Depends on where you work. Every job I’ve had distinguished between sick leave and vacation leave ,and this one also has personal leave. Sick leave had to be taken for illness or doctor visits, vacation and personal could be taken for any reason. Sick and vacation carried over from one year to the next, personal leave expired at the end of the year. Sick leave did not require advance approval, while vacation and personal did. I was paid for vacation leave still on the books if if left the job, but not for sick leave.
At any rate, I think the poster who originally said people look at sick leave as an entitlement was thinking of people like some of my co-workers, who if they earn one day of sick leave a month, make sure they call in sick one day a month, whether they are sick or not.
With the exception of DaToad, I wouldn’t want to work for any of the managers who’ve posted here. I work in a very flexible environment, I appreciate it, and I make use of the flexibility when needed. My employer recognizes that we’re all people who have personal lives, families and obligations that occasionally take priority. Everyone there puts in our best effort, we’re all intelligent and well qualified people. We have the option to work at home when we want or need to. My employer realizes that it’s more important to have happy, loyal, hard-working employees who might have occasional personal obligations than to have a bunch of mindless drones who stick to a strict schedule out of fear and coercion.
My employer does NOT want frustrated, resentful, passive-agressive workers who think their managers are jerks. And because my employer is generous, flexible and reasonable, the employees are all great people who don’t have to be baby-sat.
The managers who’ve posted here haven’t said what kind of businesses they’re in, and I admit that different kinds of business might tend to attract different kinds of workers, some of whom may need extra supervision. And yes, in some environments, occasionally an employee is a slacker who needs to be watched closely or laid off. But I still believe that when an employer treats their people with respect, and shows flexibility where needed, their generosity is going to be amply repaid with workers who are happy and hard-working.
And as far as “entitlement” goes, I think that when someone works hard and puts in their best effort, they ARE entitled to be treated with respect, not like a robot or a slave.
I have no problem treating people with respect, but I also would ask that they respect not only me as a manager but the company they work for by staying on task for the period of time they’re on the clock.
You seem to be under the misconception that asking someone to do the job they were hired for under the conditions specified is showing disrespect. I would disagree.
I don’t think that any of us who have posted thus far are saying we have a problem recognizing that employees live a life outside of the office, but what I think we are trying to get across is that there are people out there who think that their personal life supercedes all else. I believe that opinion is flat out wrong in the sense that when you accept a job offer, you are willing to sacrifice not only your time and effort but also a part of your personal life in exchange for a paycheck.
Like you mentioned before, though, the type of industry defines how much flexibility will be allowed and acceptable. Many jobs are creative and abstract in nature; I would expect these kinds of jobs to be much more flexible. However most jobs are not like that and the success of the company as well as the harmonious co-existence of all employees depends directly on everyone following the set standards and directives. I hardly think it is fair to make exceptions for employees who in this case feel their personal time is more important than the effort they put forth on behalf of the team and the company.
Living in Lost Wages, I (as well as my mother) have experience with both employers who refuse that their employees are human beings, and with cow orkers who have that sense of entitlement.
For some reason, in this town, managers actually seem to favor workers with no work ethic, who take unauthorized breaks, make personal phone calls to an excessive degree, who do their nails instead of their jobs, who make a regular practice of being rude to customers and deliberately uncooperative with coworkers. A generally bad worker who leaves their work station for a half hour at a time to smoke cigarettes is not penalized, but a good worker who asks a coworker to cover for them so they can go get water to take an aspirin because they have a headache will be written up for “abandoning their work station.” It happened to my mother… It’s rampant in the casino industry, but this attitude is rapidly seeping into other types of businesses as well. Someone with an actual work ethic is generally regarded as a troublemaker, and if they aren’t let go during their probationary period, or, just let go with no explanation (at will employment state- whoopee), their bosses and cow orkers deliberately make their jobs and lives miserable in an attempt to force them to quit.
Also, many, if not most employers regard family obligations as recreational activities. I’ve seen many cases where a manager who knew a particular employee had a sick child or elderly relative to care for knowingly change that person’s schedule so that they would not be able to be home at a time when the spouse or other family member was working, thus making it necessary to hire professional caregivers, at an expense that caused financial hardship.
