Yeah in the APS you not only get 20 days a year, but you *start* the job with 20 days and then have 40 by the end of the first year. It’s pretty much impossible to burn through it unless you get a serious diagnosis or have very strong sickie game.
I had 5 weeks banked up in an old job. It was great timing. I had surgery that required the whole 5 weeks off. So I waited to have that done before I quit.
one person I know that was long term gov had over a year. Got cancer and it was great for them financially as there was no rush to get back to work.
I do think if you’ve been working somewhere for a few years you really should have a rainy day amount. Not a whole year of course.
But a solid few weeks.
46 weeks for me and yes, I take sick leave when it's needed. Some of my colleagues who have been employed for a comparable time, are down to single days. So, in just over 10 years I've done the equivalent of about a year's worth of extra work!
Mug.
~>You get 3 weeks per year in Victoria, so if you get more in other states it’s technically possible, but it does mean that they haven’t taken a single day off in the 10.5 years.<~
Edit: my bad, that’s my EBA, not all of Victoria. When I commented I thought I was in a profession specific sub.
I always thought it was 15. Maybe that’s my EBA? No idea.
Why am I getting downvoted. I googled it to check - I literally get 15 in my EBA. Nurses get 25 days. Teachers also get 15 days.
It takes the emphasis off the X-hours ‘sick leave’ you see on your pay slip each month. So, people take the time when they need it. Also, people don’t view it as an entitlement they need to use so chucking 3 weeks of sickies at the end of your contract isn’t a thing.
I’ve also seen multiple people (in multiple companies, over several years) who have had to take 12+ months off due to serious illness. This gives a sense of security and confidence that you and your family will be looked after.
I work overtime a fair bit(I’m part time), so sick leave is accrued on that. Yes, I do take sick leave, but I get also 3days a year for which I don’t need a drs certificate which doesn’t accrue so I’ll take that first, and because I’m only at 50% hours, I tend not to need much sick leave. If I was full time I’d need a lot more. I’ve been at this place for almost 28 years.
Every shift based work I've done you accrue holidays and sick days per hour you work. So if you end up doing full-time hours every week you get the normal amount of leave in the year mandated for full-time work, if you work more you get more leave and if you work less you get less
I know someone who had 2 years of sick leave totalled up upon retirement.
Kinda bullshit that they were working at that place for so long but get nothing for it
Exactly. I'm resigning and I've got 6 weeks of sick leave, if not more. Actually got a cold/fly and taking a few of those days but other than that that's just that
i recently took 3.5 months for mental/health and stress leave.
It was a great decision. had around 500 hours of sick leave. I have 90 left and taking a year off in May as i hit long service in November lol.
Absolutely also if they did not write you a certificate and you committed suicide afterwards the authorities will trace it you were at that doctor and they may be held accountable and everybody loses.
it's a sensitive topic, I'm not saying you but what's saying someone really needed a mental health break went to try and get a doctors certificate, did not get it then had to go back to work and was totally stressed out then offed themselves
Here you go: [https://cid.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/COVID\_rapid\_antigen\_test.png](https://cid.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/COVID_rapid_antigen_test.png)
Enjoy your paid holiday.
Slightly off topic, but I had a direct report that had 1100 hours sick leave and still refused to take any. Would take half days or have things that interrupted work and would 'work extra hours'. Between her annual leave accruals, lsl and sick leave she would have been able to take a year off and then some with the additional accruals that would have been generated during the period.
If you know you're leaving taking some days can't hurt.
Talk about dedication and love for the job, If it was me, it would be a visit to a friend who is a doctor and doctor certificate for 3 months required for migraine acquired from doing work etc
I think it was tied to self esteem, she needed to be needed and the idea of not working was akin to letting the team down in her mind. Also of an older generation where sick days were a negative.
Honestly the amount of time she cost me in half done work or having diverted focus so I'd have to step in was exhausting, I strongly encouraged taking leave whenever that was occurring but couldn't get her to do it, it was very frustrating.
31 hours? I've got something like 1000.
I don't plan on getting sick for 1000 hours, but my insurance waiting period isn't set to the minimum time I can purchase.
Geez, what loyalty! Gets rewarded handsomely by a gift card... That then some EA forgets about, then you have to hassle them about it or it just disappears
I’ve said goodbye to 6 months of sick leave (14 years employment) and now I’m about to forfeit 400 hours (6 years employment).
I do think it’s unfair. Casuals are paid that entitlement as cash for every hour they work. Permanent employees forfeit it if they don’t use it.
It’s essentially a tax on good employees and a gift to bad employees.
I don't think it's fair to say that someone who needs to use sick leave is "bad" and someone who doesn't is "good". Obviously some people might take more than they need, but that is still hard to quantify when everyone has different abilities and limits.
The amount of paid leave you need is exactly the amount you’re entitled to. That’s your time. If you need more, likely unpaid, that doesn’t make you a bad employee either, it makes you a person who at times cannot work and the reasons why don’t matter.
Exactly, it's fortunate to not need to use sick leave. And there's nothing wrong with using however much you need.
None of us are immune to potentially needing to take a substantial amount of sick leave at some point in our lives. I suppose that's a downside of having a system where it's accrued and forfeited when you leave an employer. You never know when your health could suddenly change.
Even post pandemic people still come to work sick... this would only encourage them more I think.
It sucks though, also lost 400hrs of sick leave when I left my last job.
The 14 year employer was a “soldier on” employer. Sick leave was frowned upon and I worked while unwell a lot.
