If I feel up to it I’ll text my manager. I have 1500 hours of sick leave in the bank but I figure I’d need to explain myself after a week or so.
Our procedure is that I’m expected to call, email or text my manager (in that order). I like to get positive confirmation that my message has been received so if I don’t get a response then I’d call either a co-worked to pass my message on, or HR. We get three days sick leave before a doctor’s note is needed.
Time off for sickness is fully paid, and doesn’t affect my holiday allowance.
Call the 800 number & follow a short (and familiar) phone menu tree. Wait a minute or so for a human to answer. Tell them I’m sick. Hang up.
No notes or limits, but a pattern of use well outside the normal may generate an inquiry from the Boss.
I email my boss with the reason (general or specific, depending). Then I email my immediate team. Then I set up an out of office message on my work email account.
No, very easy.
Three, I think, but I also think it depends on the situation. I had influenza A along with an asthma attack last year, and the CMO (who I work closely with) told me to go to bed and stay there until Monday, then to check in. That was 3 workdays itself. No one asked for a note. I actually worked from home for almost 2 weeks because the asthma flare up was pretty bad, and the flu itself just made me unable to stay awake.
When I got back to work, the CMO came by my desk to see how I was doing, and we had a really cool conversation about why the flu shot last year didn’t protect people against influenza A. It was fascinating, but I think immunology is a fun topic.
My company has 5 physicians on staff in just the Massachusetts office, and they have a written policy on communicable diseases. If you have the flu or even a cold, you’re told to WFH or take time off to recover. They are very specific about not coming in sick because others may carry the illness to family who are vulnerable.
ETA: I normally check my email anyway if I’m only medium-sick. With the flu, no, because I was really out of it. Migraine…maybe. If I have to take a triptan plus percocet plus a muscle relaxant, no, because I won’t be very smart. :p;)
Nope, I’d probably just text my boss and tell him I felt cruddy and that I’d be at home, or working from home. If for some reason, he didn’t reply within a reasonable time frame, I’d email him and cc my coworkers, and ask one or two of them to let him know.
Not at all; we don’t track sick time separately from time off- it’s all one huge bucket called “PTO / Personal Time Off” I think it sucks because most people don’t view it as personal time off, they view it as vacation time, and therefore will resort to all sorts of shenanigans, up to and including coming in to work deathly ill, before they’ll take “vacation” time for being sick.
But actually taking some just requires letting your boss know, and then entering the PTO day into the time keeping system when you’re back.
Don’t know- I don’t think there’s a formal policy, since it’s “PTO”. I know that if you’re somehow incapacitated but able to do your work from home (I work in IT), they don’t really care. I didn’t go into the office from about Dec 18 through about March 15th of 2013/2014, because I took a couple of holiday weeks off, and then hurt my knee and worked from home for the first 2.5 months of 2014. Nobody gave me any static at all about it.
I just call my boss and tell her. Theoretically more than 4 days and you need a doctor’s note but in practice that isn’t necessary - I’m sure after some point you need one, or if you’ve been a problem in the past or something.
This is pretty much my situation. I have a single bucket of PTO, and I can use it for vacation or sick leave. I am expected to clear vacation time in advance with my boss, but if I am too sick to work, all I need to do is contact him in some way (any way will do, I’d probably text my current boss, but email or phone would be fine as well) to let him know that I am sick, and when I expect to return.
If I was going to be out for an extended period, short term disability would kick in, but to be honest, I’m not sure of how that is administered. I assume I’d need a doctor’s note backing up that I was disabled (by illness). I know a few people who have had to do that, and none has mentioned the process, so I assume it’s not a big deal or especially onerous.
My current employer does consulting for public schools, which are notorious disease vectors. It’s given them a strong appreciation for what happens when you allow sick people into a crowded space, so they actually encourage people to stay home rather than infect the rest of the office.
1. Do you call in and talk to an actual person or a machine?
Neither, actually. I just write an email to my boss and the rest of my team: “I feel sick today, I’m taking a day off. Sorry for the inconvenience.”, or (more commonly): “I feel sick today, I’m staying home but I’ll be online if you need anything, and I’ll try to get some work done on <insert current task> when I can.”
