[OptionOfT]

Belgium law allows employers to enforce a sick note starting day 1.

I joined an employer that didn't require this, and it was such a breath of fresh air.

At our local doctor, the first 5 hours of his workday were comprised solely of writing notes for people to stay home.

It is a waste of (recovery) time to enforce everybody to get a note starting day one.

And describing the situation in the US on this to validate these changes is insane. Many people in the food business don't have paid sick leave, and as such lose pay when they don't come to work. And those people should absolutely have the ability to stay home without putting their finances in jeopardy. It should be a sign out front: we have paid sick leave for our people so they don't feel forced to come to work sick.

[cassianoleal]

Even more than a day is terrible. If I have a cold or the flu, the last thing I want to do is to go to the doctor. I'd rather just rest up, it goes away in 3-5 days and I can be back at work.

The need for a doctor's notes means one of:

* I explain to my employer, probably don't get paid for those days, and might face disciplinary action or eventually get fired

* I go to the doctor, making my recovery less likely, increasing my stress levels which are already high due to my body fighting an infection, and risk infecting others or worse, catch something else myself for being made to cohabit space with other sick individuals

* I work even though I'm sick. If I do that from the office, I risk contaminating colleagues - and other people I interact with

There's no winning.

[joe_mamba]

> it goes away in 3-5 days and I can be back at work.

Sitting 5 days at home without a doctor seeing you on the basis of "trust me bro it's just a flue it will pass soon" also seems dangerous since plenty of people suck at self diagnosing themselves and end up more sick or even dead by ignoring major issues thinking it's something small that will pass. And that's besides the trust part where people are gonna exploit this for extra vacation.

If we just let everyone self diagnose themselves all the time at home, the graveyards will be full.

Forcing sick people to see a doctor after X days feels like the best for both worlds.

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

I mean, people are sick what, 3 times per year? Those with kids probably around 7.

So for simplicity, let's say people self diagnose 4 times per year and they are right 4 times because they are not dead and back to work.

You can then grab statistics for deaths and overlay that, but the enormous amount of false negatives you would get by doing what you are suggesting is staggering, I don't consider that a good idea.

[inigyou]

Well by that metric each person only gets to be wrong once. If course it's a low number.

[cassianoleal]

How about not? If you think your employee is lying too much about being sick, perhaps have a conversation? Establish trust? If it doesn't work out, require a doctor's note, and eventually fire them.

If the problem is one of trust, work on that. Forcing a sick person to leave the house and expose themselves and everyone else along their way to new pathogens just because you don't trust them is hardly a net positive for anyone.

[joe_mamba]

>require a doctor's note

That's ... exactly what I was saying. How long is your context window that you missed that?

If you're sick longer than X days, go see a doctor, for your own safety first, then for the note to your employer.

>Establish trust?

How? Trust goes both ways. If you trust someone and they don't reciprocate and abuse it for personal gain, then there's nothing left to establish, you just got robbed plain and simple, there's no trust there anymore. Trust is very hard to earn and very easily to lose. Mandating a note is simple "trust but verify" and removes any and all suspicions and accusations ensuring a level playing field for both parties.

>If the problem is one of trust, work on that.

Why should you be working on trust when you're the one being scammed? That's like telling the store who got robbed they should work on trust.

> Forcing a sick person to leave the house

No, you're right, they should just get to sit at home as long as they want with no medical oversight until it gets worse, or they end up at the ER, or they get bored of playing videogames, with much higher costs to both themselves and the health and labor system.

[cassianoleal]

> How long is your context window that you missed that?

256K tokens. I suspect yours is about 20 tokens, because you forgot the bit right before the one you quoted: "_If it doesn't work out_, require a doctor's note."

> If you trust someone and they don't reciprocate and abuse it for personal gain, then there's nothing left to establish

Correct. Terminate them in this case. Or have a process to give them a second chance and then terminate them. Whatever works for you.

> Why should you be working on trust when you're the one being scammed?

Probably don't. Don't hire scammers. Hired one by mistake? Fire them.

> No, you're right, they should just get to sit at home as long as they want with no medical oversight until it gets worse, or they end up at the ER

I get sick between 0 and 5 times a year. I can't remember the last time I went to the doctor for any of those, but I can say it has been many years. Some times I have really bad allergies to the point that I can barely get out of bed for maybe 2 or 3 days. I don't need to see the doctor, I just need to find the right anti-histaminics that work for me for whatever pollen is causing it.

Here you have a person who you supposedly trust with things a lot more valuable than whatever a day or a week's worth of missed work amount to, and you need to make them get out of the house, maybe queue up for hours in the hospital or whatever, because you don't trust them when they tell you they're sick? I'm sorry, but I know who I find sicker in this scenario and it's not the person missing work.

[joe_mamba]

From which perspective are you talking about? Workers in Belgium or the US?

[illiac786]

I am all for it, but if a business is one of the few offering this, I guarantee you that their new hires will tend to have significantly more health issues than at other businesses not offering this.

It’s a bit of a chicken and egg issue.