What is Sick leave?

Definition

Sick leave is paid leave for illness, usually granted separately from casual and earned leave, and commonly requiring a medical certificate beyond a stated number of consecutive days.

How it works

Sick leave is the type most often duplicated by another benefit: an employee covered by employee state insurance may be entitled to sickness benefit from that scheme, which sits alongside whatever the employer policy provides.

What it means in India

Provisions vary by state Shops and Establishments Act, and separately the Employees State Insurance Act 1948 provides sickness benefit for covered employees, subject to contribution conditions. A policy written without reference to either can end up promising less than the state requires or paying twice for the same absence.

What people get wrong

• Requiring a medical certificate for a single day absence, which generates paperwork and pushes people to take casual leave for illness instead.
• Ignoring the interaction with employee state insurance sickness benefit for covered employees.

Terms this one depends on

More on leave

Where this shows up in practice

Almost everything on this page ends up as a line on a payslip or a figure in a register. Shiftelio keeps attendance, leave, salary structure and the statutory deductions in one place, so the number in the letter and the number in the payslip come from the same record.