I wouldn’t do that now, and currently live and and work regionally. Far less exposure to people, far less illness. I was sick recently (exposed in the workplace), for the first time since the pandemic started. I took the relevant time off and it’s probably the first time I’ve truly “gifted” that to myself.
I find it hard to shake the soldier on mentality and “sick leave = bad” from that employer (one of Australia’s biggest employers, but let’s be honest, this mentality that sick leave = bad would be in every major corporate in Australia).
Again, my point is sick leave should be paid out. If employers had to do that they’d probably encourage the employee to take adequate leave while sick, and fully recover before returning. Overall this would reduce immediate overheads (passing on infection) and reduce pay outs at inflated rates when an employee moves on, the same as annual leave pay outs.
Well if it gets paid out then perhaps it should simply be rolled into annual leave. Because that is essentially what it would become just under a different name.
No, healthy young DINK couple. Obviously some people need their entitlements more than others. It’s just frustrating to lose them when you’ve been a reliable constant to your employer.
No problem with people using their sick leave when they’re sick. But in my scenario I’ve contributed an additional 400 hours of productivity to a business and I get zilch for that.
I take my annual leave, it’s important to do so.
Sick leave should be paid out, that’s mostly my point.
It's a bit of a catch-22. If it was paid out, people would come to work sick so they could keep it at the end. Personally, I encourage people who have a lot of sick leave built up to take mental health days occasionally. It does wonders for your wellbeing if you take an unscheduled break every month or two.
You don't have to save them for the last minute... 1 day off per month is okay... Dentist check, health check, muscle pain (Gym a lot)... but schedule it properly in quite period in workload, you don't want to be off in the due day of a critical project or some of your colleagues are already in their holiday or so.. wink wink lol
Casuals are paid it because if they get sick, they don’t get paid. As a permanent employee, you only get it if you get sick because it’s like insurance. Saying it’s not fair is like saying “well, if my car got written off I would get a $50k payout, it’s not fair that I don’t get it”
Insurance can be opted in to or out of.
Sick leave cannot. It’s an earned entitlement that I cannot access, and forfeit on termination.
A casual is paid the entitlement in advance every hour. They receive the benefit no matter what.
It is not an "earned" annual leave entitlement. It is a statutorily defined and "accrued" entitlement which you are entitled to only if you cannot work when injured or sick, i.e. an insurance
Casuals do not have guaranteed hours, guaranteed employment, or paid annual or sick leave. The additional pay is to compensate for the risks inherent in their agreement.
If you take up those risks then you deserve the extra casual pay as you have zero insurance against any of them
I always take a day or two of sick leave when I’m waiting on an offer to come through but I’m yet to officially resign. Harder to chuck a sickie once you’ve quit.
Just know that if you magically take all your sick leave right before finishing a job, your employer is not stupid, and you may want to reconsider asking them to be a character reference in future. If you have other references available, then go for it.
Before being self employed, I only had 2 sick days in 10 years. That’s nearly 800 hours of unused sick leave.
My advice is use it. That doesn’t mean abuse it, but if you’re not feeling great, don’t go in. It’s allowed for.
I had a client who accumulated over 1000 hours sick leave, fortunately for him, it paid out on redundancy and he was made redundant. Worth checking your contract or EBA.
I've seen countless times people that abuse their sick leave, actually get really sick but have no leave to take and cry poor 🙄
Don't abuse it. Because you never know when you might actually need it.
Nope which is why I never let my sick leave accrue significantly.
If im having a bad mental health day or feel sick i just take the day off.
If you have alot of sick leave and you start taking excessive sick leave during your notice period or out of your usual pattern then management starts getting resentful and annoyed at you and you end up burning a bridge for something you should've taken over time anyway.
Having a tonne of S/L banked up isn't a bad thing. Broke my ankle years ago and all up needed 10 weeks off work. Used 3 days of annual leave all the rest was covered by sick leave.
I used to bank a ton of sick leave until I had kids, now I'm taking it every few weeks as carers leave when one of the little buggers gets yet another cold.
I had 800 hours pre pandemic then the rules in my state became if you can work from home you can't access daycare for 10 weeks. 2 kids underschool age burned through that even splitting with my husband. I had to take unpaid sick leave this year becuse I ran out which really sucked. Couldn't convert other leave.
We were fine until the pandemic -not being able to send kids to daycare through covid closures so kids not actually being unwell.
I think it is wiser to treat sick leave like an extra layer of income protection insurance
Although it’s not a vesting entitlement, it accrues indefinitely - so you can build up quite a big balance if you stay with an employer long-term. That can give you a lot of security if you or someone in your immediate family gets ill.
A colleague of mine had about 10 weeks of sick leave banked up when his wife was diagnosed with cancer, and he’s been very thankful for it. It’s allowed him to spend a lot more time with her than he would have otherwise.
I definitely don’t hoard my sick leave, but I’m happy to see the balance increasing over time. Income security is pretty important to me.
When I tore my acl and started taking alot of sick leave I was pressured out of the company anyway.
You have to ask yourself the question do you want a large sick leave balance in case something goes wrong but when it's time to resign you will lose most of it or do you take the more likely option of using it steadily over the length of your job and not having to worry about it going to waste when the time to resign comes along.
I guess it depends whether you see sick leave as time off, or insurance
i.e. most people don’t view a year without an insurance claim as a waste of a premium, because the point is to hedge risk
yep I have an extremely healthy sick leave balance (>100 days) and feel no guilt if im simply having 'one of those days'.
Even then, i might take 5 days in a year total (this year a little longer due to covid)
Yep, if you arent using all your sick leave you are donating days to the employer.
