Do you have a doctor's note???

I know it has been sometime since my last post, but illness took its toll on me. From the sickness however a topic did come to mind.

Should Workers be Required to Have a Doctor’s Excuse When They are Out Sick??

For argument sake I am not talking about full time employees that have sick time. What I am talking about are the part-time people with no benefits. As a college student I hear many of my friends talking about how they were sick and had to go to the doctor not because the illness was so server they felt like they couldn’t overcome it, it was because their employer required a doctor’s note to excuse the absent. As a former manager of a large company requiring doctor excuse was not in our P&P, we acted as described in the solution below, and it worked great.

The problem.

Suppose the employee had a stomach virus or a viral infection, nothing a doctor can do, the employee will be better in a day or two. Let’s take it a step further, suppose the employee does not have insurance and has to go to the doctor. From an organizational stand point we have just made a worker with no insurance go wait for hours at a doctor’s office (when they should be resting), to pay an outrageous bill all over a stomach virus. But the worker had to this to keep their job, all to prove that they are honest and truly sick.

The Solution.

It simple, trust your employees, if you cannot trust them they should not be at your company anyways. If you are trying to protect the best interest of the company require a doctors excuse if the employee is out 3 or more days saying that they are safe to return to work. Give the employees the time they need to recover and spare them the unnecessary cost of unneeded doctor visits.