Topic: sick days

Company Sick Day Policies Are Making Your Office Disgusting

Company Sick Day Policies Are Making Your Office Disgusting

How much do you hate employees who slump into the office, sneezing and wheezing and blowing their nose all over the place? They mention they’re sick and how awful they feel, before sinking into their desk and working beside you for the next nine hours. The odds are fairly high that you, too, will contract this runny nose, headache, congestion situation. While a super sick coworker at the office is not fair to you, companies can generally make their own rules around a sick time policy.
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Gloria Steinem: Sick Day Benefits Are Good For Women

Gloria Steinem: Sick Day Benefits Are Good For Women

When it comes to paid sick leave, the US is out of step with the rest of the world. About 40% of workers in the private sector here are not paid for days they miss work because they’re sick. Around the world, more than 160 countries guarantee some kind of paid sick leave, but the US leaves it up to individual employers to decide. A debate in New York, led by Gloria Steinem, is reviving the question: Should all workers get a few paid sick days a year, or would mandating that cost businesses too much money? More »

10 Hilariously Bad (Real!) Excuses For Skipping Work

10 Hilariously Bad (Real!) Excuses For Skipping Work

Embarrassing excuses for missing work never get old, so when I happened across this new list of excuses people have apparently used in real life, I couldn’t help but laugh. Commissioned by the software and consulting company Citrix, the new survey looks at a wide variety of office frustrations, and the outlandish ways employees try to get out of spending time at work. Some of these excuses for playing hooky are so crazy, they just might work. After all, how could your boss actually respond if you said you weren’t coming in because “I’m having toenail issues”? Enjoy these 10 totally insane, supposedly real excuses for skipping work.
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HR Mistake Of The Week: Your Company Handbook Is Too Long

HR Mistake Of The Week: Your Company Handbook Is Too Long

Warning! If you’re an HR employee who has been trained to dot every “i” and cross every “t,” the following piece of advice may disturb you: The perfect company policy may not cover every contingency. In fact, it may be short, simple, and leave a lot up to discretion. That’s according to Jason Carney, HR Director at WorkSmart, an Indianapolis-based firm that provides HR services to small and mid-size companies. Forget the thousand-page policy that covers every possible situation. (Should a sick leave policy cover dependents who are over 18? What about a niece or nephew who lives in the family home?) Carney says he favors policies that are simple and flexible. “There’s been a trend, and I like it, to make handbooks thinner,” Carney told me a few days ago. “I’m a policy geek and I like policy, but HR people have a tendency to make this complicated.” It doesn’t have to be that way. More »