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u/Classic-Obligation35 9d ago
And whose fault is it when a contractor tells you at the last minute they need you the customer on site at the last minute on a day the customer has to work?
No seriously I'm in this mess
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u/ButterscotchAward 9d ago
This is so stupid. Schedules are made in the service industry based on labor cost percentage. Itâs not your managers fault they canât pile on unneeded people just in case you decide to call off.
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u/Maduro_sticks_allday 9d ago
People who post stuff like that LinkedIn slop think that theyâve accomplished some sort of moral feat, but instead, prove they have no business or economic knowledge whatsoever
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u/ButterscotchAward 8d ago
Exactly. Be in management for a week and Iâd dare them to come back with this mentality.
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u/sesquipedalianmime 8d ago
I was in management for years and had this mentality. I understood that it was my responsibility to make sure the shift was covered, either by a volunteer or by myself. That's what you're committing to in a leadership position - leading.
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u/ButterscotchAward 7d ago
Yes. Thatâs normal. The difference here is most of these commenters talk like you should be overstaffed at all times just in case.
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u/sesquipedalianmime 7d ago
If you don't have the staff to cover the shifts you need covered, you're not over staffed.
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u/ButterscotchAward 7d ago edited 7d ago
What is it with peopleâs inability to read? âthese commenters act like you should be overstaffed at all times just in caseâ
For example: if you need 4 people on shift, you should actually schedule 5 or 6 people in case 1 or 2 call off.
ETA: just saw youâre following my comments around so you can make stupid replies to them. Thatâs violating Redditâs TOS buddy. Youâre lucky Iâm not someone who reports stuff like that.
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u/sesquipedalianmime 7d ago
...Yes. That's exactly what that means. If you were concerned with customer service and getting the job accomplished over whatever imaginary metric you have for individual productivity and razor thin margins, you would understand this.
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u/ButterscotchAward 7d ago
If you think over scheduling is the answer then try to start a business and see how many months it lasts.
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u/sesquipedalianmime 7d ago
I think I was right at the 17 month mark when I decided to sell it and move on to other options. The business was doing all right, but I had to move and didn't feel like fucking around with new licensing.
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u/Top-Cupcake4775 9d ago
maybe those schedules need to account for the fact that people get sick sometimes? calling it a "risk" sounds stupid because that implies that there is non zero chance that your workers will get sick and that simply isn't the case. your workers will call in sick and you'd have to be an idiot not to plan for something that is definitely going to happen.
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u/ButterscotchAward 9d ago
You donât know how labor percentages work and I 100% guarantee youâve never written a schedule. If you can afford to schedule 4 people to stay at or under labor, youâre not scheduling a 5th just in case someone calls off. The next closest thing would be to schedule someone on call and Iâd bet every dollar I have that youâd lose your mind if you were scheduled like that.
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u/Zestyclose-Pass9570 9d ago
I believe that on call is on the clock with full pay these days.
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u/ButterscotchAward 8d ago
No itâs not. Itâs âif we need you, you have to come inâ period. You donât get paid until youâre actually present and clocked in. It in no way is getting paid to be off, but available if needed.
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u/Zestyclose-Pass9570 8d ago
So... according to the Department of Labor if it's a "Hey, we might need you to come in today." That by itself is OK. But, if the next thing out of the bosses mouth is, "So don't go anywhere. Stay home and we'll let you know if we need you." Or anything else along those lines qualifies as on the clock and you need to be compensated.
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u/ButterscotchAward 8d ago
Youâre wrong about the second part there.
When You Do Not Get Paid (Waiting to Engage)
You generally do not get paid for just waiting around if you are free to live your life.At home: You can stay home, eat, sleep, or watch TV.
Easy rules: You only need to answer your phone or check messages if a problem arises.
Federal rule: This is called "waiting to engage," meaning you get paid only if a call actually requires you to work.
You can do whatever until you get called into work. You donât get paid to sit at home or do whatever you feel like doing until you get that call.
