I like that my employer doesn't call them sick days, they're "short-notice days off". They give as examples "it's too nice outside to work, I'm going to the beach" as well as "I don't feel well and I need some rest".
It's a great way to keep your workforce healthy, not just "not sick".
This really doesn't work if you get sick with the flu. You end up spending all your vacation for a year on being sick, and then get no time to yourself. It makes for really, really unhappy people.
My job gives us PTO instead of sick time/vacation time. It means that I am able to use as much as I want on vacation, and as much as I need on being sick.
It's way more flexible and I don't feel like I have to lie about why I'm taking a day off. "I had a rough weekend and needed an extra day to recover" is just as valid as "I am literally puking my guts out" which is just as valid as "I have to go to the DMV today" etc. And if i get the flu for two weeks, I don't have to go unpaid when i run out of sick time, or go back to work before I'm well. And if I don't get sick at all, I can take an extra long vacation.
In germany sick time and vacation are seperated by law. Your employer is required to give you at least 20 24 vacation days per year. And six weeks PTO if you are sick.
Those PTO days aren't per year but per sickness. Meaning you get sick -> stay home until well again.
Many companies don't differentiate the country their employee is in when it comes to determining time off. For instance, I live in the US and work for a company based in Sweden - I get the same benefits as my colleagues across Atlantic. The only paid time off difference we have is observed holidays. We actually have fewer here in the US than they do at the HQ, so we are given "Floating Holiday" PTO that we get to schedule whenever we want. Not gonna lie, I love my job's benefit package, makes me want to avoid working for American companies ever again now that I've seen Euro-style benefits.
At my job it accrues based on how long you've worked there. As a relatively new employee I think I rack up like 5 hours PTO per pay period or something like that. Not sure what it comes out to per year.
But I feel like its about on par with jobs I've had with separate vacation/sick time, except I can use the time however I want instead of having to split it half and half.
I don't remember what the actual numbers are off the top of my head. It might be less than that, and probably is cause I don't think I get three weeks.
But for reference, I've been there since January and just got back from a trip where I took 8 work days off and I had enough PTO to cover 7 of them. So idk what that math is.
I worked at a company (in a union) that had like 24 paid sick days per year or something pretty awesome. But if you called in sick more than 3 times, they sent you a nasty letter. They couldn't actually fire you for it (because of the union), but they made it pretty clear they were going to find another reason to fire you if you didn't stop taking sick time.
I've been at my job for a while, so I get 8 hours per pay period, or a little over 2 days per month (~2.12 days I think). They limit your accumulation to 350 hours though.
If you're sick for two weeks, you still have enough PTO to take a vacation? That's nice if your employer gives you a cushy PTO rate, but some of us don't. If you're sick for a week, there goes your planned vacation in 2 months, because you won't be able to earn it back in time.
I get 28 days vacation a year. On top of that I get an unlimited-but-don't-take-the-piss amount of sick days (I think, by law, we get 20 days sick, but I'm nowhere near certain on that).
I see where you guys are coming from on this. But my point is you don't get LESS time off if it's all in one pot. If you have five days of vacation time and five days of sick time then you can only be sick for five days before going unpaid or coming back to work AND you can only plan vacations of one week.
My PTO is the same amount, but can be used however I want. If I'm sick for two weeks, I can be paid for that and forgo my vacation OR I can use a few PTO days while sick and then have some sick days go unpaid and still go on vacation later. I have MORE options. I really don't understand what is bad about that.
It's not like segregating your time off magically gives you more of it.
No, I'd like to fix the system instead of arranging too little food on the plate and somehow pretend that by re-arranging it people have enough. You need about 10 days of sick pay about 15 of vacation to keep a healthy, happy workforce.
Okay. Well, regardless of amount, people are going to take ALL of it somehow. You need to have a system tho, for people who get really sick with one of those only-every-five-years flu so that doesn't annihilate their vacation. People that don't get time to play and enjoy the fruits of their labor resent laboring.
The issue with Quantifying sick days like that is people feel like they are there to use up. When they should really just be used when ill.
You need a way to allow people time off for illness without making it seem like another form of vacation day to use.
I'm actually pretty happy with my current place. It's pools of different categories, but I can simply cash out what would be traditional "sick time". It's a big pool of sick/whatever/personal and I generally don't ever need to use them. Ends up being a nice bonus paycheck most years. And most people just grab the extra paycheck. If you really wanted to, you could just blow them all before it rolls over to next year as another vacation.
Theres still a vacation pool which is longer and is planned, but I can't cash it out. Forces me to just take off a few weeks every year and chill at home even if I'm not doing anything.
I hate my job enough as it is, and convincing myself to get out of bed in the morning everyday is already an ordeal.