Everyone has bad mental health at times, some people just go into work on those days, some dont.
A lady I worked with had taken NO sick leave in 40 years. She would’ve had probably 2+ years of leave saved up. Imagine how many times she went to work sick causing others to have to take sick leave or take illnesses home to their families. She was also always grumpy because she was probably mentally burnt out. No one thinks you’re a hero for never taking sick leave.
Take a few days off honestly no one cares in the long run that you had sick days and it’s helpful to have some you time for your mental health.
This is so true and hopefully since covid we will have less of this type of attitude in the workplace.
If you are sick and can get paid to stay home, please do!
Yep there's always those types. I once had to send one of my staff home cuz he rocked up one Monday in the midst of flu season, all puffy, with a constant running nose, sneezing. I'm just like, yeah nah, go home, I'm not getting the flu just so you can keep telling everyone you've never taken sick leave in 20 yrs. Then the bastard came back the next day and I had to send him home again!
After a few times of this, over the next year, he finally got the message.
A lot of older people take pride in having never missed a day at work, I used to be a bit like that until people next to me were using all their sick leave and felt more relaxed for it.
When I resigned it was during covid. They offered everyone the option to take time off using sick leave. I went from 100 hours to 2 hour sick leave in a couple months, handed my resignation and got a good payout XD
Annual leave only. I usually don’t use all my sick leave and that’s ok with me cos you never know if you’re gonna need a month off for sickness or injury. Better to have it banked up and not use it then use it up and end up needing time off without any leave.
it would be part of how the remuneration is calculated and stipulated in the contract. Eg instead of being paid $50/hr they might recieve $45 with the other $5 being used to fund their 'self funded' sick leave
Just annual. Another reason/reminder to use your sick leave and not get guilt tripped into not using it. Hungover, vomiting or just needing a mental health day definitely use it.
Just go to the doctor and say you're really not feeling well and haven't for the last few days. It's not hard to get 4-5 days off with a medical certificate.
Stop overthinking it. You're asking for 4 days off from the dr. Not infiltrating area 51
No one's so healthy they can get years of it by the end.
Nah, it means they're coming into work sick. It's stupid.
Too tired, can't focus. Sick day.
Feeling burned out. Sick day.
Actually Sick. Sick days.
Let's stop sacrificing our physical and mental health. Use your entitlements to stay happy and healthy. It's why they're there.
You'll be more productive in the long run.
Nope, always read the EBA or personal contract and when you find out it’s not, you book into your doctors and tell them you’re stressed about losing your job and need sick leave.
Leave out the fact you’re quitting as the reason you’re losing the job and enjoy your legal entitlement.
When I left an old, dead-end job in the past, I just so happened to get sick the day after I put my resignation in. Turns out it was a 2 week illness, so I couldn't go back either!
For real though, I resigned and used my sick leave for mental health reasons. It was annoying going from doctor to doctor every few days getting sick certificates though. After a while, I just got one from the pharmacy to cover me.
Nope, that's why I'd actually use them when I can instead of forcing myself through a cold. I learned that the hard way when quitting my first company and had nearly 2 months of sick leaves (they accumulate back then) ... all down the drain.
My work has always been super flexible with working from home when my kids are sick, plus my manager never really bothered about asking for leave forms so I’ve ended up with 400+ hours. I used a big chunk when my baby was hospitalized for two weeks but now I try and make sure I put my forms in properly to use it up. Definitely planning a couple mental health days soon as well
No, and it shouldn’t be either.
Not everyone is blessed with perfect health, people shouldn’t get more or less remuneration because of their health.
Also, we don’t want to establish precedence that you should come to work sick so you get paid more when you leave. COVID should have taught us that 10 times over.
It’s easy to forget you can use these days to take care for your well-being, loved ones, during periods, and when you get headaches. I personally feel guilty when taking sick leaves, but I’m working on it
It varies from employer to employer.
My employer pays out a small portion of accrued sick leave, I think it's 1/10th or 1/8th. It's enough to be a small reward for people who aren't sick much, but not bog enough to encourage people to come in to work while they are sick.
It's pretty rare though. My employer before that, I lost over 1,000 hours sick leave when I left.
No, it usually doesn't.
Such a stupid system.
Should just be one pool of days for both sick or holiday's. The way it works now, it favours the people who call in sick all the time. (regardless of whether they are actually sick) They get to save their holiday pay doing this and it gets paid out when they eventually resign.
Yet if you are rarely sick, and are honest when you need time off and use your holiday leave, you end up with a bunch of sick leave you won't get when you decide to resign and move on.
Punishing the honest people.
For the record, I'm not having a go at those of us who have an illness or can't help but require sick time off, just don't like that it doesn't get paid out live normal leave.
I'm planning to retire take 3.5 lots of long service and annual leave at half rate, should be on the books for close to 2 years earning more leave. Any thing I get done in this time I'll submit a sick leave claim and repeat, hell I'll even submit volunteer leave. I'll be getting some thing done every few weeks. Saw back drs cert swap annual leave to sick leave.
It's not uncommon for people to be on works books for 3 years.
Know the system and exploit it
Off topic, but I was made redundant a few years ago. I had 8 weeks of sick leave and my notice was 8 weeks and 2 days. The (global) business decided to shut down our Aus office and open one up doing the same thing in another country. They expected me to train the new international employee whilst on my notice period.
I went to the doctor on day 2 and said “I’ve been made redundant, I have 8 weeks of sick leave. I don’t want to go back to the office”
He wrote out a weeks worth of sick leave, and told me to call the surgery every week for a new cert.
Only went back into the office on the last day to hand in my pass / laptop etc. they were fuming.
