At this time of year, we often see an increase in sickness and seasonal illness.
If your employees are sick, encourage them to stay home. It will give them a chance to recover, and it will prevent other people from getting sick.
Learn what to do when someone gets sick, what they’re entitled to, and how to manage sick leave.
What you need to know.
After an employee has been working for you for six months, they’re legally entitled to at least 10 days of paid sick leave a year.
You must do the following:
- Allow employees to accumulate up to 20 days of sick leave. This means employees can carry over 10 days of unused sick leave into the next year.
- Allow employees to use sick leave to care for a sick or injured spouse, partner, dependent child or any other dependent individual.
- Pay a sick employee what they’d get if they’d worked a normal day, including bonuses and overtime.
You can do the following:
- Let employees take sick leave in advance if they’ve worked for you for less than six months.
- Choose to let employees carry over extra sick leave, beyond the 20-day requirement from year to year.
- Offer more than 10 days of paid sick leave a year.
If an employee is injured.
If an employee gets injured at work, they don’t need to take sick leave.
Once the accident is registered with ACC and they’ve acknowledged it, you must pay your injured employee at least 80% of their normal wages for the first week off work.
If an employee gets injured outside of work, they can choose to take:
- sick leave for the first week they’re off work
- annual leave or leave without pay.
After the first week, ACC will pay them 80% of their usual salary while off work.
Injured employees can ask you to pay them one day of sick leave each week if they want to and they have the sick leave available.
You have no other obligation to pay them while they’re on ACC, but if your employee returns to work on part-time duties, you may need to make a contribution towards their salary.
Asking for doctor’s certificates.
You can ask for a doctor’s certificate:
- after an employee has been sick or injured for three consecutive days
- before they’ve been sick or injured for three consecutive days, but only if you cover the cost of getting the certificate.
Your employee can choose which doctor they’d like to see.
If they can’t provide a doctor’s certificate or other proof that they’re really sick, you don’t have to pay them for their sick leave.
