A couple of weeks back, I had come across a post on LinkedIn. An employee had sent a sick leave application email to HR copying his manager, the founder. The response from the founder was to HR – “Mark this as leave without pay. Don’t approve same day leaves.”
The compliant version, I suppose, would have read: “Dear sir, I would like to apply for sick leave for 2 days starting the day after tomorrow. I foresee myself getting sick from tomorrow night.”
Apparently, the founder then called up the employee and remarked, “You sound fine”. An unwarranted excess, in my view.
In my career, I have come across different mechanisms on how leaves are handled by different companies.
- One small startup had a sandwich policy, where earned leaves that spread over a weekend included the weekend in the number of days deducted. Basically, a paid leave for Friday and Monday counted as four days. Attendance was tracked strictly, but manually.
- Another firm had strict attendance tracking, along with entrance and exit tracking for monitoring time in office, and calculating overtime. There was even policy to consider unplanned leaves when doing performance evaluations.
- A manufacturing facility had a very different level of scrutiny. Attendance, including timely sign ins, were tracked. Medical leaves were scrutinized and needed to be accompanied with medical certificates to be eligible for sick leave attribution.
- A multinational company believed that the employees were to be trusted enough to be professional. The CEO did not want even an attendance tracking system, trusting the managers and employees to keep up ethical standards in their leave management.
- A fast-growing company had biometric sign-in at every entry/exit point, but it was more for security as far as I have heard. Here too, employees and managers were expected to be professional and ethical enough to get through their work with minimal disruption with the level of flexibility given.
Recently, my son had to stay away from school due to a viral infection for an extended period of time. I had been keeping his class teacher informed regularly about what was going on with the doctor visits, tests etc. but when he was ready to go back to school, she asked me to meet her with the leave letter and the medical certificate.
I met her and handed over the papers. She informed me that this time was an exception but for any leaves going forward, I will need to go meet with the school’s principal and hand over the papers. She clarified that this was the case for every student in tenth standard.
Interestingly enough, this is not the procedure for any lower class. I can think of a few reasons why the rules get tightened for just one class of students but none of it seems to justify the need for a parent to appear in person at the school, wait to meet the principal and hand over the leave letter.
With the students in class ten, the stakes are high for the school. I suppose they want to ensure that students do not take leaves unnecessarily or under false pretenses. Valid concerns, maybe, but I am unable to fathom how making the parents appear in front of the principal for even a legitimate medical leave is going to serve as a deterrent.
One might say strict policies are for safeguarding interests of both parties. It is not my intention to make any assertions about how evolved or regressive any of these systems are.
The leave policy of an organization is the easiest signal of how it really sees its employees and what it values, more than any culture, values or operating procedure document.
Policies have a direct bearing on how the employees see the company as well. The story at the beginning is one example of how people in positions of authority can brandish the leave policy as a weapon when needed. A behavior that people will never miss to notice.
On the other hand, I do know of a situation where the employee has abused the system to draw salary even when being perpetually off work. This will also be noticed by people inside, especially when not addressed in a timely manner. He was shown the door.
In all of the five scenarios I have mentioned, and clearly missing in the original incident we started with, there was always a mechanism which stood between an employee’s endeavor to avail a day off without anyone viewing it with suspicion and the consequences they might face if the trust was broken.
My ex-boss used to keep saying, “Trust but verify”. A very sensible and defensible point of view to have and apply in this scenario.
The policy itself can do the heavy lifting here.
Make it easier for the employee to take a day or two off as needed with a quick approval and their manager kept informed. No more than two clicks on a portal or a simple message to the manager.
If there is a pattern emerging, like leaves clustering around weekends or holidays, uncharacteristic AWOLs, repeated sick leaves, empower the manager to assess the situation and intervene professionally to protect the business, and also the employee. Train them to have a discreet but honest conversation with the employee, with empathy but without making them feel like an accused on trial. Where there is a question of veracity, handle those on a case-by-case basis, privately, without making a spectacle of it.
To the people who are interviewing, I say this. During your second HR round, politely request the representative to walk you through the policies, attendance, leave and performance appraisal, and clarify your doubts.
There is nothing wrong in this and if you get a pushback, on the lines of “Why do you think it is important to know about this at this stage of the interview process” or “Those are not important, we are flexible” and so on, consider it a red flag.
And to the founders reading this:
If your organization’s leave policy were to get read aloud in any forum, would it be met with nods or hushed whispers?