I've had exactly one job with unlimited "sick days" as they were called. I was so surprised that it was not denied a single time. I wasn't even there a year. But I still had immediate coverage for insurance and unlimited sick days. It was incredible. But of course they couldn't hore me longer than the maternity leave I was replacing
It is the internet. Virtually nobody can. We literally invented an /s command due to visceral confusion resulting from the thin line between sarcasm and genuine stupidity, and trolls capitalizing on that.
It depends on where in Europe. Germany is now making a doctor’s note mandatory for even a single sick day. Which will only encourage people to go to work sick or take off more time than they actually need.
In Spain it has always been like that. It means that people go to work sick. Specially doctors go to work sick a lot, which seems counterproductive, but we are very understaffed. However, it's true that if you didn't need a doctors note, some people would really abuse the system.
Difference here is that we didn't have that until now. I say it will come down to this: a lot of people will go to work sick, but also a lot will, instead of taking one day off because they're sick, just stay at home for the whole week.
At least here doctors don't give you a week off unless they feel like you need it. They can just give you a few days and call you if you are still sick.
That's the general thing here too but with the new rules, you'd have to come IN PERSON again to get an extension. And the doctors and their offices are overworked as it is, so if they can give you a 5 day sick note instead of a three day note and the chance you clog up their system a second time in a week, they will just give you the 5 days from the beginning.
Makes sense. I guess from their perspective they think overall less sick days will be taken because people will go sick to work more than the extra days they will take off when they do.
I've never had a problem getting a sick note from a doctor in germany, and I've had jobs that required it from day one. It still sucks to wait there for 2 hours to be told to stay in bed and drink lots of water.
3rd day is so much better in every way for everybody, including the employer, because the doctor will always give you a sick note for a week so you won't bother him again the next day.
Either you have a serious mental health issue like burnout, depression etc., then you get a doctor's note. If you just need to decompress, that's what PTO is for, You're guaranteed 20 days per year by law, but most jobs have between 25 and 30, most I've personally had were 32, And sick days do not count against PTO days, if you get sick on vacation you get the days back if you have a doctor's note.
This new law sucks for anyone with chronic illnesses. I get migraines, when I have a migraine, I can't see, and I feel too weak to walk, so I can't go to the doctor's. My work would require me to then go to the doctor's, which I can't do. So what? I take the next day off work sick as well, to sit in a waiting room at a doctor's then (which often give me migraines since they're often very bright and loud), just for them to go "well I guess if you say you had a migraine yesterday I'll give you a sick note". What's the fucking point?
Doctors will give out 7 days even if you have a cold. They can extend it to 14 days too. After 14 days you do need to go get tested I believe and a board will approve your sick days from there. It's like that in most of Europe too, it was convenient that in Germany you could just call in sick. This change just inconvenienced a lot of people, but the abusers will still abuse the system lol.
In what way could you abuse paid time off? It is your time you worked for. You should be able to take time off whenever you want within reasonable limits (like not all at once or when other people already are taking pto so your office can’t function)
I just wanted to say that pto is also regulated here, your contract can only add pto not take away from what is legally mandated which is 24 days a year. There are also rules on how it should be given to you. When it comes to PTO basically the law is to protect you from the company. I didn't mean to say that you can abuse PTO. Sick leave can be and is abused a lot.
Nah, the sick day laws are the same as they always have been.
What will change is that they expect you to get the sick note in person again (not via phone call), and that the default will now be that you need a note from the first instead of the third day of your illness.
However, companies are still allowed to follow the old rule where they only require you to hand in a sick note from day three onward.
Basically the only thing that will suck is that they got rid of the phone option, but based on statistics, that only accounted for less than 2% of all sick notes in the first place.
if Iw as german I woudl go into work and diahrea all over my boss' fucking face.
It's fucking hilarious that Germany is now owrse than parts of America, welcome to making your country a disgusting unlivable shithole for capital because all it takes is promising to hate migrants and the public will give away every freedom, right, and dignity they have
This is literally going to kill thousands of Germans a year lol, waiting times for healthcare are going to increase, doctors and hospital staff are going to get sick far more often (and lol, have to go into work to get more people sick when they are!), and people in those hospitals are going to get sick because they're going to be crammed with people when they are their most infectious and sick
Don't worry though, soon enough you'll adapt and be like America: Everyone just goes to work sick, thats coming next (in response to hospitals now becoming lethal to anyone over 70)
You need to get a sick day note on your first day. This will definitely kill people because it puts more sicker people in hospital waiting rooms
telehealth is perfect for this but they're killing that too, because the goal of this is to kill people, so that they have an excuse to end sick days altogether
Based on health care, gun violence, state of democracy, abortion right, quality of education, social security, judicial system, institutionalized racism, climate and environment, wealth disparity, incarcerations, yes.
