Sick Leave Benefit - Doc Download

Dear all

I want your valuable opinions on a rather emotive topic - sick leave.

The labour law mentions that an employee who takes sick leave for more than 2 continuous days will have to produce a medical certificate to avail sick leave.

However, there are many companies have different versions of this benefit. I understand that the Law is the minimum standard & companies are at freedom to customise benefits to suit their insutries.

My question is...how much is too much??? where should the line be drawn? In a country like the UAE where trade unions do not exist, and the interests of employers are safeguarded more than that of employees, would the employer not infringe the rights of employees by setting policies which are not employee friendly.

If an employer makes it mandatory for all employees taking sick leave(even one day) to furnish a medical certificate, would it not be infringing on employee rights? Can an employee not take a sick day if he/she is not up to it that day without having to visit the doctors? With increasing costs, does it make any sense for a person to visit the doctor for a common cold & a flu???

It would be great if we can discuss this & get out ideas out.

Waiting to read your opinions.

Regards
Shaila

Dear Shaila
Thanks for raising this issue, it is a very useful post and important point raised.
In our company, more than 2 days requireda Medical Certificate, and a One Day or in some cases 2 days also were ignored. But the technicians and all started misusing these and taking liberties. Hence now it is forced to have a medical certificate irrespective of the severness of the illness or if you visit a doctor or not.
Its a hand n glove situation I guess.
Cheers
Sajid

I think you need to be very clear about few things.
1)Different countries have different labor laws and hence the leave rules in different countries are different. You cannot enforce labor law of one country in another country.
2)Laws are guidelines and not stringent orders to be followed.
3)Cold, Cough, Flu, body-pains, head-aches etc are not considered as so serious sicknesses to force you to take leave.
4)It is only to stop the misuse of certain facilities that at times management needs to force such stringent orders.

Let me give you one example. In our company, we have 230 employees. We had the policy in our company, wherein employees were not supposed to submit any medical certificate, if they were taking less than three days as sick-leave. Then one fine month we found that the company lost 115 working days as a sick leave. We analyzed the data and it was found that every month company was losing 60-75 days as sick-leave. We had no other option but to enforce a new policy, asking employees to submit medical-certificate, even if they were taking leaves for one day. On that particular month, there were only 3 sick leaves and henceforth we maintained the trend of 5-7 sick leaves per month.

Hence, I like to state that companies or managements don’t feel happy to make such policies, it is only then when they find the misuse of certain facilities or benefits that they are forced to formulate such policies / rules.

I think it is important to understand both sides of the story.

Thanks and Regards

Please find attached information.
Cheers
sajid

Hi,
I agree, but question is how can one get a medical certificate if he is sick with migrane or diarrhoea as these kind of small illnesses will cure itself by some hours or may be half a day.
As per your calculation company is benefited with very less no. of sick leave cases, but if some one with mild flue spreads whole work environment is the work place is productive.
Yes, if company asks its workers to runs 365 days then you may be very much happy to show your productive results.
On conclusion the earlier rule Medical certificate required if leave is more than 2 days is genuine and practial rule, you can still control your misused personnel by conducting performance reviews and many other ways.

Yes I agree with all of the above statements made by Sajid & Sanjeev.
But in our case we have a policy now saying SL at the discretion of the management to be taken? Does it mean that I cannot take leave and it shall be decided by my Immediate Supervisor or Head of the Dept?