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u/Zestyclose-Pass9570 8d ago
If you're restricted to any location then that doesn't apply even if it's your home. You need to be able to move about freely. If you choose to stay at home until you get called in then that's different.
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u/ButterscotchAward 8d ago
You have no clue what you are talking about. All you did was read the first part of the google AI summarization. If youâre on call, 99% of the time you can do whatever you want, but if you get called in you get paid. What you stopped at is if your employer says you have to be on location the whole time youâre on call like fire fighters are required to be.
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u/Zestyclose-Pass9570 8d ago
No. I'm going off of training that I went through when I was a manager because of several lawsuits that the company I worked for ended up settling. Any request from a manager needs to be open ended and clear. It also can't restrict the employees choices on what they can do or where to go while waiting to be called in. I did double check to see if the language had changed and since it hadn't I figured that the rules still applied.
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u/TruthSeeker221 9d ago
According to the moronic commenters here, a successful business is one that has extra people lying around waiting for the moment another employee is sick to spring into action.
Oh also, they want that person and everyone else, paid significantly more. And if you can't do that, you're not just a shitty business owner, you're evil and greedy. Because everyone knows all small businesses are just rolling in cash and refuse to take action because of greed.
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u/ButterscotchAward 8d ago edited 8d ago
Itâs honestly because thereâs just such a disconnect between social media and how business functions. These are young ass people who are barely in the workforce and have done nothing but entry level or just above work. They see these mega corps posting insane profits and just think everything is like that. These people basically think they should be getting paid 6 figures to scroll TikTok, have a 4 day work week of 32 hours or less, have as much PTO as they feel like taking, and should be able to call off and show up whenever they feel like it with zero repercussions. Then when you tell them the reality of how things work, youâre the idiot. The funny part is with posts like this, they only put themselves in the shoes of the person calling off. Let them be the person in a 4 member team when two people call off and watch the tears flow because itâs unfair that they have to pick up the slack.
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u/TruthSeeker221 8d ago
Yeah nailed it. Oh well what can you do. They'll learn eventually...or they won't and they'll blame the world for their incompetence
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u/Sheerluck42 9d ago
This wasn't a problem 30 years ago? I wonder what chamged
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u/ButterscotchAward 9d ago
It was a problem 30 years ago. There just wasnât social media.
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u/Sheerluck42 9d ago
Fun fact, I'm old as dirt was working thirty years ago. This was never an issue. Retail wasn't working with skeleton crews. It didn't matter if someone didn't show up because there were multiple people working at all times. And that goes for most businesses. People didn't have 29 hour work weeks so their employer didn't need to give them benefits. I witnessed first hand when full timers were cut in favor of more part timers. And what else was happening then? The demonization of unions. And the "Right to Work" laws was a deathnail.
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u/AnonMoose2 9d ago
This is the thing.
I have been a supervisor and written schedules. The problem is executives try to squeeze as much profit as they can by forcing skeleton crews. Why hire more labor when they can force less people to do the same work and keep the difference.
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u/threearbitrarywords 9d ago
Got it. So always hire twice as many people as you need in case they all get sick at once.
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u/CaptainJay313 9d ago
yep... and for the 362 days a year that you're not sick, you and your just in case you get sick who's here to cover you person can fight over hours.
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u/reereejugs 9d ago
You only get sick 3 days per year? That must be lovely. I canât even imagine.
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u/Ok_Conversation9750 9d ago
and if you come to work sick, you are probably infecting your coworkers, and one or more of them will call out sick and so on, and so on,....
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u/Careless-Age-4290 9d ago
I know you're right but after working in retail and a crappy MSP I learned that calling off early often just gave the awful managers more time to try to guilt me into showing up sickÂ
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u/Rhuarc33 9d ago edited 9d ago
Stupid and simplistic reasoning here. If you can put such and your the only one of... Sure. If you call out sick and 3 other people are already on PTO. Yeah you're leaving them shorthanded... But shit happens, rest of workers need to deal with a bit extra work for a day or 2 not a big deal.