And let’s not even talk about managers who regard religious obligations as recreational activities, scheduling Catholics to work on holy days of obligation that when the day would normally be a scheduled day off, or refusing to allow the person the time off necessary to attend religious services, or putting someone who worked odd shifts to work on little or no sleep because they needed to attend a religious service at a time when they would normally be asleep. (I’m just using this as an example because it happens to me on a regular basis. It happens to people of all religious stripes.)
This sort of practice may not turn a good worker into a bad one, but does create resentment which would lead to an employee to not do their jobs as well as they would if they were treated with respect by their employers.
I think busting my ass to do the best job I can for my employer entitles me to a good paycheck, and to have my family and religious obligations obligations respected. If it means working on a normal day off in order to have the Feast of the Assumption off so I can attend church, I’m willing to do that, but a lot of employers just are not willing to bend.
The sad thing is, it’s usually the good, hard-working employees who are subjected to this kind of treatment. The bad, rude, lazy and uncooperative workers can usually get any days off they want, or at least are not penalized for calling off sick so they can get their hair and nails done because they have a hot date.
Not in my shop, Thea Logica.
For the record: My business is in industrial wholesaling. We have no turnover other than those that we’ve had to fire due to attitude problems (theirs) or incompetence (theirs.)
Our long time staff get unlimited personal phone calls, sick time, (which is rarely used) paid days off for almost any reason. One almost indispensible worker gets a company van to use personally, off the books, as a perk for great service.
Some of the things we have given employees paid time off to do are as follows:
-Moving day: In one case, we not only gave the gentleman the day off with pay, we also gave him a company truck to use and the use of one of our other employees (the other employee was more than willing, he got paid for the day plus beer and pizza provided by his coworker);
-Legal issues: In one case, the gentlemen was suing his former employer. He’d been with us for over a year and asked to book the court date off. He had gained enough trust in us to tell us the truth, and we knew him well enough to feel he was justified in his suit against his former employer. He got the day off with pay. In another case, a staff member was charged with impaired driving (on his own time.) Again, due to his excellence, he was given numerous days off with pay to fight the charge in court;
-Parental leave: No, not maternity leave. This gentleman’s wife had a tough time with the birth and needed extra help for a week after. He was paid for the full week, and was not docked any vacation time.
Other perks: Regular beer & wing nights paid for by the company, regular bonuses, benefit plan fully paid by the company (yes this is a perk, many companies require employees to pay part of the cost of benefits) full internet access and personal e-mail accounts. The full trust and loyalty and respect of myself and other management.
In addition, they get regular raises which they have earned by their own productivity. No one has ever had a wage freeze in my shop. The business has been operating in the black for over ten years and I put our success down to the combined efforts of everyone involved. No one gets phone calls during the week-end or off-hours because we work hard enough from 8 to 5 weekdays.
They are not watched, harassed, treated like dummies or unduly questioned, ever. They have full freedom to invite idiotic customers to take their business elsewhere if the customer can’t be reasonable. They are not required to take abuse in any way, shape or form. For big clients that are difficult but whose business we want to retain, they are given all the help, assistance and training they need to deal with these situations. Not to mention, a sympathetic ear in my office afterwards, where we laugh our asses off at some of the stupid things some people try to pull or whatever. After particularly trying periods, everyone who can will repair to the local pub with us where we will blow off steam by getting loaded on the company tab. Spouses are encouraged to join us if possible. The company provides transportation home, or accomodations if necessary.
If they are “entitled” to all this, it’s because they’ve earned it over time through their own efforts. They take ownership of their jobs and the general day-to-day operations. No-one sits on their ass while the phone rings or neglects anything. They do not goof off , make excuses or whine about having to do something that doesn’t appear in the job description. They are well aware how good they have it and in turn do their jobs extremely well. Christ, these people are rarely even late.
Why do all this? Why bother when by law, we are not required to do much beyond vacation pay? Because it’s better for the bottom line, frankly. It works. Our management philosophy has created a relaxed, jovial workplace atmosphere and a sense of trust and respect between management and employees. Our people are extremely productive and we all make great money, even in hard times.
Conversely, I DO NOT tolerate bullshit, ever. I am very well acquainted with the difference between someone having a bad day and a person who is an habitual malcontent.
