[blacksheep]

HI ALL ,I am starting a new business here is a Q .I have 5 sites ,all have 1 cleaner at each site,3 have gave in sick notes they started work for me 3,7,20 days ago.all have job contracts. all three wont be back for a few weeks,i cant afford to take any one on to cover there sites,can i get rid and take 3 more on in there place or do i rick losing the contracts

[micsampip]

  Hi there,

I am also new to this kind of business but I have been searching through the Business Link, ACAS, Chamber of Commerce sites and this forum. These are the best places to find the correct way to deal with employees rights. I think it depends on what type of contract they are employed under. I do know they are entitled to the same rights as full timers nowadays, which from an employers point of view makes it more complicated.

The best way is to incorporate sickness and holidays into your costing and put aside that money in case of times like this.

I read a post some time ago showing an example of how to do this. For example:

1 cleaner @ £6/hr x 58/52 = £6.69 (cost of cleaner with 4wks hols + 2 weeks sick)
£6.69 plus £0.70/hr for product and depreciation cost = £7.39
I also added 12% of £6 = £0.72 for employers national insurance contributions = £8.11

Therefore a cleaner would cost £8.11 per hour and you have covered yourself for sickness and holidays. (I haven't accounted for insurance, training or vehicle costs so you might want to think about that also)

This is why it is important to charge enough in the first place, in order to cover your costs.

You will still have the problem of cover but you could use agency cleaners - or if all else fails rope in a few friends.

The above is not gospel, so I do recommend that you get in touch with the right authorities otherwise it could cost you more than a few lost contracts!!

Hope this is helpful

Lisa 

[carloso]

hi both

you are both seemingly encountering the first of many problems regarding employing people.
i shall only offer  one observation which i hope willl be accepted in the manner in which it is given and one piece of advice.
the observation is this, most organisations where advice is given freely, especially government bodies, suffer from the same maladies,
they have low moral staff
they have high turnover
they have staff who give wrong advice due to the two prior points
they give advice that is not current
they are very difficult to pin an answer to your specific situation
they are terribly difficult to get through to
you cant contact them in a crisis
it is very difficult to get advice off a named individual
it is very difficult to get facts off them that you dont have to have verified somewhere else
they do not feel responsible for what they tell you because its free, or so they feel, truth is, a lot don't care cos they think they are in low paid quasi gov jobs, but the bottom line is its not free we all pay them with our taxes.

the solution

join the fsb, they will give you current advice on employment and much much more its cheap and they are run to help us, the small business community, that is there sole purpose and if they dont get it right they go out of business, now all i can say is that they must be a succss cos thay get bigger everyyear

thats all

good luck 

carl

[micsampip]

  Thanks Carloso - will check FSB out.

Thanks for the advice.

It seems that most government organisations are very badly run. They don't talk to each other, have too many inefficient new systems in operation at the same time, and aren't properly trained!! (Inland Revenue and Child Support Agency both spring to mind)

Regards

Lisa 

[George-Reid]

FSB for sure is the way to go.
Not only help with all legal issues but
Through them you get free banking for life with the cooporative bank

Cheers

George

[Fox]

You can get someone else to cover these sites as (according to the details you gave) you don't have to give your current employees sick pay, so there is no reason why you can't pay someone else their wages.

These people have not been with you long enough even for them to qualify for SSP but you will have to give them a SSP1 form (available from DSS) so that if they are entitled to benefits they can claim them.

Even though employees who have been with you for less than 12 months have less rights than those that have, I would suggest that you don't 'sack' them while they are on the sick. 

You are not going to lose any money with these people on the sick just have the hassle of covering their jobs and sorting things out when they return.  If they don't perform when they return or take persistant sickness you can then think about taking things further.

Fox

[dustycorner]

Hi all,

A little off thread, theres an article in today's Mail on Sunday about lost days  to sickness in the UK. Last year it was 23 million days lost of which it is reckoned that if it was better controlled in the public sector it would drop by 20 million days .

I would recommend keeping a record of all absences sickness or otherwise and reasons given .Its very interesting monitoring some of the lame excuses you get for non attendance.

Cheers Mark.

[blacksheep]

hi all ,thanks for all your advice its a great help, its so great to have this forum to disscus any problems when theres no one else to turn .again many thanks