Payment & Wage Fraud

Abuse of sick leave guidelines in the workplace is widespread. Here’s how to put an end to it.

There are many articles on the internet that have detailed instructions on how to fake diseases, illnesses and how to obtain a “sick slip” from a doctor. It turns out that this type of advice is in great demand.

 

Of course, employees are allowed to have a certain number of sick days per year. The employee is of course entitled to this right, but the employer expects that the employees do not, as in many of our cases, abuse this to work elsewhere, extend a vacation, go shopping, visit gyms, do gardening or do any other private activity.

In these cases one also speaks of continued wage fraud.

At the same time, only about 30% of companies actually check to see if there really is a reason for being sick. In numbers, this means that these lies will cost you at least 0.9% of your annual sales every year. Even if your definition of illness is much broader than having a runny nose or food poisoning and taking care of sick family members, you hired these people because there is still much work to be done.

What can I do if I suspect wage fraud?

This can be very difficult for an employer. You have an employee who claim’s illness more often than the company average, but what should you do without violating the employee’s personal rights?

You don’t want to break labor law or appear to be discriminating against someone who really has health problems. It is bad enough when the excessive sick leave is obvious. However, it’s much more difficult when the medical record is only slightly worse than everyone else’s. This employee may do a good job, so you don’t want to lose them unnecessarily. At the same time, you have to consider fairness to the rest of the workforce.

In other words, fraudulent sick leave can easily be much more than a nuisance to you. It could cost you well over a couple of weeks of sick pay! Because according to German law, all employees are entitled to full continued payment of wages by the employer for up to 6 weeks from the first day of illness. Then the health insurance companies step in.

Our detectives will provide you with clarity

The most cost-effective and securest method is to have our detective agency carry out discreet and professional employee monitoring. There are a number of reasons why employers use the professional services of our detective agency to have one or more of their employees monitored.

A typical occasion is, for example, such as the topic of prepayment fraud explained above, which an employer or supervisor mistrusts the employee due to the frequency or timing of sick leave claims. 

In these cases, legally obtained hard evidence is required in a neat and comprehensible documented form to justify termination, tom prevent a subsequent legal dispute and to  entitle the employer or company concerned to damages.

An employer cannot perform such investigations, even if there is justified suspicion, simply because of the lack of know-how with regard to observation and the legality of securing sufficient evidence. An amateur will expose themselves and ruin their case nearly 100% of the time and can also run into serious legal problems as a consequence.

The reporting takes place in written and visual documentation. All detectives involved are of course available to you as witnesses in court at any time.