I was hired under my employer’s “old” system, which means I have (essentially) unlimited sick time.
I rarely charge to sick time. Over the past two years I have not taken any sick time. Over the past 5 years I have taken 4 hours of sick time. I never abuse it and only use it when I am genuinely sick, which is almost never.
But about 10 years ago my employer said, “Some people are abusing sick time!” So they changed the system. For folks who were hired in the last 10 years, sick time is accrued in the same fashion as vacation. They can only accrue sick time up to a limit, and then it’s “use it or lose it.”
Now the problem is even worse. Because sick time is accrued, folks that were hired within the last 10 years use it just like vacation. Every employee that works for me does this. :rolleyes: Which means they get a lot more vacation days than me.
I think the system my employer has (or more accurately, had) is ideal. You accumulate sick leave without limit, and are paid half on retirement. So you have it if you need it, and incentive not to use it when you don’t. In my case, I’ve got 2900 hours in the bank and by the time I retire I’ll have about 3200, meaning between sick and unused vacation leave I’ll get a nice little parting gift of about a year’s pay on retirement. They stopped that little perk a few years after I hired in, so those that hired in after that date won’t get the sick leave payoff like I will. I think that’s unwise, those employees have no incentive to save their sick leave and will likely use some from time to time just to augment their vacation time.
For those of you who have “unlimited” sick time, do your employers pay for disability coverage? Is there a separate policy for significant illnesses? Or does “unlimited” also apply to things like surgery, maternity leave, cancer, etc.? I appreciate the idea of just taking when you need it and not abusing it, and that’s fine for most things, but being able to stockpile sick days is absolutely crucial for the big stuff. My job doesn’t pay a penny toward disability coverage, and while they offer me the option to buy it, it’s prohibitively expensive for even very crappy coverage.
Just because someone is blessed with great health does not mean it is healthy to work with out a health break. Taking a time off is important to well being, and does not mean one is sick. Mental, emotional health and I would add spiritual are equally important to take care of, and also to maintain yourself in healthy condition.
Company policy may be to use a sick day you must be sick, however they are usually also barred from asking the reason, leaving it up to you.
With mine you can LTD coverage. The rate depends on how much sick leave is in your bank, since obviously the more you have the less chance you have of needing LTD. In fact, once you pass I think something like 584 hours the LTD is free.
Agreed, it’s not just “sick” in the infectious disease sense. Sometimes it can be fatigue, allergies, or other health issues, which while I’m capable of physically making it to work, it would be miserable and unproductive. It’s rare that I get sick via infection, but that doesn’t automatically make me “healthy”.
I’m not faced with the OP’s situation, but I’ve long started using the sick days I’ve earned to attend to my health.
I’ve talked to someone in HR about this, and would welcome further input, but heath is basically a trump card. The note requirement (which you say they can ask for not demand), though common, may be illegal as a requirement IDK, but they can not ask the reason, nor demand a note specifying a reason. They may be able to specify a note saying work is not advised.
We get unlimited sick time. At some threshold (one month I think) we are put on short term disability and for severe leave we have long term disability. ST and LTD are fully funded by the company. There are certain checks along the way but it works out nicely for most situations.
The only negative is that ST and LTD pay are not used in calculating our profit sharing at the end of the year.
I think the person is wrong. I was required to submit a “note” from the doctor both to the state and my employer when I was off for my knee. Because of HEPPA rules the note only said that I was unable to work, it did not give any reason. Requiring a note giving the medical reason would be illegal. And before I could return to work I also had to get a release stating I was fit to work and there was no restrictions.
Several years ago I was in the union off and over heard several phone call to the union rep. The 1st one from a shop steward at a hospital. The employer had come out with a rule that anyone calling sick needed a note from a doctor stating that the employee could not work. The business agent asked if the hospital engineers were abusing sick leave. The steward told him no most had the max amount of sick leave on the books. The union rep the called the Hospital Administrator, and asked if there ws a problem with sick leave abuse. When he was told no the business agent then ripped the hospital administrator a new one and told him that there would be no doctor’s notes for short term sickness. End of discussion.
He hung up the phone from calling the 1st hospital and the phone rang just as he was taking his hand off the phone. It was a 2nd hospital administrator calling. The 2nd administrator explained that the employees were abusing their sick time. In fact most of the employees only had 1 or 2 days left on the book, and if they got over 2 days they would call in sick. The hospital wanted to know what the union’s stand would be if they started requiring doctor’s notes for sick time. The rep asked for time to check out the facts and if what the administrator was saying was correct there would be no problem.
At a previous company, I had a boss that said I should consider sick time part of my benefits package, same as anything else. He said he couldn’t make me take my sick days, but he thought I was foolish to leave any on the table at the end of the year. Said it was for my mental health as well as physical.
The place I work now has no cap on sick days (or any time off for that, you take what you need when you need it) other than there’s some number of consecutive days that trigger disability coverage.
We get a certain number of hours of sick leave each pay period. Those hours can be accumulated up to 1900 and some hours. I currently have 1559.42 hours accumulated. If we leave or retire, we get paid for a quarter of our accumulated sick leave.
Annual leave accumulates at a certain number of hours up to 320. Anything over that is just lost to the ether. If we leave or retire, we get paid for all of our annual leave. Since I just took vacation about a month ago, I am down to 290.68 hours.
My understanding is that pension spiking convertedunused sick time as part of time worked to allow for earlier retirement with full vesting. In addition to this, spiking the payout of sick in the period that is used to calculate the pension would increase the payout as well.
Same. If my sick & vacation days are coming out of the same pool, it’s going to take a hell of a lot for me to call in sick rather than save that 8 hours for my vacation.
With separate pools, I’m still very judicious about sick leave (I’ve never even come close to using all of my sick leave) but I’ll also factor in things like infecting my co-workers and my productivity when I decide whether or not to come in.
In the CalPers system the only stacking is that unused sick time can be added to your service time. For every month of sick time that you have on the books, if you are over 63, an increase of 0.2% is add to your multiplier. If the salary is $5000 a month the yield will be about $10 more a month. No much for giving up 22 sick days.
The way I understood it was that it allowed people to do as you describe, but also allowed earlier retirement. I personally knew a teacher who had over a year of sick leave saved upon retirement. That’s not a year’s worth, a full calendar year (about 220 workdays).
There’s nothing wrong with banked sick days - it’s just important to consider the unintended impacts that create incentives for people to come to work when sick. Granted, combined sick and vacation in PTO could do this too.
I wonder how strong the correlation between being a germaphobe and not getting sick is, because I know people with wee little kids who rarely are sick and people with none who are sick all of the time. I only get a cold every other year or so, and I’m moderately germ-phobic, ftr.
