Why do you even have an allocation of sick days? It's not really a concept anywhere I've worked (in the UK).

I'm always amazed by how Americans in particular (sorry if you're not, I'm assuming) tend to go from one end of the spectrum to the other without any middle stops in common sense land. I once had a US friend go straight from "we have bad health care" to "we need a violent revolution" with no consideration to... you know, maybe good health care?

I mean, from my perspective it seems pretty obvious that you should only take as many sick days as you need, but you should take all the ones you need, to an unlimited total amount.

Like, that seems so simple. It's how it's always worked in the multiple countries I've lived in. You're sick? You call in sick. You need to be off for multiple days? You ask your doctor to officially declare that you're sick. The company is taking a hit? The government covers your wages during your long term sickness.

This works. We know this works. It's obvious this works.

Really sums it up tbh. No one gets through school without needing a sick day, but they offer children a worthless piece of paper for being obedient enough to risk everyone else's health.

Whoa what, is that a US thing or something?

Bro there's still so many idiots at my workplace working their life away for a stupid card that says "best performer of the month". I got no problem with that but the issue that I have is they make life hard for guys like me. I know and they know that they can't afford a shitty 4 bedroom house so why the fuck slave so hard. I really don't get it

Send help

I remember a story about a CEO who decided to pay ALL of his employees well. As I remember, all of his middle management left in a huff because they no longer had their higher earnings to hold over their subordinates and feel superior, all of his friends ostracized him and he essentially became a pariah.

Yeah, Dan Price, just went to look it up. Apparently, he had to resign after some allegations against him, which turned out to be false. Something smells off about a man paying employees fairly suddenly getting trumped-up charges that never got properly investigated before being referred to the prosecutor's office literally the day after he announces the pay stuff.

https://fortune.com/2023/04/19/gravity-payments-dan-price-assault-charges-are-dropped/

The stock market should be abolished entirely. The driving force behind big business and government decisions should be humanity, not money.

The whole reason sick days are a thing

Sick days are a thing because unions fought for them.

From the article

Prepandemic, Fleetcor workers in their 20s and 30s took one or two sick days a year, she says. Now, it's more like three to five.

So pandemic taught people how viruses spread and how not to spread them and coming to work sick is shameful, not a badge of honor. Still, 4 days a year isn't enough.

I worked with a guy, Clint, who had been at the company his whole life, worked his way from the factory floor to head of accounting. The thing Clint chose to brag regularly about was that he was 60-something and had never taken a sick day. Instead, he'd roll in obviously sick, sneeze on everyone, everyone he saw that day would get sick, a few of them followed his stellar example and got more people sick. During those times, no actual work got done except Clint lamenting about how everyone was getting sick. "Must be the weather."

Perhaps Americans need to learn to call them wellness days and not place some arbitrarily low limit for amount of days on them. Ten or twelve to start a year seems reasonable. Americans are bizarre.

He - because his workplace was offering bonuses for employees who weren't taking sick days

Good god is that illegal in Europe. Employees are entitled to sick pay if they're sick, if no reason other than to ensure they don't come into the office and get everyone else ill as well. Also employees are actually required to take holiday pay, last year I got called into a meeting and got told I had to take more holidays because I wasn't taking enough.

She - because she already took all her sick days as PTO, without actually being sick.

Again illegal in Europe, PTO and sick pay are independent of each other. There's no limit on the number of sick days you can have, although if you go beyond a certain number you do require a doctor's note, but as long as you have that you're golden. In theory this is abusable, but because everyone gets PTO anyway, and actually get a decent number of days, there isn't really the incentive to do that.

It's bizarre the way the United States operates.

Unfortunately a simple "unlimited PTO" policy is fake pro-employee policy.

• Overall, studies show employees actually take less days off under that policy, likely due to the uncertainty and stress over what is "really" the expectation, and how it will affect the employee's job security.
• Employees end up working over vacations more often.
• Since there are no fixed days, employers don't need to pay for unused vacation time periodically or when an employee leaves.

It plays out in a way that actually ends up harming the employee.

Every "unlimited PTO" policy should be combined with a minimum PTO policy. If you're wondering if a company actually cares about its employees' mental health, that's how you know.