this post was submitted on 26 Mar 2025
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Idk about Sweden, but in Germany middle management visited sick employees at their homes to check whether they were really sick.
https://www.tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/unternehmen/tesla-hausbesuche-krankschreibungen-100.html
Holy fuck. I'm sorry, if I take a sick day I take a sick day - you might see me out shopping for groceries to survive the day, but I am by no means well.
Uhm excuse me. If you can walk and carry groceries, clearly you are well 👏 enough 👏 to work 👏. I’m waiting on those TPS* reports tetris11!
Them probably.
I miss the days when the employees collectively knew where their bosses lived and how to tie fuel-soaked rags to sticks
Suomessa, tiedämme muutamia asioita Molotovin cocktaileista. ;)
I understood two of those words, and that's all I need. We meet at nightfall.
My completely uneducated guess would say that this is the language of a country who know a few things about a Molotov Cocktail!
The closest word in my mental vocabulary which comes close to "Suomessa" is Suomi which is Finnish for Finland
Tiedämme? They tied a dam?
Muutamia has to do with a mutiny!
Asioita, I have no clue.
Then they reference the infamous Flaming Sambucca!
So Finland once staged a mutiny with fiery alcohol and a dam!
Maybe bean (I forget how to tag people in Lemmy posts) can tell me how close I was.
We call them “TPS reports” buddy. slaps back
Dang I was close-ish. Fixed
I don't know if it was all the sick workers, but a lot of those workers hadn't been to work all year (around September at the time).
Apparently it's not abnormal for people to abuse the system there and do things like this.
There was some stuff about patterns of a subset of workers taking Fridays off sick as well.
So it doesn't actually seem as outright bad if they were investigating abuse. However, if it was just a random person being sick, that would be very bad.
Edit: This is a terrible source I'm sure, but just an example that its a prevalent problem and there's even a business up about finding out if people are cheating the system - https://www.malaymail.com/news/money/2024/12/30/germanys-sick-leave-detectives-are-on-the-case-as-absenteeism-hits-records-and-company-pocketbooks/161436
the thing is: the employer has absolutely 0 say on if a person is sick or not. If a doctor says a person can't work: that's it. The company 0 in the matter.
In fact, the company isn't even allowed to ask why a person is sick. An official note from the doctor is all that matters
In Germany it's legal for an employer to visit an employee. The employee is under no obligation to open the door, however.
As this article covers, it doesn't really make sense to visit an employee, as the issue might not be visually apparent.
https://www.mdr.de/nachrichten/deutschland/gesellschaft/krankheit-kontrolle-arbeitgeber-erlaubt-100.html
Well clearly there's something that's allowed to be done as that article is about a guy that has a business determining if its legit or not?
But that's an investigator, not the employer, so maybe that makes a difference?
I'm sure other EU countries have variations on this but in the UK this has already been legally decided. If somebody is abusing the sickness system you document it, you confirm it via the terrible Branford system, and then you hold them in for a meeting.
You don't randomly turn up at their house, there is absolutely no justification for that and it is a stalking crime for them to do that.
I would love to know how much is spent trying to catch people trying to game the system, compared to lost compensation because of sick leave.
Past a point, they must surely be spending more hiring this whole team of detectives than they would be just letting the workers take Friday off.
Yes, that reminds me of when Florida(?) started requiring drug testing for welfare recipients and ended up spending more on the tests than whatever they saved uncovering fraud.
That would be interesting ya. I don't think there would be any way to recoup the cost for the person calling is sick on Friday semi frequently or similar things, but for the people who are gaming the system and didn't work for a year, if they found a way to abuse it, it'd probably make sense if you truly were that suspicious.