The Work Thread

[Sunny]

@ganymede said in The Work Thread:

@sunny said in The Work Thread:

Rewarding people with financial value if they don't use days is straight up encouraging people to work sick.

My reading of the original post is that this is a discussion on PTO, rather than sick leave. In Ohio, these are separate kinds of leave, but both are compensable in the public sector.

I apologize, but I don't understand how that makes a difference. If It's PTO that's used for being sick, and you're rewarding people for not using PTO at all, then...it's rewarding people for coming to work sick, whether you call it Sick Leave, PTO, or lollipop time.

If they are separate pools, and the benefit is NOT applied to "sick leave" as a separate pool, certainly that changes the situation, but the situation actively being discussed does not sound like there are separate Annual Leave and Sick Leave pools, but instead a singular "paid time off" pool.

[silverfox]

Yeah - I don't know what the difference between sick leave and PTO are.

These are different things?!

I just learned there are some districts where if a teacher uses more than their allocated days they have to "pay" for their own sub. Either the full daily sub rate, or at least half of it.

[Roz]

@silverfox said in The Work Thread:

Yeah - I don't know what the difference between sick leave and PTO are.

These are different things?!

Depends on the employer, some split them into two different buckets, other put them all into one.

@silverfox said in The Work Thread:

I just learned there are some districts where if a teacher uses more than their allocated days they have to "pay" for their own sub. Either the full daily sub rate, or at least half of it.

[Snackness]

@roz Oooh me oooh me!

I have two buckets!

And I also live where teachers have to pay their subs! (thank god I am NOT a teacher)

[Alamias]

@silverfox said in The Work Thread:

Yeah - I don't know what the difference between sick leave and PTO are.

These are different things?!

I just learned there are some districts where if a teacher uses more than their allocated days they have to "pay" for their own sub. Either the full daily sub rate, or at least half of it.

Yeah. My wife has to do this...which really sucks when she has chronic migraines. Not only does she get dinged by not getting paid for the day she takes off, she has to pay out of pocket for her sub.

[Derp]

I've generally seen all time where you aren't in the workplace referred to as Paid Time Off if you're getting paid for it, but some people decide to split it into weird buckets, and there's no standardization for it.

For instance, I have:

Sick Leave
Vacation
Personal Leave
Funeral Leave

And then my Personal Leave is capped at 3 days but any additional gets rolled into extra sick leave.

All of that is PTO, but for some reason people just -- use PTO as some kind of weird extra bucket of stuff for -- reasons.

[faraday]

@alamias said in The Work Thread:

Not only does she get dinged by not getting paid for the day she takes off, she has to pay out of pocket for her sub.

That is just wrong on so many levels.

[Ganymede]

@sunny said in The Work Thread:

I apologize, but I don't understand how that makes a difference. If It's PTO that's used for being sick, and you're rewarding people for not using PTO at all, then...it's rewarding people for coming to work sick, whether you call it Sick Leave, PTO, or lollipop time.

In Ohio, sick leave, PTO, and lollipop time are treated differently. I presume that there's a difference between them for the OP because I thought they worked as a teacher, and therefore are in the public sector.

In Ohio, the public sector just works differently than the private sector, thanks to constitutional protections and the work of union lobbyists. Most public sector jobs earn twice as much per cycle in sick leave as a person gathers in vacation time. So, where I earn 120 hours of what may be called PTO in the private sector, I also get 240 hours of paid sick leave. Most other public sector jobs in the state follow the same process. If you run out of sick leave, you can use vacation time.

As for rewarding people for not using their leave, I'm not sure how to get around your accusation. Sick leave also gets paid out (on retirement or death), so I have an incentive to not use it and show up sick because I get a benefit from doing so. All leave systems are like this.

But if I earned a benefit, it's my benefit and I should be able to keep it, but limits are in place to ensure that a mass exodus of public employees doesn't cause a budget crunch.

[Alamias]

@faraday said in The Work Thread:

@alamias said in The Work Thread:

Not only does she get dinged by not getting paid for the day she takes off, she has to pay out of pocket for her sub.

That is just wrong on so many levels.

Yeah, and people wonder why teachers are going into work sick. This is why, they can't afford to take days off even if they want to.

[Ganymede]

@alamias said in The Work Thread:

Yeah, and people wonder why teachers are going into work sick. This is why, they can't afford to take days off even if they want to.

I swear, with what they are doing to nurses and teachers, I would burn some motherfuckers down.

[Sunny]

@ganymede said in The Work Thread:

@sunny said in The Work Thread:

I apologize, but I don't understand how that makes a difference. If It's PTO that's used for being sick, and you're rewarding people for not using PTO at all, then...it's rewarding people for coming to work sick, whether you call it Sick Leave, PTO, or lollipop time.

In Ohio
...

Ah, sorry. Did not realize the OP was in Ohio.

As for rewarding people for not using their leave, I'm not sure how to get around your accusation.

It's not an accusation? It's just fact. Rewarding people for not using sick leave encourages them to come in sick. Paying MORE for your sick leave the more of it you have not used (which is what is going on here as per the OP on the topic; you get more money for your sick leave the more sick days you have not used) is significantly worse than cashing out at the end of employment/the year (which I also think is a TERRIBLE idea, though not quite AS bad). ESPECIALLY if you're only paying at a level that keeps people utterly desperate (like teachers).

