Higher additional-hours pay in retail could make short-term sick leave more expensive

Since 1 April 2026, part-time employees in retail have received additional-hours pay at the same level as overtime pay when they work beyond their employment level. The employers’ organisation Svensk Handel and the retail workers’ union Handels agreed on this in the 2025 bargaining round.

In shops with many part-time staff, this is felt most when someone falls ill. This article is not about paying part-time staff less – the pay is their right. It is about the employer’s and the manager’s ability to plan better. When the manager knows early on how long an absence will last, things get easier for everyone: the manager, the person who is ill and the colleague who covers.

What applies

For additional hours – work beyond the employment level in the employment contract – the part-time employee receives, on top of their hourly pay, additional-hours pay matching the overtime pay for full-time employees:

• 35 per cent for the first two hours per day before and after ordinary working hours
• 70 per cent for other additional hours on weekdays and after 8 pm Monday–Friday
• 70 per cent on a day that would otherwise have been a day off, Monday–Friday
• 100 per cent after 12 noon on Saturdays and on Christmas Eve, New Year’s Eve and Midsummer Eve
• 100 per cent on Sundays and public holidays, and on a day off that falls on a Saturday, Christmas Eve, New Year’s Eve or Midsummer Eve

If the additional hours also earn unsocial-hours pay, the employee receives whichever is higher. No additional hours arise when employees swap shifts on their own initiative, and additional hours cannot be ordered – the work must be agreed or approved afterwards. Anyone missing additional-hours pay must notify the employer within two months.

Additional-hours pay from day three

When a colleague covers for someone who is ill, the first two days of the absence earn no additional-hours pay. From day three, they do.

Some managers choose to interpret the rule to mean that a new contract for each shift, such as a temporary contract, means the hours do not count as additional hours. At worst, that means a new contract every day – an administrative burden for both the manager and the part-time employee.

If the manager is going to write a new contract with a part-time employee anyway, the alternative is a temporary contract for the whole absence. That means one contract instead of one a day, and the colleague gets a rota to plan around instead of being told one shift at a time. But it assumes the manager finds out early how long the absence is expected to last – and that the sick report actually gets through.

Reporting sick by text – common, but fragile

In many shops, employees report sick by texting their manager the same morning. It is common, but fragile in three ways:

• Everything depends on the manager’s phone. If the manager is off, ill themselves or misses the message, the report reaches nobody and planning cannot start.
• Health information ends up in the wrong place. The text often says what the person is ill with. Health information is sensitive personal data that the employer does not need, and it should not sit on a private phone.
• Patterns stay hidden. Texts disappear in the feed, which makes it hard to see when an employee has repeated short-term sick leave and may need support.

A sick report needs only two pieces of information: that the employee is away and roughly for how long – never why. A rough estimate is enough to plan with. It should be clear that it can change, so that nobody feels pressured to come back too early.

A realistic worked example: a week of sick leave in the shop

A part-time employee falls ill on a Monday and is away for the whole week. Her shifts, 1 pm–7 pm Monday to Friday, are covered by a part-time colleague who is off on those days and is on the agreement’s minimum hourly wage with three years’ experience in the sector: SEK 175.64.

Scenario 1: reporting sick by text message

• Monday and Tuesday morning, a text arrives: “Sick today.” The manager rings round and finds a colleague who can take the shift. The first two days earn no additional-hours pay.
• Wednesday to Friday, the same thing continues. Nobody knows how long the absence will last, so the colleague is told one shift at a time – sometimes the same morning.
• Without a contract, the shifts become additional hours on the colleague’s days off: 6 hours × SEK 175.64 × 70 per cent ≈ SEK 738 a day, about SEK 2,213 for the three days. With a new contract every day, there are instead three contracts for the colleague and five mornings of ringing round for the manager, about half an hour each time.
• The absence is documented in five text messages on the manager’s phone.

Scenario 2: reporting sick in the Health Portal

• Monday morning, the employee reports sick in the Health Portal with an expected return date of the following Monday – without stating a reason.
• The manager sees straight away that it covers the whole week. One call and one temporary contract for Monday to Friday, and the colleague knows on Monday which shifts apply.
• The report, the dates and the return notification are kept together in the portal.
• It was the employee’s sixth spell of sick leave in twelve months, and the portal reminds the manager to hold a wellbeing conversation.

The difference

The colleague is paid for every hour in both scenarios. The difference lies in everything around it. In the first, the colleague is told one shift at a time, and the manager spends the mornings ringing round and writing contracts – or pays just over SEK 2,200 more because it did not get done. In the second, everyone knows on Monday what the week looks like.

On top of this comes the manager’s time spent handling sick leave, which is easy to underestimate. Assume that each employee off sick takes half an hour a day to deal with – reading texts, ringing round, writing contracts and updating the rota. If the shop has on average one employee off sick a day and is open 360 days a year, that comes to 180 hours a year – more than a month of full-time work just filling gaps. With two people off sick a day, it is twice as much.

More security for the regular staff

Better planning means better conditions, not worse terms. The manager gets time back for something other than ringing round. The person covering gets less admin and shifts they can see coming. And the person who is ill can be ill, without having to get in touch every morning.

The same overview makes preventive work possible. In retail, with evening and weekend work, heavy lifting and standing work, a wellbeing conversation about repeated short-term absence is often the first step towards changing what can be changed – workload, rota or work environment. It strengthens the regular staff’s security, involvement and wellbeing.

Greater job satisfaction, security and attendance do not show up in a worked example, but the hidden value is felt in the long-term results. And the cheapest absence is still the one that never happens.

How the Health Portal helps

• Reporting sick leave and care of a sick child with an expected return date – without a reason or a diagnosis.
• An overview for managers of who in the team is away and since when – never why.
• Reminders to hold a wellbeing conversation about repeated short-term absence, and support with rehabilitation.

Want to see how it could work for your shops? Book a demo of the Health Portal.