Sick leave
Paid sick leave allows employees to stay home to overcome an illness, helps to prevent infections spreading to others, and can be used by employees to look after sick family members.
What you must do
- Provide at least five days’ paid sick leave per year to staff after six months’ continuous employment with you, then another five days after each subsequent 12 months’ service.
- Allow unused sick leave to carry over into the next year. The maximum accumulation is 20 days although you can provide more if you want to.
- Allow employees to use sick leave to care for a spouse, partner, dependant child or elderly parent.
- Pay for sick leave days at the rate employees would usually be paid on the day that they take the leave, their relevant daily pay or average daily pay (if applicable).
- Keep good records so you know exactly what employees are entitled to. The Holiday and Leave Record template [DOC 114kB] may help.
- Before April 2004, both sick leave and bereavement leave were combined as “special leave”. They now need to be separated into sick leave and bereavement leave, so update your employment agreements if you need to.
What you could do
- After an employee has been sick or injured for three consecutive calendar days you have a right to ask the employee to provide proof of the injury or illness, such as a medical certificate.
- You can ask for proof of injury or illness within the three consecutive calendar days, but you will need to pay for reasonable costs (such as the cost of obtaining a medical certificate).
- You could give more than five days’ paid sick leave per year. Some workplaces offer 6-10 days sick leave per year to employees.
- Employees may run out of sick leave, or become ill during their first six months of employment. You could let them use sick leave in advance.
- Use the Holidays and Leave Tool to calculate the correct amount.