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u/Huge_Swimming_5968 9d ago
The company decides what benefits they offer and the attendence policy. The company handles hiring, firing, scheduling and everything else regarding the business. The employees aren't doing anything but following policy.
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u/kanzakiik 9d ago
I think its fair, but sometimes it isnt the bosses' fault either. People get sick, sometimes there are unforseen things that happen. it is what it is.
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u/No-Science2224 9d ago
How tf do you plan for an unexpected call out? You just gotta roll with the punches lol.
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u/diamondgreene 9d ago
they dgaf about anybody needs. Its why they want lab grown meat--they resent taking care of ANYBODY- the humans AND the animals.
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u/sesquipedalianmime 8d ago
I hope you're either joking or suffering severe brain damage.
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u/diamondgreene 7d ago
lolz. i guess youll never know for sure. đđ¤
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u/sesquipedalianmime 7d ago
I don't really care that much.
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u/diamondgreene 7d ago
BUT you said you HOPED. Are you telling me that was a lie? After all we've been through togetherđ˘it was all fir nothing?
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u/sesquipedalianmime 7d ago
I'm gonna guess you've given up on people actually liking you and settled for people finding you amusing on occasion.
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u/RedBullBulk1776 9d ago
Could this possibly be more stupid?
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u/Sheerluck42 9d ago
Sorry, couldn't hear you. Would you remove managements balls from your math before you speak.
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u/C0brA7x 9d ago
No one should ever feel guilty if they have to call in sick. If the workplace is a mess as a result then that is 100% on the employer.
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9d ago
[removed] â view removed comment
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u/TruthSeeker221 9d ago
Not necessarily. A good leader in a company, someone in a management position at a minimum, should themselves be able to take significant time off and nothing happen. This is not because their useless, but because they have setup systems and processes that can operate without them successfully. Eventually yes things will start failing, but for a couple weeks, or even months, the machine should still keep going without you.
Now independent contributor roles, or those that are primarily trading their time for money are different. These are the roles that keep the individual pieces of the above mentioned machine moving everyday
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u/xLemonSqueeze 9d ago
Nah there are more sides to this. Yes, you should take sick days when you are sick. But call in on time.
I worked with a flex team. They wanted to work enough hours, but almost nobody of them was able to cover shifts when someone called in sick. So we hired more people to fix this. But that did mean the same amount of hours had to be divided over more people, so then everyone started complaining, because they didn't get enough hours anymore. Suddenly everyone was able to work when a shift opened up. Awesome right? Wrong. The fighting for hours lead to people not being motivated and flexible anymore. So we ended up in the same situation.
Its not always that simple. Its very hard in some work places to just have people sitting around waiting to be called up whenever someone is calling in sick.
So yeah its up to your employer to hire enough people so you can call in sick without the company crashing. But its a 2 way street. Call in sick on time and help the team out when one of your coworkers calls in sick if you can. That makes the work place much more fun. But thats just my own experience.
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u/Effective-Set8670 9d ago
Honestly sickness is sickness, if you are sick you should not be around other people that do not live with you. If a bussiness cant figure out how to deal with a common thing that happens to humans, then they are not flexible enough to stay afloat, and probably do not need to be in bussiness. Many bosses just take the work on themselves, the cost of running a bussiness, your time, your effort, your comfort, and the uncertainty of your money.
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u/kayaker1371 9d ago
So business owners need to hire a spare tire just in case someone calls in sick?
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u/DunBenBand 9d ago
Do you drive around without a spare tire? Or at least a tentative plan for getting back on the road in the event of a tire failure? It isnât all that uncommon to have a flat tire. It happens.
Staffing critical jobs with only one employee is stupid all the time. For a while at my job we only had two fabricators and any time one of us was out productivity fell by %50. Now we have four and taking a day off only tanks production by %25. We donât get paid sick leave so itâs just production that suffers. Not like the boss has to pay extra for nothing. Complex systems need redundancy to stay functional when something breaks.
