Two colds, one claim? What you need to know about linked sickness for SSP

Two colds, one claim? What you need to know about linked sickness for SSP

Think an employee’s second sick day is just like the first? Not always. If someone goes off sick more than once in a short period, your payroll team might need to treat it as one continuous episode. This is a rule known as linked periods of sickness. If you get it wrong, you might pay too little, too late, or not at all. What makes two absences ‘linked’? The employee must be off at least four days in a row each time. The gaps between those abse…

Understanding linked periods of sickness and how they affect payroll

When it comes to Statutory Sick Pay (SSP), most payroll teams are confident in calculating payments for a single period of absence. However, what happens when an employee has more than one spell of sickness over a short space of time? This is where linked periods of sickness come into play, and misunderstanding them can lead to errors in entitlement and payment. What is a linked period of sickness? A linked period of sickness arises when an empl…