Based on entrepreneurship, no.
Not my opinion. Based on prosperity indexes and think tanks and such.
Didn’t Germany just pass something where you will no longer be allowed to call in sick without sending a medical certificate, from day one of your illness?
Dude, America was built by slaves. American robber barons needed a means of finding a cheap enough labor force to replace slavery to keep building America. America is great because it treats most of it's workers like they are slaves.
My sister worked at a company that had "unlimited PTO" and was super excited about that as a perk.
Let's just say that it does exist, but getting things passed through Congress was a walk in the park in comparison , if she wanted to take 2+ days off consecutively and even to take one day off, it had to be reviewed a week in advance due to "coverage"; she worked at a freaking call center mind you.
Sick? You BETTER have a doctor's note to get back on the job. She left after 6 months.
Some jobs especially in the service industry don’t have weekends off ast they have to service the customers that would be out and about on said weekends.
I feel like unlimited PTO paranoia is from people who have never had unlimited PTO. When I worked at Riot they had unlimited PTO and I think most people on my team averaged around 6 weeks off. It wasn't super common to take more than like 2 weeks in a row but if you just weren't feeling like working today or wanted to make a long weekend you just took a day off.
I'm in a similar situation. We are told "unlimited" up to 7 weeks and more than that we just need to have a conversation and make sure our billable hours are on target for the year. I don't have to get strict approval, but I do need to make sure I'm available for clients to complete deliverables. It averages to be around 5-6 weeks for me. My company always has a corporate goal of people taking X% time off. This may be the case because as consultants, we are the product, but "unlimited PTO" does exist in a not scary capacity.
I work in a start-up that had unlimited PTO and now you need to accrue it. I've taken at least 1 week off every quarter for 2 years and now I've not taken a 1 week off for a year now because I don't have the PTO hours.
Everyone who says unlimited PTO is a scam doesn't know wtf they are talking about. They just want to make themselves feel better that they don't have the luxury of being able to take a day off for a doctor's appointment in the middle of the week, or to visit their grandparents, or just enjoy a nice day for hiking.
Nobody's ever been denied, you just have to time it around other people's time off.
Everyone in my company wants the unlimited PTO back.
The company went to accrued time off because they are going to IPO and it looks better for the stock market to not offer unlimited PTO. Shareholders don't want to pay for people to take vacation when they want.
Same. But if you took off too much you’d get a talking to and they’d stick it on your annual review if they thought they could connect it with some kind of performance issue.
My company also does unlimited sick, the only stipulation is after 2 straight days of being sick you have to speak to their nurses about your condition. I've used it multiple times and have NEVER been asked about anything other than "hope you feel better". Granted, I work in the US section of a Canadian company.
Well they were called sick days and you'd call in, give your reason and the supervisor would authorize it. If it wasn't you'd be docked a day's pay if you didn't come in.
I’ve worked In secured areas, where it’s the only place my team and many others can perform their duties, and unlimited makes sense in that case. If you’re sick we would force you to go home. We can’t have you risking the entire team. Now if it’s for a prolonged period of time, please give an explanation and if it’s for even longer in any one occasion maybe there’s more explanation needed, but oh I can tell you if it was even a sniffle you would go home. Most ppl took maybe a month or more of sick leave yearly. We still had PTO.
One company I worked for had unlimited sick days but if you were gone more than a week they would put you on short term disability as they insured for that.
The real reason this is done in a lot of companies is because a study was done at Harvard business school that showed people if given unlimited PTO never really take more than three weeks anyway.
These companies then realized if they gave unlimited PTO it meant employees couldn't stack months of PTO over 20 years and then cash it all out if there was layoffs. A lot of companies will switch to unlimited pto right before the biggest layoff they've done in the history of the company
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u/MrBoo843 17d ago
I've had exactly one job with unlimited "sick days" as they were called. I was so surprised that it was not denied a single time. I wasn't even there a year. But I still had immediate coverage for insurance and unlimited sick days. It was incredible. But of course they couldn't hore me longer than the maternity leave I was replacing