4 ms·

What does "improper" mean and who gets to decide what actions are improper? Paid days are paid days and just because they have a certain name doesn't change a t

What does "improper" mean and who gets to decide what actions are improper? Paid days are paid days and just because they have a certain name doesn't change a thing. Has anyone ever been accused of faking a vacation? Of course not, because that would be ridiculous. But since sick days are called sick days all of a sudden you need to prove you're bedridden or else face consequences? That's absurd. Treat your employees like adults.

zdragnar 7y ago
Sick days and vacation days typically have different notification requirements- in most places that had them I've worked at, it was 2 weeks for vacation and asap for sick leave. Vacation time could be denied if, say, the job involved time sensitive equipment or safety related tasks (I.e. nursing) and others had already requested the time off. Abusing sick leave- depending on the job- has very real consequences for your coworkers and company, if someone absolutely has to pick up your slack.
- chrsstrm 7y ago
  So do those consequences you mention suddenly disappear if you're _actually_ sick? The fixation on "abuse" and that it can be easily determined doesn't make sense.
  - zdragnar 7y ago
    No, the consequences don't disappear. But, if you're in a position where when there's a difference in notice required for planned (vacation) and unplanned (sick) time off, and you take sick time off for vacation, you're effectively creating an unnecessary disruption. Maybe the manager has to scramble to find someone willing to come in on short notice. Maybe a temp staffer has to be hired in from an agency. Maybe that's not feasible, and someone has to work a double shift. Depends entirely on the job. If it doesn't matter, then the company shouldn't be distinguishing between vacation and sick time off anyway. If it does matter, then personally I wouldn't want to work with someone who would do that.
- jschwartzi 7y ago
  Why is it abuse if I use my PTO? The whole point of PTO is that the company is agreeing to give you 10 days worth of slack. So obviously it shouldn't be a problem if you use that 10 days of slack. Are you telling me that the company is lying about the benefits it provides, and that it doesn't actually provide 10 days of sick leave? What else are they lying about?
  - zdragnar 7y ago
    In reverse order: > Are you telling me that the company is lying about the benefits it provides, No, I'm telling you that there's a difference in requirements for taking sick leave versus vacation. The only reason that sick leave doesn't have the same requirement as vacation is you don't choose when you get sick. If you take a sick day as a vacation day, you're forcing others to scramble to make up for you not being there. > Why is it abuse if I use my PTO? Perhaps you missed my intended emphasis on certain jobs that have time or safety sensitive responsibilities, such as nursing. It may not hurt the company for you to take those 10 days, but it does hurt whoever gets called in to fill in for you when they otherwise would have had off. Here's a simple, real-world example: A company that runs a group-care home for disabled adults is currently understaffed due to a number of circumstances (the difficulty of the job being the biggest). There are four employees to cover 21 8-hour shifts each week (24 hours a day, 7 days a week total). If someone calls in sick, the one of the others has to cover the shift. Under no circumstances can the house ever be unstaffed. Aside from a bit of overtime pay, the company isn't hurt, but everyone else is. Not all jobs are like this. The consequences of taking a sick day as a vacation day (or simply being sick) usually aren't that severe. Maybe it's a manufacturing line and the manager has to step in to fill your role or something. Maybe it has no effect at all on anyone around you. In those cases, maybe it doesn't make sense for the company to distinguish between time off for being sick, and time off for vacation. > The whole point of PTO is that the company is agreeing to give you 10 days worth of slack. No, that's only true if the company doesn't distinguish between sick time off and vacation time off. Typically, where I've worked, all PTO was lumped into a single bucket, and no-one really cared. However, that is really more true of white collar work with long timelines and not so much in most other jobs (or the parent post I was replying to).
- jkaplowitz 7y ago
  Confirmed. I'm a manager right now, and I get emailed to approve vacation days but I only have on-demand visibility into my team members' personal and sick days. Those last two types are auto-approved if the employee hasn't run out of them, since nobody gets to choose when they're necessary. All three of these paid leave types are limited in number of days per year at my current employer, despite my preference as per another comment for paid sick days to be unlimited. I don't make those rules here. However there are labour laws in force which protect the right to total (mostly unpaid) sick leave for 26 weeks out of every 12 months, including rights to return to the company afterward. (Special cases allow different totals, sometimes even two years for things like a minor child dying. And yes there are government-paid sickness benefits here in most long-lasting sick leaves.) I agree that those kinds of statutory long durations are pretty different from the kind of sick leave I think should be unlimited, but having to care about 5 vs 10 vs 15 days total per year is not conducive to a healthy workplace, absent reason to suspect fraud.

