Why would an employer get upset about an employee taking more then one sick day in a row?

The employer is unwilling or unable to accommodate the loss of labor for more than a day. That’s an employer problem.

They have a business to run, and it’s hard to stay in business if employees want weeks off for catching a cold. I went to work many times when sick because I was still able to perform the job for which I was hired.

If it’s a salary employee the company still has to pay the worker when they are there or not.
Hourly employees are a bit different if they are not on the job they are not getting paid, most employers want a Doctors note if the employee will be off for more than 2 days in a row,

Do people not know that someone’s whos sick can be contagious weeks after getting sick, not just after they feel better.

I’m not a doctor, but have always heard that you are contagious before you know you’re sick, and a few days after you know. Once you feel better, you’re no longer contagious, and definitely not for weeks after.

In this world of Covid, many businesses are changing their views somewhat. In our, for instance, if you call off sick, you are required to call HR to let them decide if the symptoms are potentially Covid related or not. They may keep you from returning for a quarantine period or until you can show a negative test and/or are symptom free for a period of time. That is so that more people don’t get sick and there are more people having to take time off.

But in general, taking Covid out of the equation, there might be companies that start getting a little prickly about taking multiple days off in a row. There are a couple things to consider. You have to look at this from the company’s point of view. First off, they are dealing with a large group of people. In every job I’ve ever had there were people that gamed the system, using sick days as a way to get extra days off or to get out of some particularly onerous job. So the company has to set up rules concerning sick days to help curtail some of that. One example might be asking for a doctor’s note based on the number of days off you are taking or the frequency. That helps to put a pin in someone that is gaming the system.

Another thing to consider is that the company has a duty to ensure their business runs smoothly and safely. From a smoothly perspective, every time someone calls off, that means someone else is having to pick up the slack. It costs the company in several ways: the person doing the extra work can get burned out from having to work extra. And the company typically has to pay overtime to accomplish the job that would have been done for straight time had the sick person been there. So extra days off means more intrusion into other worker’s lives and extra cost to the company. From the Safely perspective, Frequent time off for being “sick” is one of the signs that someone has a substance abuse problem. Every company I have worked for has worried about this. If someone has a substance abuse problem exists, it could result in a work place accident hurting that person or others. So the company has to be aware of potentials for this.

At the last company I worked for, when I first started as a supervisor, one of the things I did early on was to review the files for all the employees that reported to me. One of the things I did was to look at attendance. I looked at the past 6 months. One employee had no sick days, another had 1, another had 1….then I came to an employee that had 20. And every sick day coincided (prior to or immediately after) a weekend or a vacation. Unfortunately, the company had the view that sick days were a benefit and I wasn’t allowed to question how they used their benefits. As a result I saw several employees in our section that literally were only working 3 out of 5 days a week on a regular basis.

So while you might be a perfectly honest person that does not want to get other sick, remember that there are many people out there that are not like that.

Sick for a few days at a time, a few times a year would be typical for someone with young children. Either the kid is sick or the kid gave it to the parents. Sick on Mondays and/or Fridays regularly would be fraud.

My coworker had gum disease, so took many days off over a year for treatment. That seems like a justifiable use of sick days. We had to cover for him, which was inconvenient. But he was a good engineer, so we were OK with it.

Businesses want to make money. That is what they care about.

@Ikara Yes, businesses want to make money. That is why they opened in the first place. It is why people go there to support that business. That is all any of them care about. But think about it for a moment. Does a company benefit from having a sick person come to work? There is a good chance they will make others sick and then the business multiplies it headache. What if they don’t feel good, come into work, and then get hurt because they are not as sharp or as focused as they could be? Now the company has worker’s comp issues to deal with. All of that is extra expense. On the flipside, they recognize that some people game the system. Usually rules like the one described are not created out of thin air or without thought. They are created over time and learning the hard way.

Some companies don’t think that deeply. They just worry about the day’s profits. Hire exactly the number of people needed. Anyone missing will screw up the system.

@RocketGuy Of course they think that deeply. They often walk a line between profit and employees because if you don’t have employees, you are losing money. If your employees want to quit, you have to spend more money training new ones. If your employees are out sick they are of no use for that day’s work. But on the flip side, if they don’t watch for scams, they will end up with people taking advantage of them, not showing up, and still getting paid for not doing anything.

unless they work for a company that accrues sick time, or they are a salary employee is the only way I know of getting paid for not being at work.
Regular hourly employees if they ain’t working they ain’t getting paid.

At my work, we all get 10 days of paid sick time a year. Even hourly technicians. It just a matter of personnel loading. We’re close to 100% so if anyone calls in sick, other people have to take over otherwise work doesn’t get completed on time. But if someone comes in sick and gets other people sick, productivity gets worse. That’s why we want sick people to use their sick pays and stay home.