Even though I’m in decent health, I’ve been wondering about my future (career wise) since I may need some medical procedures done in the future (not right away)
However, since my current job title (shift lead manager) doesn’t offer enough sick time/PTO to cover my potential recoveries, I’ve been thinking about working from home, if I’m unable to work in person after a week or two (depending on what my recovery looks like)
The good news: I’m eligible for a promotion (assistant manager) once there’s an opening and if they choose to promote me out of the other shift leaders (since I work at corporate company with several locations) my insurance/coverage will also improve once I get promoted, which makes me wonder if:
I’ll be able to work from home while I recover? Since there’s several WFH jobs available, especially in this day and age
Furthermore, I’ll also ask my current job to put me on a temporary leave of absence (when the time comes) since other employees have done the same thing without losing their jobs
On an extra note, short term disability may be an option for me, even though it’ll all depend on my insurance and how my job deals with it (since I’ve never dealt with this before)
Its my understanding that you cannot work at any type of job while on paid sick leave or short term disability. I’ve been on both and my employer made it clear that I was to have no work related conversations with anyone while I was out recovering.
That makes sense for short term disability, since I’d still get paid a certain % of what I make at my current job, from what I’ve been told.
I also wouldn’t work (at all) if I had enough sick time/PTO to cover it, or if I was on some type of medical disability, but since I don’t have enough time off options (at the moment) I don’t plan on taking any “unpaid” time off of work, since that would negatively affect my life + my finances/savings, yet I still have some time before things may or may not get serious within a year or two, which means I have some time to figure things out before then
If you have a job that’s compatible with working while you are recovering, sure. But be cautious about working when you aren’t up to it. I know two people who were fired (technically laid off) in partly because they worked when they shouldn’t have. One did some computer work while still in opioids and the other returned to work when she didn’t have the stamina to work full time. Both did work that was below the expected standard due to their disability. Both would have done better to take unpaid or partially paid disability leave until they were well enough to do the job to the standard expected.
On the other hand, my husband is currently working full time while recovering from knee surgery. He took one day off to recover from anesthesia (the surgery was completed by 8:30am) and has been working full-time since. The fact that he has a little pain and needs to ice the knee regularly does not interfere with his job as a web developer.
Normally there is a caveat that one is not permitted to work at all while on either short term disability or any form of medical leave. Please read the fine print so you do not endanger your job.
While on other sorts of leave? Probably also problematic. Again, read the fine print.
Ok. Before your medical procedure be sure the PTB at your job know. Perhaps have documents from your doc that explains average recovery/rehab you may need.
Have HR in the know. Like said, read the fine print.
Request what you’d like to do about working from home. They may have rules, the insurance may have rules. Disability may have rules. You’ll need them all on the same page.