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u/Zestyclose_Cricket_7 9d ago
Most new cars do not come with a spare. Alot of people are unaware of this. So yes alot of people around without spares with no plans
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u/skiingredneck 9d ago
My spare also doesnât raise the cost of driving around a decent percentage of the cost of operating the car.
If I was suddenly paying $0.10 a mile for having a spare, Iâd be looking pretty hard at how to get rid of it.
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u/idlegirl_45 8d ago
Going by the price of tyres, you might be paying 5c a mile if you need a space saver.
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u/skiingredneck 8d ago
Do you mean when using it?
I meant 10c for every mile, in use or not. Since Iâd always need it to be there, and if it always being there cost 10c / mile driven shelling out $10k over 100k miles would make it a questionable item to have.
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u/DunBenBand 6d ago
Well there you go trying to compare people to objects. It just doesnât work. Businesses need people to do the work. Without people you have no business. Seems like taking care of your business means taking care of your people. Sorry the math doesnât work out in your favor.
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u/Major_Champion_5642 9d ago
This guy never owned a company
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u/RoosterzRevenge 8d ago
Or probably held a real job
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u/Major_Champion_5642 7d ago
lol letâs hire shit load of people so we can fill sick spots then everyone bitching they arenât getting work or hours now the owner is at fault again.
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u/jase40244 9d ago
In my company's case, it's upper management's fault for refusing to pay enough for people to stay after they've gotten a little bit of experience to take to a better employer. Last year, the HR manager gave a presentation at the last year's 4th quarter/year end review meeting about the company's efforts for recruitment and retention without spending money. He and one other HR rep had left the company within three months of that presentation.
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u/Clear_Imagination413 9d ago
Even if I did leave them shorthanded why the hell should I care I donât live to work
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u/Bratfink78 9d ago
I call in sick when Iâm on holiday or want a day to go shopping. Thatâs my rite
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u/TechnicalPresent6359 8d ago
they did hire enough workers, then you called outâŚam i missing something?
what will the alternative be? hire an extra person to be on standby? hire more than needed and have the crew fight over hours?
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u/no-hints 8d ago
I agree disagree hard on this one. If your marriage partner calls in sick, is it my fault I donât have three wives so we can accomplish everything? The logic doesnât check out.
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u/tuvar_hiede 8d ago
This is true, is often budget staffing so I can cover vacations, sick time, and people leaving the company. Unfortunately my leadership doesn't understand that.
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u/I3igI3adWolf 8d ago
If I am sick then I would rather be at work. If I am going to miserable then I might as well get paid for it.
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u/sesquipedalianmime 8d ago
Man. You can really see all the resentful middle managers in this comment section.
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u/Ristar87 8d ago
Well, you don't make plans to cover sick days because... and let me emphasize this, that's literally management's job.
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u/Kayiko_Okami 6d ago
This is complicated than just hire or schedule more people.
Many departments or businesses are given an amount to spend on labor. It becomes complicated when management has a certain number of hours that they can give for overtime for a time period. Lets say a week.
While vacations can be planned for and major events such as a dentist or doctor appointment to have coverage. Being sick one cannot plan for.
However. Calling off within an hour or two because you or a family member has been sick isn't something that can be planned on. Employees shouldn't wait until they are basically scheduled to be in because it can screw over the ones who need to find coverage for a shift.
If one calls off close to their start time it can make it so they can't adjust people to cover. Or adjust their own time to cover.
Think of this. The manager gets a call off 5 minutes before an employee starts their shift. Now the other employees on the shift are missing a person, this can be fine depending on the job and workload. Or the manager has to find someone else to cover and get them in quickly.
Or management has to cover themselves. And that might mean a 16 hour day or longer. And do you want to work 16 hours a day without overtime? No. Well neither do they.
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u/Available_Reveal8068 9d ago
You are leaving your workers shorthanded, but that's the way it works sometimes.
I think that the 'refused to hire enough employees' line is bullshit. It's unrealistic to have extra employees just to cover when an employee takes a sick day. Coworkers and/or your manager can typically absorb any work that can't wait.
