- Combining sick and annual leave creates a situation in which some workers may exhaust their leave days and have no days left to be off work when they fall sick. Even if the employee is aware of the leave policy, he will still expect the company to empathize with him and allow him to be off work during his sickness. Most companies will insist on sticking to policy and allow the worker to be off work but deduct the day's wages. This creates resentment by workers, whose morale goes down. A company with demotivated workers cannot be very productive.
- Combining sick and annual leave predisposes a company to potential loss of employees who prefer a system where sick leave is treated separately from annual leave. These employees may decide to look for other jobs. If many employees with important skills that the company needs leave, this may disrupt the company's workflow and lead to losses. The process of hiring other workers may be more expensive than the potential benefits of combining sick and annual leave.
- Managing leave is not easy for companies. One of the problems human resources departments face is rampant abuse of sick leave by employees. Some workers claim sick leave when they are not sick as an excuse to attend to personal matters. It is difficult to deny a worker sick leave request on the basis that he he is "not sick." Managers are not doctors to decide that a "headache" is actually not strong enough to warrant not coming to work. To avoid this abuse of sick leave, companies often prefer to combine sick leave and annual leave.
- Combining sick and annual leave cannot guarantee that workers will not go on leave when they fall sick. For instance, if an employee falls seriously ill, he can invoke the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993. This law compels managers to grant leave to a qualified employee without pay. The law also guarantees that the employee will return to the same or equivalent job.
Low Morale
Loss of Employees
Why Companies Combine Sick and Annual Leave
Family and Medical Leave Act
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