Firms Hire Detectives To Verify Sick Days (employee, career, claim)

[manderly6]

There is just no way it makes financial sense for a company to investigate the one off sick day here or there. I'm guessing it would be pretty rare and the investigations are for the most part on longer term leave.

[EdJS]

We don't have a distinction between sick days and vacation days, just one pool called "paid time off" or PTO that we can use however we like. So no need to check up on us.

[dnvrsoul]

I haven't had "sick time" in years-it's PTO-I think it's over the top...my old employer would require a doctors note if you called in sick more than 4 times a year-I don't know would it honestly be worth it for a company to hire detectives so to speak to see if people are really sick?

[PacificFlights]

Originally Posted by manderly6

There is just no way it makes financial sense for a company to investigate the one off sick day here or there. I'm guessing it would be pretty rare and the investigations are for the most part on longer term leave.

I don't t hink it would be for the one day call in sick. It sounded in the article that there was suspicion that the person was abusing paid sick days. For the company it may cost some money even if they went after a repeat offender, but I think employees will think twice about using sick days to go to the game if someone was canned for abusing it. I'm lucky we get unlimited paid sick days so long as we permit company medical verification. I would have absolutely NO PROBLEM with my employer checking up on my sickness because when I use sick days, I;m sick.

[manderly6]

I rarely take sick days so it's a non-issue for me, but depending on how the "checking up" was done I may or may not have an issue with it.

[jasper12]

A co-worker here was BUSTED for posting on facebook, when he was "sick", he was out boating with friends. So, moral of story, do not post on Facebook about the party, when you call in sick! Especially when your boss is your friend on Facebook. He was not fired, but got alot of grief about it...and not in a kind way...

[ReturningWest]

Originally Posted by dnvrsoul

I haven't had "sick time" in years-it's PTO-I think it's over the top...my old employer would require a doctors note if you called in sick more than 4 times a year-I don't know would it honestly be worth it for a company to hire detectives so to speak to see if people are really sick?

When I had a job, we had PTO too, it was great It allowed us to manage our time as we needed it making us responsible instead of someone looking over our shoulder.

[slackjaw]

It wouldn't make sense for the company to do this to most employees, far too expensive.

However everyone has worked with the chronic-sick-person, where if you are allowed x days they are taking x days and most of them will be Friday or Monday.

[car54]

Yeah, surely this would be reserved for extreme leave abusers.

I'd been on my current job for nine years without taking a single sick day, not one. Then this past Thanksgiving week I got sick as a dog and missed three days. When I called in, they couldn't believe it.

The boss said, "You haven't called in once in nine years, man, you must REALLY be sick....take all the time you need". She actually seemed worried that I might croak or something! LOL

Anyway, it turned out to be pneumonia and I'm OK now...but it sure burned my arse to blow nine years perfect attendance!

[slackjaw]

My wife is like that car54, and since she works the city her sick days just accumulate into eternity.

She could go into a coma for six months and just use sicks days to do it, we even dropped her optional ST disability coverage since she now has the sick days to cover same amount of time but at full salary instead of 60%.