In over ten years, no-one has ever voluntarily quit working for us, it’s too damn good a place to work.
Wrong. I’m saying that the impression your post gave is that you’re complaining that all your employees are lazy slobs. Probably, your attitude toward them is very evident at work, causing your employees to give you the very minimum possible.
Now if I were in Triss’s business, she would be someone I’d want to work for!
Well, as a rule many of them were. Does that mean that I should be accepting of that behavior? Does that mean that the employees who were giving me their all should feel resentful because I didn’t call out those who couldn’t follow the rules?
My attitude was very evident, but had the opposite effect. I had a very loyal crew in an industry with high turnover. The employees who showed a willingness to work as a team and put in their best effort got recognized and rewarded. Those who refused to tow the line got warned and if that didn’t work they were fired. This was in a retail service industry so of course there is a greater need to be strict with certian rules, however the pit thread cited in the OP is was really got me thinking.
I notice this behavior in corporate climates too, however for some reason it seems to be almost accepted practice, as Thea Logica stated. As I have said before, I understand that in certain industries leeway is possible and I do not condemn giving empoyees time off, personal phone calls, etc. as a reward for great performance or service. I’m merely trying to single out those who for no other reason than they feel they are entitled seek to take advantage of their employer and use their job as a nothing more than a second home.
My last permanent job was hell on earth. I was in the process of a divorce, and I got the notice of appearance in the mail. This meant I had to go to Minnesota and appear. The court date was scheduled for the first week of April, when my co-worker was scheduled to be off for her wedding. She wasn’t getting married till that Saturday, but she’d arranged to be off to greet out-of-town guests. Fine.
My bosses threw a fit like you would not believe. They asked me to arrange for the hearing to take place by telephone, so I could do it while at work. I had problems with the “at work” part, mainly because a divorce hearing is my business, not my employers’, and I did not feel comfortable doing this in front of my supervisors or my co-workers. Not that it mattered, because the judge couldn’t do it by phone anyway.
The only thing I don’t understand about managers/employers is the ability to bitch for weeks, and even months, about various employees…and yet not correct the situation. Either by working out certain things with that employee, or firing them.
It’s like it’s more fun to bitch than to solve the problem. I don’t get this, and I’ve seen it in just about every manager I’ve ever had. Either set Employee X straight, or get rid of 'em! Geez! Why is this so hard? Why do they bitch so loudly when these people come in late/call in all the time/leave early/take too many breaks/don’t do their job, etc., etc., etc.? Why is this person/persons still employed?
People who are allowed to get away with this stuff ruin morale for anyone with any real work ethic, and I’ve never understood why so many managers would rather bitch in corners about their Crappy Staff than do something about it. A badly managed staff is a self-perpetuating nightmare.
At my last job, incoming phone calls were a big problem. If it was in the slow parts, I didn’t really care. But friends of employees would call at lunchtim, dinnertime, right before we left for the night. Because of the language barrier, I could NOT get it through to my employees that they had to tell their friends and family that they couldn’t call unless it was an emergency. And by emergency, I didn’t mean “Can I have 50 cents to go to the store and get a coke?” (Yes, we really heard that one…) We had one woman who’s niece (about 24 years old, well old enough to understand that her aunt was at work, and couldn’t talk) would call every day at 12:15, while we had lines to the door. I asked nicely for awhile, finally started telling her “Yes she’s here. She’ll be here at 2 also, call back then.”
Now we have a big problem with cell phones…people wear their cells on the line, and will be answering their phones in the middle of customer transactions. As a customer, it would piss me off. As a manager, it annoys the hell out of me. We’ve all but banned phones in the store altogether…
I worked in the hospitality undustry before and during my college degree, and it was often the most useless workers who were given the most latitude by management. In the section of the hotel where i worked, this seemed to be due to the fact that the supervisors themselves had all been useless workers who had, inexplicably, been promoted from the floor to supervisory positions.
One of my pet peeves was the whole smoking issue. Smokers seemed to feel that it was their right to go off and light up in the middle of a busy period, leaving others to do their work for them. And, because most of the supervisors were smokers, a request for a cigarette break was rarely denied. One night i tested the equity of the system by asking whether i could have a five-minute break during which i would stand around and do nothing. The answer, of course, was “no.” But if i had wanted to use those five minutes for the ingestion of tar, nicotine, and other poisons it would have been fine.
