While I agree that encouraging a sick employee to work is all kinds of messed up, most countries impose a limit on sick days.
At that point, you need to talk to the employee and figure out a solution.
At that point, you need to talk to the employee and figure out a solution.
The manager gets involved at performance evaluation time, or if it has severe otherwise impacts (you're then asking the person to potentially leave), but I don't see the "figure out a solution" part of it. Asking someone to be less sick feels complicated.
Either way, a good manager can work with the employee to get a good outcome for both parties.
On the other parts, it might be a cultural difference: I'd expect all of those to be handled by HR.
For instance, specific work time adjustments, additional rest time due to a physical or psychological condition, family issues etc. are delicate and potentially private matter that go beyond the manager's supervision. The manager needs to be notified of the resulting discussions, but I wouldn't expect them to get all the details directly from the employee for instance.
That's also where the abuse of sick leave becomes a delicate issue to address at the manager level: companies have policies on how you justify the sick leave (doctor notes, medical bills etc.) or they let it open to the employee's judgement call. The former is clear cut, and abusing it means faking papers, so it's straight in HR territory. The later is more tricky, but I'd hate to be in a position where I have to hear the employee's story and decide if it's fake or not, potentially putting a the target on my back if the employee gets punished for actual issues I underestimated. It feels like a real shitty position to be in, I'd probably not bother confronting the employee except if they have literally dozens of sick leave days available.
Possibly. Generally, I'd only involve HR as a last resort. Go to them for guidance, certainly, but in terms of dealing with an employee, I prefer to talk to them directly.
> [abuse of sick leave]
Completely agree that it's a delicate situation and you need to be very careful, or (in some countries depending on employment law) you could be open to a claim of wrongful dismissal.
All of which is why I don't expect an AI to take over people management roles any time soon.