I manage to do it for months at a time, but there are days where it just eats me at more than usual, and I would rather die than have to drag myself to work another day. Those are the days where I call in sick.
I call it burnout. That's what vacation is for. But when you work part time with full time hours and get zero vacation pay, taking vacation is costly. It's misery. We need new jobs.
See, that would be nice, but I don't have that. I definitely wouldn't mind an unlimited policy for them but if I don't have that then I'd rather just roll them into one.
At my place as long as you don't have anything urgent lined up (e.g. meeting with customer) and you aren't in trouble with manglement, you can just call in and say you're taking the day off and pick which of the leave type you're using up (sick vs vacation).
You're encouraged to apply earlier if it's a vacation but we understand shit sometimes happens so it's not a strict rule and unless you're in bad odor with your manager you won't be hassled for it. I've taken off a whole bunch of times over the years, just rang in and told them I need the day off and please mark it out from my sick leave/vacation leave.
we have this, they're called Flex days and we can use them any time with 24 hours notice... and I get them on top of vacation and sick time (actually sick days aren't even counted)
My employer doesn't even ask why. I could just decide that I want to marathon a video game that day.
The main incentive not to do things like that is that whenever someone calls out and we can't get someone to cover for them, the day's work is much harder since we're short-staffed, and everyone gets out later. So when you do call out there's an acute awareness that that is going to happen to your coworkers, so people usually only do it if they REALLY have to.
They have a lump of paid time off (vacation + "short-notice days off"), but there is a limit on how many short-notice days you can take in a given period of time; there's manager discretion to flex those days for special circumstances.
The upside is that if you end up not needing/wanting short-notice days you can take them as vacation. The downside is that some people come in while sick because they don't want to eat up vacation. Fortunately, I work remotely so those folks don't get me sick, but it sucks for other people in the office.
Sick days is such a stupid concept to begin with.
As if people can control when they get sick to begin with.
The best bosses I've ever had never gave a pre-determined number of days, they just told me to stay home when I didn't feel well.
I mean shit, I even offered to finish some stuff from home a few times, and my one boss just told me not to worry about it. You can tell when people care about you, and when they're just giving you the minimum number of required days to keep the law off their back.
Where I work now, it's the opposite situation where my bosses will either hound me about why I was sick and demand a note (as if sick people should be leaving the house, especially when the symptoms are obvious) or be super passive aggressive about my illness when I get back.
You kind of hit the nail on the head why a lot of businesses frown on that. People will then come into work sick as not to use their "vacation" time.
My company used to be very loose on how you used your PTO. We lumped it all together and let employees use it however they wanted. Then people started taking advantage of it (calling out every other Monday, coming into work sick so they could take more vacations, etc) so we had to become more strict with its usage.
Its a shame really. Unlimited sick days were nice.
I wish my firm were like this. If I take a day off I was told I need a doctor's note. I said if I'm too ill to go to work why would I be able to get dressed, leave the house, get on a tram, sit in the doctor's office, tell him I'm not well, get a note then go back home?
I had a teacher who was signed off long term sick. He took my class out for a nice lunch to celebrate the end of our exams and used the line "Just because I'm sick doesn't mean I can't enjoy myself."
My office policy is pretty sweet. I get 15 days sick leave a year (that's three weeks) it's rolls over, so after 10 years, I could have 150 sick days saved up, (30 weeks). Plus we have a leave bank - i get Lyme disease, out for 3 months and I only have 20 days of sick leave? Nbd. Burn all my sick leave and use the leave bank. Get paid the whole time.
Anyhow, the cool part is that I get 5 "unexecused" sick occurrences a year. An occurrence is up to 3 consecutive sick days. Unexecused means no questions asked. An "excused" day would be, I have a doctor's appointment, here's a note from his secretary.
It's pretty sweet. I can wake up with a minor headache and call in sick. I could wake up completely fine and call in sick. No one cares, the first five time are solely on the honor system.
My employer has no vacation policy, nor any sick days or whatever. Feeling sick? Don't fucking come into work, ya dunce. Work from home when you feel well, sleep it off and relax when you don't.
Want to take a vacation? Cool. Go take a vacation.
Parents sick in a different state? Right on. Go visit.
Need a mental health day? Do it. If you feel you need one, you probably do, and you should take one.
Have an appointment in the morning? No worries. Come in late.
As long as you're getting your work done, they don't care what you do.
How is following the policy as set by the board of directors "abusing" anything? There is one paid time off pool, and we can use some of that pool for short-notice days by policy.
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u/loljetfuel Jul 13 '15
I like that my employer doesn't call them sick days, they're "short-notice days off". They give as examples "it's too nice outside to work, I'm going to the beach" as well as "I don't feel well and I need some rest".
It's a great way to keep your workforce healthy, not just "not sick".