted By Samantha Fisher
It will have a lot of bearing on the situation within the company you are looking at. I would think that within the construction industry it won't make any difference anyway as my experience is the operatives don't usually get company sick pay as a benefit and they would rely on government SSP. SSP doesn't pay for the first 3 days off sick either which is exactly what Tesco are considering. It would be interesting to see the Tesco experiment documents after a year to see what the gain is over that period. There is bound to be those who come in to work with bugs with which they would previously have stayed at home because they cannot afford to lose 1,2 or 3 days pay, spread it around a bit and cause other staff to have days off. There's also the customer angle, do you really want your checkout operative to be sniffing and snorting all over your fresh bread and veggies or sneezing over the sliced ham on the deli! Lovely!
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Posted By David J.
Hi, this is hardly a new concept. I remember my time working in engineering, with some major companies that didn't pay sickness absence for the first 3 days regardless of the incident.. most employers including local authorities don't pay sickness absence during the first 6 months (the qualifying period), regardless of the cause including physical asault by a client... New workers are more likely to get injured than experienced one's..thus not sure you have a real case for you view...
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Posted By John Murgatroyd
Wel, tesco are running this scheme for both staff and other employees, across the board.
As for employees coughing over shoppers, what else is new.
Statutory sick pay is now £66.15 per week AFTER 4 days off.
The employer doesn't HAVE to pay it and the employee may have to claim it themself.
The majority of workers in this country do not get pay when sick, other than SSP.
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Posted By Samantha Fisher
I read a bit more about this last night and there is slightly more to it than I first thought. What Tesco are actually doing is giving each employee 3 extra days holiday, a day will be taken away each time the employee takes a sickie. In effect what they are doing is financially planning for the sickies and predicting 3 per person. Those that are genuinely sick are therefore no worse off than they were previously (for 3 days anyway)and those that come into work gain the extra days holiday. Not a bad idea really. I would think that a lot of Tesco employees are working mothers making good use of the flexible hours that are possible but there is always the unexpected sick child and maybe a lot of the sickies are down to that. Extra holiday allows staff to be able to cope with this without eating into annual holidays. If the information I read was right, it seems like good employee/ employer relations to me.
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Posted By Michelle Greenland
My firm took this action two years ago when the 'sickie' levels every Monday and Friday left the firm so understaffed it was barely able to function.
Whilst the savings have been well worth the few grumbles the greatest benefit is the change in moral, now the workers who would always attend are no longer filled with resentment, they are able to carrying out their own duties without having to 'carry' colleagues'workloads, hence their stress levels are reduced.
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Posted By Raymond Rapp
I think the Tesco experiment is fraught with problems. First, I believe the Trade Union referred to previously is Tesco's own trade union and therefore hardly surprising that they support the plan.
Clearly, there will be many who decide to take more than just three days off work, rather than one or two, in order that they get something out of it. How will this affect those who might be covered by the DDA including expectant mothers?
The answer might be to introduce an incentive scheme. Perhaps by allowing certain days of annual leave to be used as short term sickness or even to reward staff with extra days for good attendance. Now that would really take some management foresight!
Ray
Ray
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Posted By Ron Young
One of my previous employers introduced this no pay for the first three days sick but if absences were caused by an accident, it would be waived. Result, an increase in minor accidents at work necessitating 1 or 2 days off work.
Let's face it, there are malingerers out there who abuse systems designed to help the honest worker. Any system that can be introduced to deter them without affecting decent people is welcome.
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Posted By Victor Meldrew
Thanks for answering my question Ron, I didn't want to get embroiled in the rights or wrongs of the system. What I wanted to know is its effect on workplace health and safety, especially accidents.
Malingerers will always try to 'work' systems, procedures and rules to their own selfish ends. A case of I'm all right Jack, so, as you have experienced yourself, in some cases 'we' might see an increase in minor accidents/incidents.
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Posted By Paul Crump
Hello all
Would any of you agree that this scheme might have the effect of increasing RIDDOR reportable accidents? I.E: over three day injuries.
Paul
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Posted By Ron Young
Paul,
Not in my former employers anyway. Potentially this was as a result of the fact that I had a regime of investigating every reportable accident thoroughly. This action tended to severely restrict malingerers from taking more time off. Worked in conjunction with HR absence procedures, we did manage to cut, quite drastically, short time absences
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Posted By Stuart Nagle
This does not apply to new stores only. My wife works for Tesco and it is being adopted at here store as well.
She only became aware of it about a week ago, and adoption is due to commence Monday I think.
What about the legal rights to consultation? No union advise was passed to any of the employees at my wifes shop!!!
Stuart
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