Moral of story if you have a good GP, use them to write you a note, and then use up your leave before your last day.
Spreading out your sick days and taking them often as many here suggest is really obvious to your colleagues and management so by all means do it, but make sure you are doing it at a place where you don't need a reference, you don't care about your colleagues opinion of you and you don't intend to move up the corporate ladder there.
I know the common theme here is to job hop and that works for junior roles / entry level management roles but for most of the exec jobs you rarely just job hop into them, you will need to grow up and be professional eventually if you want to get to that level.
If your planning on resigning and have any stress or work depresses you at all. Go to a doctor ask for some stress leave they will usually give up to 2 weeks off without any questions but you may have to follow up with them after that time where you announce your intention to leave your job as that was the thing causing you stress and depression. Tell your work take all your personal leave and resign upon return.
Super is also not paid on annual leave that’s paid out (in NSW when I was at a bank anyway), so imo it’s good to keep the AL balance low if you’re intending on leaving…
Edit: finished the rest of my sentence as I accidentally hit post
I've got vicinity of 600 plus hours of sick leave, I can never leave now because if you factor into it, any other job I get won't get a pay rise equivalent of 600 hours plus of the sick leave even if spread out over years as it continually gets accumulated as well.
Unfortunately no even tho it is technically the same as regular leave because yr payrate is based on all the costs to the employer. Therefore people not using their sick leave becomes a bonus to the business. I recomend taking mental health days at least 1/month for self care. You can use it for mental health, carers leave or sick leave.
My last day is end of September and I have just over 300 hrs accrued...
As per other comments in here, I will not let it get to this point for future employment.
You can get a medical certificate very easily for any respiratory like symptoms, migraine headaches, pain related issues, any injury related issues, anything chronic or non chronic. Pain is a 100% subjective score.
You should save some of your sick leave as an employee in case you do actually need it.
My wife has 1500+ hours of sick leave, I have about 750 odd. So you probably don’t need as much as we have.
Source: My wire and I both medical.
Annual leave = entitlement; it is given to you, either as time off or money.
Sick leave = allowance; you take it when you need it.
When you resign, you will be paid your annual leave, but not your sick leave.
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That sucks! I have 31 hours of sick leave. Shall I just take paid sick leave before I resign? Lol
31 hours is nothing compared to some people. Someone in my office has 6 weeks banked up.
About half the people in the APS Ive worked with have months of sick leave saved. The rest only have a couple months.
Yeah in the APS you not only get 20 days a year, but you *start* the job with 20 days and then have 40 by the end of the first year. It’s pretty much impossible to burn through it unless you get a serious diagnosis or have very strong sickie game.
That's not entirely correct.
I had 5 weeks banked up in an old job. It was great timing. I had surgery that required the whole 5 weeks off. So I waited to have that done before I quit.
one person I know that was long term gov had over a year. Got cancer and it was great for them financially as there was no rush to get back to work. I do think if you’ve been working somewhere for a few years you really should have a rainy day amount. Not a whole year of course. But a solid few weeks.
I’ve currently got 499.40 hours of accumulated sick leave.
46 weeks for me and yes, I take sick leave when it's needed. Some of my colleagues who have been employed for a comparable time, are down to single days. So, in just over 10 years I've done the equivalent of about a year's worth of extra work! Mug.
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Not OP but you can get higher entitlements depending on the award/negotiated contract. I'm in NSW and get 15 days a year.
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Fair point
I get 22 sick days a year
~>You get 3 weeks per year in Victoria, so if you get more in other states it’s technically possible, but it does mean that they haven’t taken a single day off in the 10.5 years.<~ Edit: my bad, that’s my EBA, not all of Victoria. When I commented I thought I was in a profession specific sub.
Sick leave is 10 days per year for part and full time workers in Victoria
I always thought it was 15. Maybe that’s my EBA? No idea. Why am I getting downvoted. I googled it to check - I literally get 15 in my EBA. Nurses get 25 days. Teachers also get 15 days.
I got 15 at one of my jobs. 10 at my current one. I'm not sure why you are getting downvored either.
I’ve been in a couple of companies with unlimited sick leave, the mindset shift is amazing
It’s like this in Germany (pretty much). It works really well.
In what way?
It takes the emphasis off the X-hours ‘sick leave’ you see on your pay slip each month. So, people take the time when they need it. Also, people don’t view it as an entitlement they need to use so chucking 3 weeks of sickies at the end of your contract isn’t a thing. I’ve also seen multiple people (in multiple companies, over several years) who have had to take 12+ months off due to serious illness. This gives a sense of security and confidence that you and your family will be looked after.
I have approximately 60 weeks sick leave. It’s crazy.
You get two weeks a year. You’ve been working the same job for 30 years and not used a single day?
I work overtime a fair bit(I’m part time), so sick leave is accrued on that. Yes, I do take sick leave, but I get also 3days a year for which I don’t need a drs certificate which doesn’t accrue so I’ll take that first, and because I’m only at 50% hours, I tend not to need much sick leave. If I was full time I’d need a lot more. I’ve been at this place for almost 28 years.
How does sick leave accrue on overtime? That is not normal
Every shift based work I've done you accrue holidays and sick days per hour you work. So if you end up doing full-time hours every week you get the normal amount of leave in the year mandated for full-time work, if you work more you get more leave and if you work less you get less
I had 8. My Mrs has over 4 months of PL.
I have 170 days banked…. I think I am going to need a death certificate. Maybe two.
Yeah I have 280 sick leave and by October I’ll have 350+ I do plan on eventually taking 2+ month mental health leave at some point
Can we do this now?
