| A combo of management control and a very tiny number of people who abuse any freedom given to them, then blame you for not telling them they couldn’t do it, and then blame you for singling them out. As an anecdote - we had no sick leave policy at a previous job. It was just tell us when you’re sick and you won’t be in. One guy joins and starts calling in on Mondays, or Fridays of bank holiday weekends. He eventually got caught saying he had been on a trip on one of those weekends and was called up on it. He told everyone it was bulshit because he was being singled out and targeted unfairly. Then we got a sick leave policy that applied to everyone. Unsurprisingly, this guy was also the reason we needed permission to WFH, had formal expense limits when travelling, and core working hours during the day. He ruined it for 30 other people because he took advantage of every flex we had. |
| |
| ▲ | gwd 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | In a lot of places, you can't fire people unless they've violated written policy. | |
| ▲ | maccard 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | He did ruin it for everyone. Management called him up on the sick days. he responds by saying that there's no policy for sick days, and to show him in the handbook where it says he has a limited number of sick days, or that he needs to notify someone. They can't, because we don't have one. When he's told this isn't acceptable, he pushes back saying that he's being singled out. | | |
| ▲ | roryirvine 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | That sounds like the real problem was the lack of an employee handbook. They're not strictly required by law, but 30 employees is well above the level where you should really expect to have one in place. The "just wing it and hope no-one takes the piss" approach is fine if you've only got a handful of employees, but is increasingly risky beyond that - it was probably only a matter of time before that organisation got into a difficult HR situation one way or another. It's not even going to have been much of a time-saving, since all the legally-mandated bits (eg. equal opportunities, grievance procedures, anti-harassment, modern slavery, and consultation process) will still have been needed at that size, just without a central place to track and manage it all. | | |
| ▲ | maccard 37 minutes ago | parent [-] | | > That sounds like the real problem was the lack of an employee handbook. That's my point - we didn't have one because we didn't need one. 30 people is still small enough that you can be on first name terms with every single person in the company and know what everyone is doing day-to-day. Anecdotally, I'd say one in every 30 people I've worked with in my career are like this - so that's probably the point you do need one. |
| |
| ▲ | npongratz 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Poor performers get put on PIPs, right? Did that person's poor performance "ruin it for everyone" and put the rest of the working plebs (the entire company or department or whatever) on PIPs? No, of course not. The poor performer gets singled out, which is just fine. So instead of punishing everyone for some lying asshole's poor judgment, I propose management puts that lazy jerk on their own SDIP (sick day improvement plan). EDIT: As an alternative, sure, update the handbook's sick policy while that liar is working for you. Since there's now precedent for handbook updating, should be an easy thing to revert it back to the normal, "no sick day policy" after they leave (by whatever means). | | |
| ▲ | maccard 34 minutes ago | parent [-] | | > The poor performer gets singled out, which is just fine. he's not a poor performer, he's just an asshole. And you can't fire someone for being an asshole > So instead of punishing everyone for some lying asshole's poor judgment, I propose management puts that lazy jerk on their own SDIP (sick day improvement plan). You're missing the point. You can't single the person out for violating a policy that you didn't have written down. The only reason that policy is now written down is because that person violated the policy. Singling out someone for being (genuinely) ill is likely to end up with you on the wrong end of an employment tribunal who will ask you "what is your sickness policy" |
| |
| ▲ | direwolf20 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | You're in America, right? At–will employment? The manager could have simply terminated that employee, citing no reason? | | |
|
|
