While absence through either illness or injury is to be expected when running a business, it can quickly become costly and inconvenient when an employee is off sick frequently or for a long period.
If an employee is repeatedly absent or has a long-term condition that means they are no longer able to do their job, or do their role to the required standard, you may be considering issuing a written warning or even bringing their employment to an end. This is because there is only a limited amount of time that any business can survive, or function effectively, with staff on sick leave.
If you are in this situation, you might be wondering if there are minimum number of days that an employee should be off sick before a disciplinary or dismissal can take place. However, in answer to the question: “How many sick days before disciplinary?” — there is no right or wrong response. It will depend on the circumstances involved. Many employers will already have in place a sickness absence policy in which an absence review procedure will be triggered after a certain number of days sick leave. Having trigger points to keep track of attendance records is perfectly acceptable, provided each case is dealt with on its own facts.
When it comes to short-term absences, there is no legal upper limit to the number of sick days employees can take, where you are free to set your own threshold for what you would class as excessive over a set period. You could determine an admissible amount of absence based on the national average of sick days per year in the UK, around 6-7 days or, alternatively, base it on the average in your industry sector. It may be that you already record sick leave data to help monitor absenteeism in the workplace, where you will be able to use this to set your own average. If the number of days sick leave taken by an employee exceeds what you consider to be acceptable, you can go on to explore the reasons behind these absences.
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