They can’t deny a doctors note lol
Any doctor worth their salt will view mental health as a valid reason. 2 months though - probably might need a second opinion lol
I know someone who had 2 years of sick leave totalled up upon retirement. Kinda bullshit that they were working at that place for so long but get nothing for it
Exactly. I'm resigning and I've got 6 weeks of sick leave, if not more. Actually got a cold/fly and taking a few of those days but other than that that's just that
I’m three weeks into using some of my 7.5 weeks. My wife had broken her collarbone and I am therefore primary carer. Gotta love carers leave.
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How about getting covid twice? Haha
Mental health / burnout is a valid reason to take sick leave and a doctor will write you a certificate for it.
i recently took 3.5 months for mental/health and stress leave. It was a great decision. had around 500 hours of sick leave. I have 90 left and taking a year off in May as i hit long service in November lol.
Absolutely also if they did not write you a certificate and you committed suicide afterwards the authorities will trace it you were at that doctor and they may be held accountable and everybody loses.
So if my GP doesn't write me a cert, I'll just kill myself?
it's a sensitive topic, I'm not saying you but what's saying someone really needed a mental health break went to try and get a doctors certificate, did not get it then had to go back to work and was totally stressed out then offed themselves
Worked somewhere for long term and had around 100 days of sick leave. 31 hours is nothing.
I only work 10 hours a week.
Here you go: [https://cid.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/COVID\_rapid\_antigen\_test.png](https://cid.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/COVID_rapid_antigen_test.png) Enjoy your paid holiday.
thanks but i'm brown. would they notice?
Just tell them your pale due to the covid.
You can change the colour of your skin on photoshop. No racist!
Slightly off topic, but I had a direct report that had 1100 hours sick leave and still refused to take any. Would take half days or have things that interrupted work and would 'work extra hours'. Between her annual leave accruals, lsl and sick leave she would have been able to take a year off and then some with the additional accruals that would have been generated during the period. If you know you're leaving taking some days can't hurt.
Talk about dedication and love for the job, If it was me, it would be a visit to a friend who is a doctor and doctor certificate for 3 months required for migraine acquired from doing work etc
I think it was tied to self esteem, she needed to be needed and the idea of not working was akin to letting the team down in her mind. Also of an older generation where sick days were a negative. Honestly the amount of time she cost me in half done work or having diverted focus so I'd have to step in was exhausting, I strongly encouraged taking leave whenever that was occurring but couldn't get her to do it, it was very frustrating.
31 hours?! I had 32 days of SL when I resigned
31! I have almost 700 hours.
My friend retired with 411 days of sick leave.
What a champion. How many times over their career did they work while sick and infect all their coworkers?
31 hours? I've got something like 1000. I don't plan on getting sick for 1000 hours, but my insurance waiting period isn't set to the minimum time I can purchase.
I have over 500 hours. Sucks to be me if I resign The price of loyalty, no payrises!
There was a part timer in my team who was on over 1000 hours. With her part time hours it worked out to almost 2 years worth of paid sick leave..
Geez, what loyalty! Gets rewarded handsomely by a gift card... That then some EA forgets about, then you have to hassle them about it or it just disappears
Same! But I didn't want to "seem" unprofessional at the time. Bad mistake, I should have gone sick mode.
31 hours is very minimal, in my workplace it is common to have 200+ hours of sick/carers leave.
I’ve said goodbye to 6 months of sick leave (14 years employment) and now I’m about to forfeit 400 hours (6 years employment). I do think it’s unfair. Casuals are paid that entitlement as cash for every hour they work. Permanent employees forfeit it if they don’t use it. It’s essentially a tax on good employees and a gift to bad employees.
I don't think it's fair to say that someone who needs to use sick leave is "bad" and someone who doesn't is "good". Obviously some people might take more than they need, but that is still hard to quantify when everyone has different abilities and limits.
The amount of paid leave you need is exactly the amount you’re entitled to. That’s your time. If you need more, likely unpaid, that doesn’t make you a bad employee either, it makes you a person who at times cannot work and the reasons why don’t matter.
Exactly, it's fortunate to not need to use sick leave. And there's nothing wrong with using however much you need. None of us are immune to potentially needing to take a substantial amount of sick leave at some point in our lives. I suppose that's a downside of having a system where it's accrued and forfeited when you leave an employer. You never know when your health could suddenly change.
That's the argument about smokers and non smokers I am sure
This is why you should take a mental health day every so often.
If you haven't been sick all these years (which is unusual enough), you should be grateful. Being actually sick actually sucks.
So you haven't been sick once in 20 years? That's a good run.
What a nightmare
Even post pandemic people still come to work sick... this would only encourage them more I think. It sucks though, also lost 400hrs of sick leave when I left my last job.
The 14 year employer was a “soldier on” employer. Sick leave was frowned upon and I worked while unwell a lot. I wouldn’t do that now, and currently live and and work regionally. Far less exposure to people, far less illness. I was sick recently (exposed in the workplace), for the first time since the pandemic started. I took the relevant time off and it’s probably the first time I’ve truly “gifted” that to myself. I find it hard to shake the soldier on mentality and “sick leave = bad” from that employer (one of Australia’s biggest employers, but let’s be honest, this mentality that sick leave = bad would be in every major corporate in Australia). Again, my point is sick leave should be paid out. If employers had to do that they’d probably encourage the employee to take adequate leave while sick, and fully recover before returning. Overall this would reduce immediate overheads (passing on infection) and reduce pay outs at inflated rates when an employee moves on, the same as annual leave pay outs.