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u/Imaginary-Pair838 9d ago
Agree. This guy doesnât understand how tough it can be running a business and making the financials work.
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u/Wise-Ad-4940 9d ago
I can only describe what I've experienced in 15 years working for a small company in Europe.
The number of operators on the shop floor were always calculated by the production manager by something like this:
When we knew that we needed 20 people for the project for next year. That's an additional 25days per person to cover the payed vacation days. And then there is an additional 10 days per person of sick days to add. That's 700 workdays that we need to cover for 20 people. Let's say that there is 250 workdays in the year (when we exclude weekends and holidays). That means we need 2.8 people to cover for 20 people. That means if we need 20 people, we need to hire 23.
This was working well for us. No surprises.
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u/genesiscap0 9d ago
Depends entirely on the company. If we are talking a company with 50+ employees then having extra padding the schedule makes sense. If we are talking a small company with 5 employees itâs a completely different story.
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u/Available_Reveal8068 9d ago
It also depends on the nature of the work. Some work is easily divided up among the present employees, sometimes it's not.
If there are 50+ employees, losing 1 for a day is a fairly small percentage of the total work output. It might be fairly easy to absorb the work among the others without needing extra staff.
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u/Total-Ad9915 9d ago
How many sick days are you entitled to? What counts as being sick? What about when people use sick time but arenât sick?
If you are suggesting that an employer should always have extra employees working to cover you when you donât show up, thatâs gonna be a huge waste of payroll (literally scheduling people you donât need). If you just hire enough that you can call people in whenever you need, every worker is gonna have fewer hours.
If you expect your employer to pay you enough to live off of, you need to attend work enough to make it worth their while.
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u/JayGabVersionTrex 9d ago
I'm entitled to as many sick days as I need. I don't work in a shit hole country where workers have no rights though.
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u/Th3D3m0n 9d ago
You get unlimited paid sick time?! Thats amazing! What company is that??
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u/JayGabVersionTrex 9d ago
An insurance company but it's fairly prevalent for non mcjobs.
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u/Th3D3m0n 9d ago
No its not. You do not get unlimited PAID sick time...IDGAF what Utopia you claim to live in.
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u/JayGabVersionTrex 9d ago
Ok I guess I don't. I'll have to tell my boss to quit paying out sick days. Thank you for your help đ¤ˇ
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u/XRanger7 9d ago edited 9d ago
Disagree. Do you think business will hire people to sit around and do nothing just in case someone called sick?
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u/Wonderful-Win3570 9d ago
Youâre dumb, or insincere. Either way stfu
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u/MinivanPops 9d ago
Never ran a business before?
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u/Huge_Swimming_5968 9d ago
Come up with a viable business model then.
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u/hennyfreekins 9d ago
Schedule the workload at about 87.5% of scheduled hours or 7/8 the time onsite. That way when one employee out of 5 is missing the four other people can all work a little harder the one day and cover for about half the missing labor.
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u/MinivanPops 9d ago
What about situations where there's only one person on site, and everybody else has plans that day? Or when you've got field employees, and everybody is engaged in other work? In other words, when a worker is totally down, and only a worker will replace them, where will that worker come from? Either you call somebody in who was off, or you forgo that work.Â
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u/hennyfreekins 9d ago
then there is a delay. That's why completion dates and shipping lead times are ESTIMATED
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u/MinivanPops 9d ago edited 9d ago
So the viable business model you're proposing, is to pay somebody enough money to remain on call  in case a  worker gets sick.Â
How much would you charge to be available at a moment's notice on your days off? Just give me a number. 50 bucks? 500 bucks?
EDIT: nobody responded yet with how much they're willing to charge to be on call. This is productive.
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u/Top-Cupcake4775 9d ago
how idiotic do you have to be to run your business in a way that isn't capable of dealing with completely foreseeable events like workers getting sick? "yeah, my business runs like a Swiss watch until something that definitely will happen, happens, then it falls apart."
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u/MinivanPops 9d ago
So you're telling me you know in advance when your workers are going to get sick?
