Keeping a Record of Sickness Days Is a Must?

Employees in different companies are entitled to a fixed number of days of paid sick leave, which is a type of sick leave. Sick leave under the Employment Ordinance(EO) means:

• An employee employed under a continuous contract
• The sick leave taken is not less than four consecutive days
• The sick leave is supported by an appropriate medical certificate
• The employee has accumulated sufficient number of paid sickness days

According to the Chapter 5 of EO, an employer should keep the following records:

• the date of commencement and termination of employment of each employee;
• all paid sickness days accumulated by each employee, including the number of paid sickness days accumulated in Category 1 and 2;
• paid sickness days taken by each employee and deducted from the total number of paid sickness days in either categories;
• sickness allowance paid and the sickness days in respect of which the sickness allowance was paid.

Note: The record should be signed by the employee within seven days of his return to work from paid sick leave, and the employee has the right to inspect the record. An employer who contravenes the above provision is liable to prosecution and, upon conviction, to a fine of HK$100,000.

For some start-ups and small and SMEs, probably there is not an HR in the company and they just recruit an admin to do the HR jobs instead, but they do not know much about the specific rules of the EO to calculate the leaves.

An excel + an email = leave application library

HR’s ideal situation is, of course, that the employee took leave directly, but problems can also occur, for example, the employee took leave but came back to work, forgot to cancel the application, resulting in a change in leave balance; or the employee sent an email leave, and HR did not know. Then how to deal with it? These cases are real and they really bother HR. Workstem, the leave management function of the Human Resources Management System, not only handles leave application/approval but also keeps all employee leave records.

How can we effectively improve labour communication?

Here is the recommendation💡!

An HRM system to help handle employee leave, develop a clear, standardized, transparent leave application process, so that HR can timely approve leaves, and view the leave balance of employees. HR will not miss every employee’s leave application or lose sick leave record!

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