From September 2022 the government is introducing statutory paid sick leave. What does this mean?
This means that up until now it was up to each individual employees to decide what sick leave policy they had in place for their employees and whether employees were paid for their sick days or not.
From September, the new legislation will dictate that every business MUST now provide employees with 3 days paid sick leave every year.
This will increase to 5 days in 2024, 7 days in 2025 and a whopping 10 days in 2026!
So, is this good news or bad news for business owners?
Well, there is no doubt that up front this is an extra cost on the business. The new law states however that the business only covers 70% of the employees’ wages and to a maximum of €110/day.
We are very much behind other countries in Europe by not having had paid sick leave in place so its probably time we did something and thinking about it from an employee’s perspective, should they fall ill or injured, a couple of weeks without pay is very much an added financial stress that might force them to return to work before they are ready. This in turn can lead to reduced productivity and more importantly reduced morale.
An employee must produce a GP cert to show that they were unfit to work so that should rule out the odd “sickie” being taken here and there as paid leave so hopefully this scheme will be treated by both employees and employers with respect.
Either way, it’s happening, and you need to budget accordingly making sure there is sufficient cash-flow to cover sick leave payments as well as extra pay for those who might need to work extra hours.
You will need to document any sick leave taken and you might need to update contracts as well so take 10 minutes to work out what you need to do over the next 6 months to get ready.