I've seen comments like men don't have the day of pain, so don't "need the holiday" but these people obviously don't own a business or pay other peoples wages. When you are a small business you ensure that you hire people based on the maximum return on investment based on skillset and deliverables. If you have 2 identically skilled and equally hard working employees but one works 12 days less per year and gets the same money, you would hire the one who delivers 12 extra days. If you ignore the sex of the applicants and it was down to a purely financial decision (as it always should be in business, especially publicly traded businesses) then you would be neglecting your responsibilities if you hire someone who costs more and delivers less.
The solution may be simply allow flexi-time. Each member of staff must fulfil X number of hours per week, month, year or whatever slice you decide, and when its performed is up to them. This wouldn't work with List-X or restricted sites, where work must be performed on site, but for something like a media company I'm sure you could work from many suitable locations.
It's far better to apply some humanity to the equation and just give everyone those extra 12 days off (and (mat|pat)ernity leave), so you're not tempted to discriminate off the "productivity loss".
Luckily we don't live in that world anymore (40 years ago). And we are working to reduce the dis-incentives of hiring women over men. Im living in the UK where recently paternity and maternity leave are inter-changable and can be split between parents. entitling men to equal leave to women to reduce the incentives of hiring men over women.
There are all kinds of times when people become less productive. Im never advocating never hiring a woman, only that whatever benefits you apply to one act as a hiring dis-incentive unless applied by law to both. Its economics, not ethics.
But you're right. A number of people I've spoken to about parental leave (not all of whom have been men) are skeptical of paternity leave because they largely see maternity leave as an opportunity to recover from the physical and medical hardships of child birth, with emotional bonding merely an ancillary benefit. Even if that's true, creating gender independent norms avoids giving ammunition to the quietly sexist eye-rollers who use maternity leave to devalue female coworkers. While it would be better to just make a quantum leap to the ideal world where no one holds those opinions in the first place, existing cultural norms and beliefs naturally constrain policy on a pragmatic level and we have to work within those constraints as best we can.
It's funny to see these fumbling efforts toward those goals by companies from a different culture than my own, though. I can't imagine even the most politically naive and insensitive American manager suggesting this idea, outside of a Michael Scott from the Office type parody. Is it because we tackled basic issues with women in the workplace earlier than India because we modernized faster? Like is this the sort of idea bumbling Dilbert-esque middle managers in corporate America proposed during the mid-70s? Or is there some underlying difference in cultural taboos about discussing periods? I have to confess that India is one country where I am not very well informed about the culture on the ground as I haven't spent any time there.
Is on birth control to supress having a period.
Has an IUD and is one of the 1 in 5 for whom this stops Having periods for a year.
Has had a hysterectomy.
Has gone through menopause.
Has another condition which causes them to not have periods.
do they have their 12 days ripped from them unceremoniously?
It seems like there are a lot of edge cases here which may provide additional areas to cry "sexism" because for the cases listed above they wont require the 12 extra days, yet without having intimate medical knowledge of your staff, you cannot differentite between one type of non-period having staff member and another (in the "other" case a male).
in any case I'm glad they've done it as a case study on what happens next.
After about the third day of being out my boss texted me with a suggestion that I go see a doctor. When I finally got back to the office he wanted to see a doctor's note. I did not go to the doctor, because more extreme bleeding is something that is expected after having an IUD inserted.
I was at home in extreme pain, changing out adult diapers about 3 times a day that were completely soaked with blood. I think this 100% is a good enough reason to not come into work, and it's sort of bull that my boss was asking about my personal business when we are already a company that combines sick days with vacation days as PTO.
I actually did fill my boss in on all the gory details since he wouldn't let up on the doctor's note, but this is absolutely something that I should NEVER have to disclose to someone to be able to keep my job.
I don't really have a good solution here. I want the 12 extra holiday days for everyone solution to work, but there will always be people abusing their limited amount of power to unnecessarily investigate what we are using our PTO for.
In Sweden for example, vacation days and sick days are separate, and up to a week, the employer is required to pay you during sick leave, and after that social security (equivalent) kicks in. This obviously doesn't use up your vacation days (where employers have no business in knowing what you're up to), but as for sick days it's not unreasonable to (have the option to) ask for validation for your absence.
I agree that employers (should) have no authority to know anything that's between you and your doctor, but I think it's also reasonable to have some verification (a note from doctor not specifying what the ailment is?) that you weren't just taking time off on the employers dime.
- One for your health insurance, which lists the diagnosis, duration, etc.
- One for your employer which only gives the days you are unable to work
- One for yourself with all the info as well
This neatly solves the problem that you have to tell your employer anything that only concerns your doctor (they're not allowed to ask either).
And my work contract states that I can take leave for any personal reason if needed for up to two days, but after that a doctor's note is required. So in the instance of a period from hell that would make me unable to work, yes, a visit to the doctor is needed, if only for bureaucratic reasons.
> And my work contract states that I can take leave for any personal reason if needed for up to two days, but after that a doctor's note is required.
That might be the case in Sweden as well, I don't remember. Since I started contracting I've only been my own employer, and I'm the best boss I've ever had, so it hasn't been a problem.
Ideally I would have used "vacation days" for this if they were separate at my workplace, but they often require requesting the time off ahead of time, which is not really possible when you have an unexpected period from hell and you have no idea how long it will last.
I know, neither does being out cold with the flu for a week, but the person footing the bill is still reasonably entitled to some form of verification (regardless if this is the right approach in terms of good will or not) that you were unable to work (at least on location). Don't you agree?
I don't think your doctor would need verification for that note, diapers or otherwise. I assume it could be handled by phone.
According to [1], people are contagious for about one week, starting from one day before they feel any symptoms. It is actually more productive to send the sick people home (or let them work at least part-time from home) to prevent others from getting sick and also having to take time off.
I've been fortunate enough to work in environments where this was acknowledged and practiced, but I'm always dismayed when hearing from friends/relatives who are required to put in their "time of presence" and get half of their coworkers sick.
[Edit] Last point: for the common cold (virus), there's no need for a doctor visit, yet you still need rest and symptom control with OTC meds.
[1] http://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/how-long-flu-contagious
I'm just saying that when there is an extended absence from work, it's reasonable that your employer request a note. Now maybe 6 or 7 work days doesn't meet the definition of extended for some people, but for me it does.
And as stated elsewhere, this is not about a nosy manager getting their employee's health information. This is about a manager exercising their right to know that the employee is not at work for a legitimate reason. I've had these types of notes before, and they typically just have a date range of when you should not be in the office.
This is way, way easier to just implement as one extra sick day per person per month.
It applies to maternity/paternity leave too. Until maternity and paternity leave are required to be equal by law, there will be a bias against hiring women, due to the simple mathematics. If the 'risk' is equal for a man or a woman, the bias is eliminated.
Employer: "Hmm... we have two candidates for the job, both equally qualified, but we'll have to give 12 extra days off a year to one of them but not the other. Which one do we hire?"
There may have been good intentions ...
Based on their sex.
http://www.med.monash.edu.au/gendermed/sexandgender.html
> Sex refers to biological differences; chromosomes, hormonal profiles, internal and external sex organs.
> Gender describes the characteristics that a society or culture delineates as masculine or feminine.
May as well link some script from the Life of Brian to demonstrate that you can identify (gender) as a woman if you are a male but where's the foetus going to gestate (sex).