Schemes and Progression

This section is going to describe the steps to follow to set up the Occupational Sickness Schemes, including the entitlement and progression.

Occupational Sickness Schemes

Firstly, you will need to navigate to the main Occupational Sickness module:

Home > Occupational Sick > Module Definitions > Occupational Sick & Child Care Scheme

This will open up another window which will allow you to add a “New” scheme. Within here, each stage of the employee OSP terms and conditions will need to be set. You will also be able to define entitlements for different groups of employees’ within the organisation.

The below screenshot displays the variations in schemes that could potentially be setup in any one instance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The below screenshot shows a typical example of the first screen you will see when clicking “New” on the page above.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reference – the code placed here will need to be unique and limited to 5 characters. If there are multiple schemes to be setup with varying employee terms, it is beneficial to set this up with a suffix denoting the group of employees, i.e OSPT for Occupational Sick Pay Teaching.

Description – this will be visible within the absence record for the processing staff to be able to identify the scheme an employee is on.

Qualifying Query – this is a query to show all staff that apply to this particular scheme. As per the screenshot above, this query displays everyone who is within the “Teaching” criteria. It is recommended you find a common denominator within these records, which could be a field within the Employment History such as the Whole Time Equivalent or Activity Group.

Qualifying Months – the number here will vary dependant on the scheme you are creating. This will be the amount of months that an employee needs to complete as service, prior to going in to this scheme. For example, 0 for first year of service, 12 for second year, 24 for third and so on.

Duration Type – this will usually mirror the “React to Critical Dates” that have been setup within the Payroll Codes. If set to ‘Employee Working Pattern – Days’, the system will reduce the entitlement by the days as per the individual employee working pattern. If you wish the entitlement to reduce by Calendar Days, the option ‘Specific Working Pattern – Days’ will need to be selected. This will then highlight the Working Pattern drop down and you can pick a Monday-Sunday working pattern. Any other variations can also be selected this way, as per your organisation’s terms and conditions.

Use WTE – this will need to be “Use Average Days Worked”, to take in to account those with multiple contracts.

Allowance Type – there are two options to choose from within this list. If set to Rolling, the system will go back the preceding 12 months from the start date of the absence and recalculate based on the absences taken and paid already. If set to Fixed Annual, you will then be able to specify a particular day and month for the Occ Sick entitlements to “reset”. In the example shown, this will be 1 April. Once this date passes, any absences from thereon will be included in the new years allocation.

Linking Period – usually set to 0. This is managed within the SSP controls.

Waiting Days – usually set to 0. This is managed within the SSP controls. If you have any company specific waiting periods for your OSP, you can use this mechanism.

Occupational Sickness Progression

Now the scheme has been setup with the above, the next step is to list the progression within each one. You will need to click on the Progression tab.

 

 

 

Within the Payroll Code, you will need to pick from the list of your Payments and Deductions. This is usually going to be the main SAL code.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The “Replace With” drop down will give you a list of the payment codes you have previously set up.

The first one selected will be “Full Pay”. The duration can be set in line with the policies of the organisation. The Offset option relates to the SSP. As the Occ Sick will be paying in full, it is common that the SSP is offset at this stage.

Dependant on your organisation’s policy, there are four options that are able to be chosen from within the Offset drop down. These are:

Yes

Cap at Full Pay 

Use Highest Value

No

The SSP will offset around the Occ Sick payment codes (Full and Half for example) dependant on how you treat the statutory payments and your OSP.