Ohio is WEIRD for having separate sick leave AND cashing it out -- that is NOT normal; I have honestly never heard of cashing out sick leave at the end of the year; only PTO or Annual or Vacation, specifically because of the problems with rewarding sick leave not being taken. I would be REALLY interested in the data regarding communicable diseases in public service in that state, tbh. I imagine it would make a statistically significant difference, though I also expect they haven't studied it. (The impact of cashing out sick leave on the transmission of disease isn't something that's going to make anybody any sort of money. Sigh.)

eta: I'm a little irritated about this in general; we've had multiple people show up in person to work now while actively symptomatic with COVID. My (high risk) boss got it from one of them and was out for a month and a half, and now one of my other (high risk) coworkers (one of our few required in office folks) is down with it, too. I cannot imagine how I would feel if it turned out that my kid's teacher gave my kid COVID because they couldn't afford to take the day off (were my kid still in school). There's inherent risk from other kids and a whole host of other things, but it would be AWESOME if we could not add "people are trying to hide their symptoms and working anyway to avoid getting financially dinged" to the risk factors.

[silverfox]

I'm not in Ohio (Colorado actually) but it's been really interesting to see how different statese/organizations do this sick leave/pto.

I am going to ask my husband how his company handles it. (Other than telling him 'no' the last three times he tried to ask time off. We asked 3 months in advance this time to get 2 days off...)

[kk]

@ganymede

I still work shifts as long as 17 hours in full PPE without breaks
and yup covid+ people have worked. Which I don't agree with for many reasons, including infection control, but also nurses positive with covid deserve time to heal too. Pandemic is still happening. Nurses are not being treated great. Like they cancelled our hazard pay, work us under staffed, cancel breaks and do mandatory overtime which can be /a lot/ of mandatory overtime. and now some think nurses should work when sick with covid and go without sleep when sick. Nurses who took time off with omicron had to fight for sick pay

[kk]

@kk

Some manager who worked from home entire pandemic and still works from home told us floor nurses hazard pay is cancelled because omicron is just a cold. Rage... I wanted to tell you them why have you never come here then?

[Pyrephox]

I swear to god. Talking to any living human person over the last three years just fills my heart with rage and the desire for revolution.

[Ganymede]

@sunny said in The Work Thread:

Rewarding people for not using sick leave encourages them to come in sick.

It does not appear that I communicated my idea, so I'll be blunt.

Awarding sick leave encourages people to come in sick.

I mean, think about it. It is a benefit you get for showing up to work. Any benefit for showing up to work incentivizes coming in to work. And while I realize that it is cruel (and arguably unconstitutional in a public setting) to make a person pick coming to work or losing an earned benefit, the entire system could be obviated by not awarding sick leave at all.

Bear with me.

It is far more equitable to make employees salaried without accrued leave. We live in at an age where going to the workplace is getting obsolete. You can use technology to simulate a workplace meeting room, for example. And production is a matter of results, rather than process, in a virtual economy.

So, get rid of sick leave and PTO for employees you want to keep. Put them on a salary and give them benchmarks for performance. Get rid of the workplace attendance and focus on the results. And for those jobs where showing up is half the battle, make up the holes with part-time independent contractors or make sure you have coverage overlap on your roster (like sports teams do).

[Roz]

@ganymede said in The Work Thread:

@sunny said in The Work Thread:

Rewarding people for not using sick leave encourages them to come in sick.

It does not appear that I communicated my idea, so I'll be blunt.

Awarding sick leave encourages people to come in sick.

I mean, think about it. It is a benefit you get for showing up to work. Any benefit for showing up to work incentivizes coming in to work. And while I realize that it is cruel (and arguably unconstitutional in a public setting) to make a person pick coming to work or losing an earned benefit, the entire system could be obviated by not awarding sick leave at all.

Bear with me.

It is far more equitable to make employees salaried without accrued leave. We live in at an age where going to the workplace is getting obsolete. You can use technology to simulate a workplace meeting room, for example. And production is a matter of results, rather than process, in a virtual economy.

So, get rid of sick leave and PTO for employees you want to keep. Put them on a salary and give them benchmarks for performance. Get rid of the workplace attendance and focus on the results. And for those jobs where showing up is half the battle, make up the holes with part-time independent contractors or make sure you have coverage overlap on your roster (like sports teams do).

I'm not following the logic here. I gain the benefit of my sick leave by utilizing my sick leave. Not by going to work.

[Derp]

@roz

What Gany is saying is that giving people sick leave as a reward for attendance incentivizes attendance and creates a fear of using a limited resource, whereas we should do away with sick leave entirely and just give people performance benchmarks, allow them to effectively set their own schedule, work from anywhere if they want, and then just check to make sure the work is getting done per performance window, which you get paid a set salary for.

It would encourage people to not show up to work when sick, or when having an emergency, or whatever, and give them the flexibility to go on trips or do vacations or whatever else they need to do so long as their basic job expectations are being met, with a set pay schedule per performance period and not productive hour.

[Roz]

@derp It's a nice thought, but haven't studies shown that giving people unlimited vacation actually ends up with them taking less vacation than they would otherwise?

[Derp]

@roz said in The Work Thread:

@derp It's a nice thought, but haven't studies shown that giving people unlimited vacation actually ends up with them taking less vacation than they would otherwise?

I mean, maybe, but currently that's less of an issue than people coming in to work with a plague, so. That'll be the next thing to deal with.