What is the definition of a rolling 12 months in terms of sick pay?

Answer 1

Rolling 12 months is simply saying, "From any given month, go back 12 months and total it up."

So, a "rolling 12 months" for September '09 would be the total between (and including) October '08 and September '09. If we wanted to look at July, we'd "roll back" 2 months -- Aug '08 thru July '09; for Dec '09 we'd roll forward -- Jan '09 thru Dec '09. You can see that as you "roll" forward or backward, you always use a 12 month period that ends with the month you're interested in.

I don't know your specific application for it, but let's say your HR manual says, "Your sick days may not exceed 15 business days in a rolling 12 months." This is saying that for any given month go back 12 months and count the number of sick days -- you can't have more than 15.

For Sept, add up your sick days in Oct '08, Nov, Dec, etc... thru Sept '09; For July, count your days in Aug '08 thru July '09.

Ok, so, let's say you took a week (5 days) off last year -- in October '08. Then you took a week off (another 5 days) in March '09, then another week (another 5 days) off in September '09. This would be the maximum sick days you could have (15 days) in the "last" 12 month period (from October '08 to September '09). You've used up all of your sick days, right?

1. Oct '08 - 5 days
2. Nov '08 - 0
3. Dec '08 - 0
4. Jan '09 - 0
5. Feb '09 - 0
6. Mar '09 - 5
7. Apr '09 - 0
8. May '09 - 0
9. Jun '09 - 0
10. Jul '09 - 0
11. Aug '09 - 0
12. Sep '09 - 5

Total = 15 Days

What about next month? Could you take time off next month? To figure that out, we'd need to "roll" forward one month, and add up the sick days in Nov '08 thru Oct '09.

1. Nov '08 - 0 days
2. Dec '08 - 0
3. Jan '09 - 0
4. Feb '09 - 0
5. Mar '09 - 5
6. Apr '09 - 0
7. May '09 - 0
8. Jun '09 - 0
9. Jul '09 - 0
10. Aug '09 - 0
11. Sep '09 - 5
12. Oct '09 (future)

Total = 10 Days

Yes, you can take more days off, because the October '08 days "dropped off".

This is the basic way you'd figure that out, but you should really check with your HR department on their specific calculation. Sometimes, they say "rolling 12 months" when they actually caculated it using days instead of months (i.e. 365 days back = 12 months back) .