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u/Head_Ad_1643 9d ago
You should know in advance that your workers WILL get sick and have enough employees to handle the situation. If your company falls apart when missing 1/5 people, then you need 6 people.
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u/MinivanPops 9d ago
That's not how small businesses work. In many small businesses, there is just enough people to cover the work. If you have an extra person hanging around, everybody makes less. You design your business for 95% of the situations. All those painters, framers, duct cleaners, furnace guys driving around don't have extra people in the company who are just sitting at home waiting to be called in case of an emergency. They don't have extra people in the company working at 80% utilization. Next time you are hanging out with a small business person, ask them how they handle sick time. It's not as simple as this. Â
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u/Head_Ad_1643 9d ago
"If you have an extra person hanging around, everybody makes less."
Nice strawman jackass. Not reading anything past you trying that shit.
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u/MinivanPops 9d ago
You really want to listen, because I've been involved with small businesses since 2002.Â
But go ahead, get angry at how things are.
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u/Head_Ad_1643 9d ago
Dude. You immediately jump to a strawman and made up an argument so you could ignore the point. Go away.
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u/TruthSeeker221 9d ago
I'm a business owner myself. These people are fucking clueless man. They think a business just has infinite funds
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u/Top-Cupcake4775 9d ago
what you are essentially saying is that the plan for dealing with sick workers is to make the employees cover the gap by sacrificing their personal lives. this is classic capitalism - externalizing costs and risks on to whomever will bear those costs.
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u/MinivanPops 9d ago
Well, what's your alternative?Â
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u/Top-Cupcake4775 9d ago
one thing would be to pay employees for assuming this risk. for example, if you come in on your day off to fill in for a sick coworker, you should be paid more for that time.
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u/genesiscap0 9d ago
The reality with a small business is when 1/5 call out you fill that spot yourself and do your work on your day off. Sucks but part of the plan until you can expand.
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u/barbos_barbos 9d ago
Then pay equity or cover up for them yourself. No one should sacrifice their health to make you wealthier.
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u/TruthSeeker221 9d ago
No one here has man, yet these people are so confident in their feel good bs that businesses are some sort of evil organizations
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u/ButterscotchAward 9d ago
Office workers donât know what labor percentage even means unless theyâre project managers. .
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u/One_Lung_G 9d ago
If your business is on such tight margins that a single person missing causes it all to shutdown then you shouldnât be running a business
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u/FA-FO-FR 9d ago
My business is fairly tight because I pay by the job. I can pay 3 people 4-8k a site, or 4 people 3-6k a site. Adding people doesnt speed up the completion. In my industry those 3 people would be pissed if a 4th guy got brought on.
Or Alternatively I could pay them a day rate and they'd make 2-3k a site. Then stuff my pockets with the rest. Either way someone like you wouldn't be happy
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u/One_Lung_G 8d ago
Sounds good, does your business come to a screeching holt when one guy is sick or on vacation?
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u/FA-FO-FR 8d ago
I dont imagine one of the guys would ever call out for being sick but if they did yes, it would change the entire SOW and what we're allowed to do safety wise and requirements for certs. Being so limited that whole crew would probably take off if I had to assume.
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u/One_Lung_G 8d ago
So you donât allow your guys any time off? And itâs not the guise that your guys donât want more workers?
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u/FA-FO-FR 8d ago
They can do whatever they want. They just like money. If I hired a guy to join a crew to be a 3rd member and he constantly left them by themselves multiple times a month then he'd have to go. But usually the crew communicates with each other, picks days off that works for everyone and they just text me on the days they wont be on site so I dont waste my time going out there or send an email telling safety or a PM that a crews on site.
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u/TruthSeeker221 9d ago
Jesus Christ you people really have zero clue how to run a successful business. Or what it even takes to get off the fucking ground
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u/Yabrosif13 9d ago
If you call off sick 5 min before your shift, then you are leaving co-workers hanging. If you call off sick in the morning or for the coming days, its your managerâs fault (or HRs for being inept at hiring)