2. Is it a difficult process?
Nope. I mean, I have to be awake and physically able to type, but that’s about it.
3. How many days can you be sick before you need a doctors excuse?
I don’t actually know - I haven’t yet had to take more than two sick days in a row. There may have been an official policy on this somewhere in my orientation documents, but if so I missed it.
1. Do you call in and talk to an actual person or a machine?
I can notify my boss and my reports that I will be off sick through email. If I have a shift at a public service point, there’s one additional person I need to include in that. If I don’t have such a shift, then just my boss and my direct reports. Then when I do my monthly time card reporting, I include that information on there.
2. Is it a difficult process?
No
3. How many days can you be sick before you need a doctors excuse?
3 consecutive days.
I get five days off per year, period. If an ambulance isn’t carting me away, I’m going to work.
The formal process is easy–log in to a website and click a couple things.
The practical side is a nightmare–I have to write subplans and put together materials and arrange to have copies made and delivered all through informal channels. I basically never take unplanned sick days.
I am salary and we don’t get any sick leave, but the hourly staff get five days a year and I usually take that many. That is, I don’t get sick leave but I can call off when I like and they don’t care as long as I wouldn’t abuse it.
I work with a lot of hiring managers in my field, (I work with an NPO that helps get people on public aid employed) so they’re mostly entry level, low paid, and virtually none of those jobs gets any sick leave.
- We ask people to call in as soon as they realize they won’t be able to make it in. We have a 24-hour answering service who can take your message and will distribute it to the appropriate person when they arrive for the day. If you work in one of our manufacturing facilities, the service will notify a supervisor so that a replacement can be found. I also suggest my employees either call or email the receptionist as a backup.
Personally, I always call my boss, just as a courtesy. We don’t work in the same location, so he’d otherwise not be aware I wasn’t coming in.
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Difficult? No. We understand that people get sick. There is no grief given for a sick call.
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At our company, the rule is three days out before you need a doctor’s slip.
I go to a website they have set up and fill in a form, which then gets logged somewhere.
I then email my manager, because no one ever reads whatever document results from filling out the form.
It depends.
Back at Evil Call Center Inc, we had no paid sick days. You had to call in and physically speak to someone before your shift began. Technically, you called a line and could leave a message, but the error rate on that was pretty high and I recall being knocked one day for not calling in, raising a protest and having them come to me later saying that my message was indeed on the voicemail. If you were out three or more days, you absolutely needed a doctor’s note, and I recall one urgent care I went to just for that purpose refusing to provide it. (I just showed my boss the paperwork from the visit and they accepted it.)
At my current job, I just throw an email at my team saying I won’t be in. It’s never been an issue. No Doctor note ever needed - we’re professionals and they treat us like adults, very unlike Evil Call Center Inc.
Log onto District website. Pull down “Absence” menu. Fill in a few blanks, leave instructions for my sub. Go back to bed. Subs then log into site, choose an assignment, and go to work.
I have better than half a years worth of sick leave on file, so that isn’t an issue.
easy for me. I just shoot a text message to my manager and co-workers in my group saying I won’t be in.
I just call in around 7:00ish and talk to our admin person who is the only one at the office that early. “I’m sick, see you tomorrow”. Once or twice I instead emailed her during the night/early morning saying “I’m all sorts of sick and don’t want to wake up at 7am to call you so…”
Never stayed out sick longer than a day but I’d assume 3+ days would qualify for a doctor’s confirmation. We’re a pretty small an informal office.
I don’t feel guilty about calling out sick aside from general concern at what’s piling up in my absence. In that I don’t catch any guilt from my boss but I’d personally rather know stuff is being handled.
Yep, I think it would be very embarrassing to need to get a note from ‘mommy’ (the Dr.)
I just email my boss and a few co-workers.
I’m also allowed to use sick time to take care of my mother who broke her hip recently.
Forgive me for asking, but couldnt they show the lecture on video or couldnt you just have an assistant read your notes because I assume you use power points?