zdragnar 7y ago

Sick days and vacation days typically have different notification requirements- in most places that had them I've worked at, it was 2 weeks for vacation and asap for sick leave. Vacation time could be denied if, say, the job involved time sensitive equipment or safety related tasks (I.e. nursing) and others had already requested the time off. Abusing sick leave- depending on the job- has very real consequences for your coworkers and company, if someone absolutely has to pick up your slack.

chrsstrm 7y ago
So do those consequences you mention suddenly disappear if you're _actually_ sick? The fixation on "abuse" and that it can be easily determined doesn't make sense.
- zdragnar 7y ago
  No, the consequences don't disappear. But, if you're in a position where when there's a difference in notice required for planned (vacation) and unplanned (sick) time off, and you take sick time off for vacation, you're effectively creating an unnecessary disruption. Maybe the manager has to scramble to find someone willing to come in on short notice. Maybe a temp staffer has to be hired in from an agency. Maybe that's not feasible, and someone has to work a double shift. Depends entirely on the job. If it doesn't matter, then the company shouldn't be distinguishing between vacation and sick time off anyway. If it does matter, then personally I wouldn't want to work with someone who would do that.
jschwartzi 7y ago
Why is it abuse if I use my PTO? The whole point of PTO is that the company is agreeing to give you 10 days worth of slack. So obviously it shouldn't be a problem if you use that 10 days of slack. Are you telling me that the company is lying about the benefits it provides, and that it doesn't actually provide 10 days of sick leave? What else are they lying about?
- zdragnar 7y ago
  In reverse order: > Are you telling me that the company is lying about the benefits it provides, No, I'm telling you that there's a difference in requirements for taking sick leave versus vacation. The only reason that sick leave doesn't have the same requirement as vacation is you don't choose when you get sick. If you take a sick day as a vacation day, you're forcing others to scramble to make up for you not being there. > Why is it abuse if I use my PTO? Perhaps you missed my intended emphasis on certain jobs that have time or safety sensitive responsibilities, such as nursing. It may not hurt the company for you to take those 10 days, but it does hurt whoever gets called in to fill in for you when they otherwise would have had off. Here's a simple, real-world example: A company that runs a group-care home for disabled adults is currently understaffed due to a number of circumstances (the difficulty of the job being the biggest). There are four employees to cover 21 8-hour shifts each week (24 hours a day, 7 days a week total). If someone calls in sick, the one of the others has to cover the shift. Under no circumstances can the house ever be unstaffed. Aside from a bit of overtime pay, the company isn't hurt, but everyone else is. Not all jobs are like this. The consequences of taking a sick day as a vacation day (or simply being sick) usually aren't that severe. Maybe it's a manufacturing line and the manager has to step in to fill your role or something. Maybe it has no effect at all on anyone around you. In those cases, maybe it doesn't make sense for the company to distinguish between time off for being sick, and time off for vacation. > The whole point of PTO is that the company is agreeing to give you 10 days worth of slack. No, that's only true if the company doesn't distinguish between sick time off and vacation time off. Typically, where I've worked, all PTO was lumped into a single bucket, and no-one really cared. However, that is really more true of white collar work with long timelines and not so much in most other jobs (or the parent post I was replying to).
jkaplowitz 7y ago
Confirmed. I'm a manager right now, and I get emailed to approve vacation days but I only have on-demand visibility into my team members' personal and sick days. Those last two types are auto-approved if the employee hasn't run out of them, since nobody gets to choose when they're necessary. All three of these paid leave types are limited in number of days per year at my current employer, despite my preference as per another comment for paid sick days to be unlimited. I don't make those rules here. However there are labour laws in force which protect the right to total (mostly unpaid) sick leave for 26 weeks out of every 12 months, including rights to return to the company afterward. (Special cases allow different totals, sometimes even two years for things like a minor child dying. And yes there are government-paid sickness benefits here in most long-lasting sick leaves.) I agree that those kinds of statutory long durations are pretty different from the kind of sick leave I think should be unlimited, but having to care about 5 vs 10 vs 15 days total per year is not conducive to a healthy workplace, absent reason to suspect fraud.