WFM UK | HR & Payroll: Absence (Sickness)

Overview

Absence management is a core part of day-to-day HR and Payroll operations. Fourth's solution provides a flexible, configurable framework for recording, tracking, and reporting on employee sickness absences, with behaviour that flows through into Payroll UK and is visible within Rota and Scheduling in WFM UK.

Absences are built around configurable absence types, which define how each category of sickness is measured, how it affects pay, and how it appears against the employee record. Once these are set up, absences can be recorded against employees either in days or in hours, with both approaches feeding into payroll calculations and appearing on the employee's rota. The system also applies validations to prevent conflicting records from being entered across absence and other leave types for the same employee.

The suite also covers the legislative framework underpinning Statutory Sick Pay (SSP), including the significant reforms introduced in April 2026 under the Employment Rights Act 2025. Understanding the legislation alongside the system configuration ensures absences are processed accurately and compliantly.

For monitoring and reporting, the solution includes Bradford Factor functionality, which automatically calculates scores based on an employee's absence history to help identify patterns of short-term, intermittent absence across individuals and the wider organisation.

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Contents

• SSP Legislation, Eligibility & Calculations
• Absence Related User Permission & Portal Settings
• Configuring Absence Types
• Configuring CSP Entitlements
• Creating Absences in Days 
• Creating Absences in Hours
• Absence (Sickness) Data Imports 
• SSP & CSP Processing & Management
• UK HR API (Coming Soon)
• Bradford Factor
• Absence Reporting