Ontario employers will no longer be allowed to ask workers for a sick note when they want to use their three provincially mandated sick days, Health Minister Sylvia Jones announced last week. But some experts say sick notes, and maybe even sick days, should be replaced altogether by personal days.
“Life doesn’t work on a schedule,” says Ian Gellatly, professor of business and management at the University of Alberta.
“People often, in order to get some flexibility, have had to call in sick because that was the only way that they could get paid. We’ve got this program in place that seems to be rather benign and helpful on the surface, but what it really is doing is encouraging people to lie.”