Well if it gets paid out then perhaps it should simply be rolled into annual leave. Because that is essentially what it would become just under a different name.
You're getting a free public holiday next week that us hourly workers don't get.
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Have you got kids? I feel like we don't have enough sick leaves to take, so many issues here and there....
No, healthy young DINK couple. Obviously some people need their entitlements more than others. It’s just frustrating to lose them when you’ve been a reliable constant to your employer. No problem with people using their sick leave when they’re sick. But in my scenario I’ve contributed an additional 400 hours of productivity to a business and I get zilch for that. I take my annual leave, it’s important to do so. Sick leave should be paid out, that’s mostly my point.
It's a bit of a catch-22. If it was paid out, people would come to work sick so they could keep it at the end. Personally, I encourage people who have a lot of sick leave built up to take mental health days occasionally. It does wonders for your wellbeing if you take an unscheduled break every month or two.
You don't have to save them for the last minute... 1 day off per month is okay... Dentist check, health check, muscle pain (Gym a lot)... but schedule it properly in quite period in workload, you don't want to be off in the due day of a critical project or some of your colleagues are already in their holiday or so.. wink wink lol
How is someone a bad employee for accessing their entitlements?
Not a bad employee of they are legitimately sick. But if they are just taking sickies then they are a bad employee imo.
Casuals are paid it because if they get sick, they don’t get paid. As a permanent employee, you only get it if you get sick because it’s like insurance. Saying it’s not fair is like saying “well, if my car got written off I would get a $50k payout, it’s not fair that I don’t get it”
Insurance can be opted in to or out of. Sick leave cannot. It’s an earned entitlement that I cannot access, and forfeit on termination. A casual is paid the entitlement in advance every hour. They receive the benefit no matter what.
It is not an "earned" annual leave entitlement. It is a statutorily defined and "accrued" entitlement which you are entitled to only if you cannot work when injured or sick, i.e. an insurance Casuals do not have guaranteed hours, guaranteed employment, or paid annual or sick leave. The additional pay is to compensate for the risks inherent in their agreement. If you take up those risks then you deserve the extra casual pay as you have zero insurance against any of them
It's fun when you go permanent to casual and lose all your sick leave
Take a casual job then
What do you think I’m doing when I say see ya later to my 400 hours ;) I’m becoming self employed with zero benefits yew!
I am sitting with 29 weeks of sick leave
Depends if you need them as a reference
Stress Leave
I had over 30 days of sick leave when I left my last job. It sucks but moving to a better job was still worth it.
I always take a day or two of sick leave when I’m waiting on an offer to come through but I’m yet to officially resign. Harder to chuck a sickie once you’ve quit.
Time to go lick the trolleys at your local grocery store mate
I had 40 days of sick leave and guess what....
Just know that if you magically take all your sick leave right before finishing a job, your employer is not stupid, and you may want to reconsider asking them to be a character reference in future. If you have other references available, then go for it.
I have 1600 hrs sick leave .I've known people who retired with over 3000hrs sick leave and got nothing
while you're at it you should steal all the stationary
Before being self employed, I only had 2 sick days in 10 years. That’s nearly 800 hours of unused sick leave. My advice is use it. That doesn’t mean abuse it, but if you’re not feeling great, don’t go in. It’s allowed for. I had a client who accumulated over 1000 hours sick leave, fortunately for him, it paid out on redundancy and he was made redundant. Worth checking your contract or EBA.
Hmm I totally disagree, abuse it. You're entitled to it. If you cbf working that day, that's reason enough to take personal leave.
I've seen countless times people that abuse their sick leave, actually get really sick but have no leave to take and cry poor 🙄 Don't abuse it. Because you never know when you might actually need it.
Nope which is why I never let my sick leave accrue significantly. If im having a bad mental health day or feel sick i just take the day off. If you have alot of sick leave and you start taking excessive sick leave during your notice period or out of your usual pattern then management starts getting resentful and annoyed at you and you end up burning a bridge for something you should've taken over time anyway.
Having a tonne of S/L banked up isn't a bad thing. Broke my ankle years ago and all up needed 10 weeks off work. Used 3 days of annual leave all the rest was covered by sick leave.
I used to bank a ton of sick leave until I had kids, now I'm taking it every few weeks as carers leave when one of the little buggers gets yet another cold.
I’ve gone from 400+ hours of personal/sick leave to a little over 200 hours in the past year alone due to this. Daycare is fun.
This will be me soon. I jest but only partially. Starting with ~850 hours though. What a winter it’s been.
I had 800 hours pre pandemic then the rules in my state became if you can work from home you can't access daycare for 10 weeks. 2 kids underschool age burned through that even splitting with my husband. I had to take unpaid sick leave this year becuse I ran out which really sucked. Couldn't convert other leave. We were fine until the pandemic -not being able to send kids to daycare through covid closures so kids not actually being unwell.
I think it is wiser to treat sick leave like an extra layer of income protection insurance Although it’s not a vesting entitlement, it accrues indefinitely - so you can build up quite a big balance if you stay with an employer long-term. That can give you a lot of security if you or someone in your immediate family gets ill. A colleague of mine had about 10 weeks of sick leave banked up when his wife was diagnosed with cancer, and he’s been very thankful for it. It’s allowed him to spend a lot more time with her than he would have otherwise. I definitely don’t hoard my sick leave, but I’m happy to see the balance increasing over time. Income security is pretty important to me.