Why not? If the company says “you earn one sick/vacation day a month”, why don’t you think that person is entitled to use it? It may not be a wise decision to take off a sick day you don’t need since you may need it later, but that’s the employees business. This is something the company agreed to when they hired you.
What if I told you “we agree to pay you $1500 a week” but then you only received a $1000 check? Would you not feel entitled to the extra $500?
I don’t believe you. Unless you run a compnay of six people, there is not way on Earth in over ten years at least one person has not left to pursue a job for more money, go back to school, follow a spouse to another state or change carreers.
Just because you declare someone’s departure as “involuntary” does not make it so.
Because most jr/middle managers are incompetant. Most managers tend to be someone with a couple years experience who was promoted. Or they might be some MBA who didn’t take a job as a investment banker or consultant. Either way, credentials or expertise in one aspect of the company’s business does not mean someone would do a good job leading a team.
It’s tough to lead or inspire others, delegate tasks, deal with a dozen personality types and perform the other duties that lie between being an individual contributer an managing at the strategic level. So you end up with managers who micromanage or under-manage or are too controlling or not controlling enough or avoid conflcit and so on. And those are the ones who are just incompetant. I won’t even get into the managers who are malicious jerks.
Originally posted by Triss
In over ten years, no-one has ever voluntarily quit working for us, it’s too damn good a place to work.
And msmith537’s response to my statement:
Well your suspicion is understandable. Especially coming from someone who would blatantly edit their own, and others’ statements, in order to try changing the meaning of the original exchange. :rolleyes: People who are not trustworthy themselves often view others with suspicion and distrust.
Fortunately, however, your belief or disbelief doesn’t change a thing. For your information, while our company is not what you’d call exactly “micro”, having 50 employees or less, neither is it a large company. Our annual sales are in the millions. It is a private company, which gives us enormous leeway to do what we like. And what difference would it make how many people work for us anyhow? People move TO areas in order to find secure, well-paid work in a decent environment. They go back to school or change careers for the same reasons. What’s so unbelievable about that?
Still, we’re nowhere near as large as SAS Institute. Note their rate of turnover: 4% out of a total of more than 4600 employees in the US.
I invite you to check them out further, and others like them. There are lots on the site linked above. Some of these companies make us look like Nazi pikers or something.
Furthermore, since you still seem confused about the difference between vacation time and sick time: Vacation time is required BY LAW. This is why people must be given the time or paid in lieu. In Ontario (Canada) sick time is a PERK, offered as an incentive, in order to attract good people. Companies don’t SAY you’ve “earned” sick time. It’s possible that if a manager told you this, they were mistaken. Because, really, why would any employer pay you for sick time not taken? It’s only meant to be there if you need it, in order to spare the employee hardship if they happen to need some time off for health reasons.
If you bothered to check the link to the Ontario ESA I supplied in a post above, you’d see that sick time isn’t covered, but unpaid emergency leave is. Here, I’ll quote you the first paragraph in the link: From the FAQ’s:
Are sick leave and bereavement leave covered under the ESA ?
*Employees who work for companies that regularly employ at least 50 employees are entitled to emergency leave in certain situations.
Emergency leave is unpaid, job-protected leave of up to 10 days each year. It may be taken in the case of a personal illness, injury or medical emergency or a death, illness, injury, medical emergency or urgent matter relating to certain relatives. (See the Emergency Leave Fact Sheet for more information.)
Some employers have paid benefit plans for sickness, bereavement and other leaves of absence. These plans aren’t required by the ESA . An employer (or an employer and a union if there’s a collective agreement) decides what the terms of these paid benefit plans will be.*
I suggest you look into the labour laws in your area. Armed with this knowledge, you might spare yourself the grief and bitterness that come from unfulfilled expectations of your “entitlement” as an employee.
