While I’m sympathetic to employees who need time off due to illness (either themselves or a family member), I also realize you can’t keep requiring businesses who are already having a difficult time competing globally due to high labor and labor-related costs in America to pay out more and more and more in employee benefits. There has to be a balance and some offset for businesses or they are going to go under. We are seeing it every day! Jobs are shifting to countries where the labor costs are low because the government doesn’t protect their employees or environment in any way. I DO NOT condone poor treatment of employees (or the environment), but the fact is, some businesses simply can’t afford to pay, give, pay some more. Oh, and those taxes that the current administration PROMISED weren’t going to go up (I believe a reduction was promised?)…they’re going up big time! And things that haven’t been taxed before…they’re talking about removing some of the few tax benefits that currently remain in place and greatly help employees AND employers. I firmly believe in being fair to employees, giving them as much and as many benefits as can be afforded, and in being compassionate when they are navigating through difficult times. But it’s unrealistic to expect every business to take the kind of hits the current administration is proposing or requiring and to also expect them to stay in business. No easy answers here, but the government needs to bow out unless the issue is truly mistreatment of the employee. Some of those laws that protect us are necessary. Beyond that, they need to butt out. Government shouldn’t be running free enterprise. When that happens, we no longer have a democracy. Just my two cents…for whatever it’s worth…

A great post and so true. People will abuse time off whether the have paid sick time or not. We don’t have any sick days here and no personal but there are still some who abuse time off.

It’s ridiculous that an employer does not offer at least three days of sick time. I see way too many employees here coming in when they should be home. We offered accrued sick leave at the hospital where I worked last. Even though we offered sick time, if you abused it, you got written up so it was never that big of an issue.

On the flipside, however, requiring small businesses (under 100 employees) to provide paid sick leave is not fair, especially when it would likely cause financial hardship.

So what if Obama requires us to ensure we have 7 days of paid sick leave. Your great employees will still be great, your good will still be good, and your bad will quickly become very visible. I don’t say that because the “bad” will use the time; I say that because they will use the time incorrectly. Those same employees are also the ones that milk their time in other ways.

Employees that always get the job done will still do that. Those same employees are probably those that get more than their job done on a regular basis and susually arrive at work 5-15 minutes before their start time and often times stay 5-15 minutes after (if not longer) and may at times, skip their lunch or shorten it. Whether that caliber of employee is hourly or not doesn’t change the fact he/she more than likely puts in a lot more than 40 hours worth of work each week.

Employees that will use every one of those sick days, plus all their leave, plus any personal days, plus holidays, who have given every excuse in the book for being late, leaving early or not returning from lunch on time will still be that employee. Yes, he/she just received a total of 7 days to skip work. If you have employees like this – shame on you for not getting rid of them before because they are also the employees that you can never find (because he/she is getting this or that), that has to use the restroom 50 times a day, is always talking to another co-worker, or is getting far too many phone calls. If you have these employees you are already losing money on top of the damage it does to moral and work ethic amongst the “good and great” employees. Again, shame on you for not getting rid of that person earlier.

The bill would force you to offer a total of 7 days, not add 7 to whatever you have. We do not offer any sick days at all or any other days for anything outside of personal leave. The amount of paid personal leave we offer is generous though and fully explain upon hire that it encompasses every personal need for time away from work (sick, personal holidays, vacation….etc.) hence, why it is so generous to begin with. If we have to add 7 official “sick” days, then we will. If that is something we do not want to be forced to do, it is up to us to modify our leave policy now by breaking it down into specific groups. Not a big deal.

Hire the right people, treat them with respect and dignity, understand their is a personal life outside of work (which is why we work – to afford our personal life) and you will find the right people will give you just as much in return. If they don’t, they weren’t the right people to begin with (which means that yes, you have to evaluate your screening and hiring………ouch).

Just keeping it light and silly!

I agree that offering employees paid sick days does throw people into a tizzy. I am not sure how that will work in the end (if it even happens). I know you can’t change your current paid leave policies but I would imagine that if you already offer paid sick days (like say five), then you would only have to add two more. I think they just don’t want companies that currently offer 10 days of vacation to knock their vacation days down in order to make room for paid sick days. I would imagine (of course you never know with the government) that they just want people to have seven paid days of sick leave, period. If they already get five I don’t think they would make compaies give 12. I could be wrong on that though. You have to take into consideration that many times, as we all know, some of these things don’t get thought through very well before it’s implemented. It sounds like a wonderful idea at the time but unless they think through every possible scenario it just doesn’t work in the “real world”. Even some of the new ARRA COBRA stipulations were poorly thought out…or just not thought out at all!

I apologize for the generalization – kinda like back in the day a car was called a “she” or when Captain Kirk asked Scotty to give him more power and Scotty replied “She can’t take any more Captain”.

I meant no insult – but by the tone of your response, I can see that you were. There was only one mention of gender and it was I – so there was no “You all” component in this. Using a non-gender specific moniker can sometimes lead to an incorrect generalization.