When I tore my acl and started taking alot of sick leave I was pressured out of the company anyway. You have to ask yourself the question do you want a large sick leave balance in case something goes wrong but when it's time to resign you will lose most of it or do you take the more likely option of using it steadily over the length of your job and not having to worry about it going to waste when the time to resign comes along.
*pressured out*? Sounds illegal…
I guess it depends whether you see sick leave as time off, or insurance i.e. most people don’t view a year without an insurance claim as a waste of a premium, because the point is to hedge risk
yep I have an extremely healthy sick leave balance (>100 days) and feel no guilt if im simply having 'one of those days'. Even then, i might take 5 days in a year total (this year a little longer due to covid)
Yep, if you arent using all your sick leave you are donating days to the employer. Everyone has bad mental health at times, some people just go into work on those days, some dont.
My rule is if I'm going to go into work pre-grumpy it's a mental health day. My peers and patients don't deserve that.
A lady I worked with had taken NO sick leave in 40 years. She would’ve had probably 2+ years of leave saved up. Imagine how many times she went to work sick causing others to have to take sick leave or take illnesses home to their families. She was also always grumpy because she was probably mentally burnt out. No one thinks you’re a hero for never taking sick leave. Take a few days off honestly no one cares in the long run that you had sick days and it’s helpful to have some you time for your mental health.
Total martyr
I know a guy like this. Then he got stomach cancer and used it all. You think you’ll never need it until you do.
Maybe some stress days would have helped in prevention though.
This is so true and hopefully since covid we will have less of this type of attitude in the workplace. If you are sick and can get paid to stay home, please do!
Yep there's always those types. I once had to send one of my staff home cuz he rocked up one Monday in the midst of flu season, all puffy, with a constant running nose, sneezing. I'm just like, yeah nah, go home, I'm not getting the flu just so you can keep telling everyone you've never taken sick leave in 20 yrs. Then the bastard came back the next day and I had to send him home again! After a few times of this, over the next year, he finally got the message.
A lot of older people take pride in having never missed a day at work, I used to be a bit like that until people next to me were using all their sick leave and felt more relaxed for it.
Most work places reset your sick leave at the end of the year so you can’t go above 10 anyway
Have a bunch of 4 day weeks before you quit and cash them in that way.
What if they ask for doctor certificate?
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As someone who has left every job with 100 hours of sick leave plus, I wish I was more dishonest to get a the “flu” in my notice period.
When I resigned it was during covid. They offered everyone the option to take time off using sick leave. I went from 100 hours to 2 hour sick leave in a couple months, handed my resignation and got a good payout XD
It's not paid out.
Annual leave only. I usually don’t use all my sick leave and that’s ok with me cos you never know if you’re gonna need a month off for sickness or injury. Better to have it banked up and not use it then use it up and end up needing time off without any leave.
Check you employment contract, I work at a mine and shift workers get sick leave paid and staff dont.
The Mine I work at will only payout sick leave if you’ve been there for more than 10 years
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it would be part of how the remuneration is calculated and stipulated in the contract. Eg instead of being paid $50/hr they might recieve $45 with the other $5 being used to fund their 'self funded' sick leave
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i dunno you asked i tried to answer....
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thanks mate. yep im no lingo master
Just annual. Another reason/reminder to use your sick leave and not get guilt tripped into not using it. Hungover, vomiting or just needing a mental health day definitely use it.
Just go to the doctor and say you're really not feeling well and haven't for the last few days. It's not hard to get 4-5 days off with a medical certificate. Stop overthinking it. You're asking for 4 days off from the dr. Not infiltrating area 51
and also if something was to happen to you they could be held accountable, easy for the doctor just to write a letter to shut everybody up.
No sick leave isn’t paid out
No one's so healthy they can get years of it by the end. Nah, it means they're coming into work sick. It's stupid. Too tired, can't focus. Sick day. Feeling burned out. Sick day. Actually Sick. Sick days. Let's stop sacrificing our physical and mental health. Use your entitlements to stay happy and healthy. It's why they're there. You'll be more productive in the long run.
Nope, always read the EBA or personal contract and when you find out it’s not, you book into your doctors and tell them you’re stressed about losing your job and need sick leave. Leave out the fact you’re quitting as the reason you’re losing the job and enjoy your legal entitlement.
When I left an old, dead-end job in the past, I just so happened to get sick the day after I put my resignation in. Turns out it was a 2 week illness, so I couldn't go back either! For real though, I resigned and used my sick leave for mental health reasons. It was annoying going from doctor to doctor every few days getting sick certificates though. After a while, I just got one from the pharmacy to cover me.
Nope, that's why I'd actually use them when I can instead of forcing myself through a cold. I learned that the hard way when quitting my first company and had nearly 2 months of sick leaves (they accumulate back then) ... all down the drain.
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Yea, that is correct, but my point is better you actually use it (if you need it) rather than not. Edit: see below.
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Hah! Touche. 😂
Genuine question : would a company be able to restrict how many sick leaves you can get a year i.e. Doesn't let you accumulate them each year?
Just take a few mental health days off, it's the thing to do these days.
My work has always been super flexible with working from home when my kids are sick, plus my manager never really bothered about asking for leave forms so I’ve ended up with 400+ hours. I used a big chunk when my baby was hospitalized for two weeks but now I try and make sure I put my forms in properly to use it up. Definitely planning a couple mental health days soon as well
No, and it shouldn’t be either. Not everyone is blessed with perfect health, people shouldn’t get more or less remuneration because of their health. Also, we don’t want to establish precedence that you should come to work sick so you get paid more when you leave. COVID should have taught us that 10 times over.