It’s not necessarily just the employee’s business if he/she takes a sick day when it’s not needed and the employer didn’t agree to let them take a sick day every month, whether they needed it or not. My current employer didn’t just say “you earn one sick day a month”, they said “you earn one sick day a month, which can be used only for medical reasons and doesn’t require prior approval. And you earn 25 days of leave per year which can be used for any reason, with prior approval”.It’s right in the contract that sick leave is for illness or doctor’s appointments only. Sick days don’t require advance approval and have to be used for illness or medical appointments. The people I’m speaking of aren’t simply taking a day off as soon as they earn it - they are taking a day off as soon as they earned it that they didn’t have prior approval for and didn’t plan to take off.They didn’t arrange their workload so that the rest of us wouldn’t have to cover for them, or even arrange for coverage in advance. It’s not unheard of for them to call in sick on a day for which their vacation time request was denied. And before anyone thinks “well, of course they called in sick, they didn’t get their vacation time” my supervisor denies vacation requests for one reason and one reason only - because too many other people have already had their requests approved for the same dates.
And that’s why it becomes other people’s business- I don’t mind covering for someone who is sick or who had an emergency of some sort, but covering for someone who just didn’t feel like coming in is another story. Maybe the following example will help explain what I mean - Part of my job is presenting cases before an administrative law judge two days a week. A couple of years ago, I was scheduled for vacation starting December 21. A judge insisted on scheduling one of my cases for December 24, so I interrupted my vacation to handle that case. Three of my coworkers were supposed to work that day and had cases scheduled. The other six were also on vacation, and didn’t have any cases scheduled. Every one of the three who was scheduled to work called in sick and all three of them have been known to call in sick when their leave request was denied or “just because”. I might have believed one of them was sick, but no way were all three of them sick. In fact, I expected that they would call in sick and had tried to get the supervisor to reschedule their cases to prevent what happened- I had to help the supervisor cover for the three of them. Were they entitled to take a sick day that day? Only if they were sick. If they just wanted the day off, they should have requested it far enough in advance to get approval, like everyone else did.
Your employer might not distinguish between different types of leave, and you may have the sort of job where your unscheduled absence doesn’t affect anyone else, but that’s not all employers and it’s not all jobs.
My favorite was the furor that was raised at my former company when (after multiple virus infections) personal e-mail and personal web browsing was disallowed (and tracked). The outrage! The complaints! Hello? You’re not at work to send personal e-mails or shop online. And you’ve proven by downloading bad attachments and acting like an idiot multiple times that you can’t do it responsibly, even for short periods (like during lunch hour only). So it was disallowed, and people had shit fits that they couldn’t fuck off on the 'net during work hours.
I’m sorry, but I must disagree on that one. Sick time is provided so that you won’t have to suffer with no pay when you are SICK. I don’t want you in the office, spreading your illness all over the place, being non-productive, etc. Stay home and get well and we won’t dock your check.
However, take that “sick” time as simply a “day off” and you’re ripping me off, plain and simple. Our company grants each employee two weeks vacation - starting on January 1, none of this “earn it before you take it” stuff - as well as two personal days and seven paid holidays each year. You get a third week of vacation after only five years and a fourth after ten years.
And yes, we all also get ten sick days. The hourly staff gets paid back for unused sick time a the end of the year. I have a real problem with employees who use their sick time as additional vacation. You’re taking a sick day, you better be home in bed or have a close family member home in bed - sick.
I don’t think that’s too much to ask, is it?
Luckily, in my experience, those employees who expect everything and give nothing in return having pretty short careers. They usually get tired of actually being asked to do the job and they leave. If you’re REALLY lucky, they won’t turn around and sue you for wrongful termination (yup, it’s happened to us, not once, not twice, but four times in the last 8 years.)
We seem to be hitting a US/Canada “sick time” difference?
My employer does not distinguish between “sick time” and “personal time.” We get 9 days/year to be used in any way we wish (this is in addition to Vacation time). We do not need to tell our employer WHY we choose to be absent. It’s PERSONAL.
Hourly* workers “earn” their personal time at a set rate/month that they are employed. They are paid out for unused personal time at the end of the year at the normal hourly rate that they worked that year. This is not an unusual situation in the US. Perhaps it is in Canada.
*Salaried workers in my company earn both Vacation and personal time in one big lump at the start of the fiscal year and are not paid for unused personal time.