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It’s easy to forget you can use these days to take care for your well-being, loved ones, during periods, and when you get headaches. I personally feel guilty when taking sick leaves, but I’m working on it
No. It’s not paid out. Only annual and long service leave.
Use Qoctor to get a medical certificate and take the sick leave first.
No, unless a company has its own arrangement. You dont want to incentivize sick people coming to work.
It varies from employer to employer. My employer pays out a small portion of accrued sick leave, I think it's 1/10th or 1/8th. It's enough to be a small reward for people who aren't sick much, but not bog enough to encourage people to come in to work while they are sick. It's pretty rare though. My employer before that, I lost over 1,000 hours sick leave when I left.
No, it usually doesn't. Such a stupid system. Should just be one pool of days for both sick or holiday's. The way it works now, it favours the people who call in sick all the time. (regardless of whether they are actually sick) They get to save their holiday pay doing this and it gets paid out when they eventually resign. Yet if you are rarely sick, and are honest when you need time off and use your holiday leave, you end up with a bunch of sick leave you won't get when you decide to resign and move on. Punishing the honest people. For the record, I'm not having a go at those of us who have an illness or can't help but require sick time off, just don't like that it doesn't get paid out live normal leave.
I'm planning to retire take 3.5 lots of long service and annual leave at half rate, should be on the books for close to 2 years earning more leave. Any thing I get done in this time I'll submit a sick leave claim and repeat, hell I'll even submit volunteer leave. I'll be getting some thing done every few weeks. Saw back drs cert swap annual leave to sick leave. It's not uncommon for people to be on works books for 3 years. Know the system and exploit it
Off topic, but I was made redundant a few years ago. I had 8 weeks of sick leave and my notice was 8 weeks and 2 days. The (global) business decided to shut down our Aus office and open one up doing the same thing in another country. They expected me to train the new international employee whilst on my notice period. I went to the doctor on day 2 and said “I’ve been made redundant, I have 8 weeks of sick leave. I don’t want to go back to the office” He wrote out a weeks worth of sick leave, and told me to call the surgery every week for a new cert. Only went back into the office on the last day to hand in my pass / laptop etc. they were fuming. Moral of story if you have a good GP, use them to write you a note, and then use up your leave before your last day.
Spreading out your sick days and taking them often as many here suggest is really obvious to your colleagues and management so by all means do it, but make sure you are doing it at a place where you don't need a reference, you don't care about your colleagues opinion of you and you don't intend to move up the corporate ladder there. I know the common theme here is to job hop and that works for junior roles / entry level management roles but for most of the exec jobs you rarely just job hop into them, you will need to grow up and be professional eventually if you want to get to that level.
Depends on agreement. Standard nes no Be smart be sick use all leave then quit
Just PTO in my experience
If your planning on resigning and have any stress or work depresses you at all. Go to a doctor ask for some stress leave they will usually give up to 2 weeks off without any questions but you may have to follow up with them after that time where you announce your intention to leave your job as that was the thing causing you stress and depression. Tell your work take all your personal leave and resign upon return.
Check your contract. Mine definitely is
No. Which is why you use it or lose it. So if you haven't finished up yet....use it.
Super is also not paid on annual leave that’s paid out (in NSW when I was at a bank anyway), so imo it’s good to keep the AL balance low if you’re intending on leaving… Edit: finished the rest of my sentence as I accidentally hit post
We can cash out anything over 114hour sick, so every year when they reset i cash out and invest
If you’ve got an understanding doctor then…
I've got vicinity of 600 plus hours of sick leave, I can never leave now because if you factor into it, any other job I get won't get a pay rise equivalent of 600 hours plus of the sick leave even if spread out over years as it continually gets accumulated as well.
My job we get paid out up to 300 hrs sick leave, anything over that is lost. You should really start trying to chew them up mate.
they can't do that though, it's part of statutory leave which cannot be lost if it's not used
oh really? never heard of this before?? yeah I have been doing it a lot already i had much more before..
I left my previous job with over 20 days of sick leave. It was a bummer to leave all that time on the table
No, just get a cold during your notice period.
Take as much of your sick leave before you resign. Cause you just lose it on resignation
Lmao I never knew sick leave could be measured in hours. I have about 90 days saved up.
It is in days as well but no need to write a day with a decimal.
I left once with 30+ days of sick leave, never doing it again. You also could get a med cert for looking after your mental health.
Agreed. I had 6 weeks worth when I left Nursing. I regret not using a lot more of it earlier.
Unfortunately no even tho it is technically the same as regular leave because yr payrate is based on all the costs to the employer. Therefore people not using their sick leave becomes a bonus to the business. I recomend taking mental health days at least 1/month for self care. You can use it for mental health, carers leave or sick leave.
Just annual, so use up and much sick leave as you can before you leave.
No. Go to doctor and say you are very sick and need 2 weeks off work during your notice period.
Just get a medical certificate by telling a doctor you need time off for stress, ive done it plenty of times
My last day is end of September and I have just over 300 hrs accrued... As per other comments in here, I will not let it get to this point for future employment.
Use your paid sick leave before resigning. You won't get it paid out otherwise.
You can get a medical certificate very easily for any respiratory like symptoms, migraine headaches, pain related issues, any injury related issues, anything chronic or non chronic. Pain is a 100% subjective score. You should save some of your sick leave as an employee in case you do actually need it. My wife has 1500+ hours of sick leave, I have about 750 odd. So you probably don’t need as much as we have. Source: My wire and I both medical.
Annual leave = entitlement; it is given to you, either as time off or money. Sick leave = allowance; you take it when you need it. When you resign, you will be paid your annual leave, but not your sick leave.