What do company executives think about employees on sick leave?

President of the Kabosh group of companies Dmitry Matveev: “Let’s be honest: in Russia today taking sick leave is not a problem. Many employees simply use this if someone needs to go somewhere. Four sick days a year is already a lot, even three is too much. I employ 1.5 thousand people. When you have 100 people constantly sick, who should replace them? People who are now on the weekend. This actually complicates the relationship with them too, because they say: “Why do you keep an employee if he is constantly sick?” A person will come in as a substitute once, twice, and he has children, and with whom will he leave them? And, for example, he knows that Masha, for whom he works, just started drinking. We directly talk to such people: “You are either sick or working.” There were layoffs. Some complain to the prosecutor’s office, but we do everything legally.”

Owner of the beauty salons “Lucky Like” and “Curler” Lyalya Sadykova: “In my practice, I’ve only encountered a few times where an employee has already taken his entire vacation, and then takes sick leave, while it was clear from his social networks that the sick leave was going well. The last case was this summer. How to call for responsibility when there is such a shortage of personnel? You have to adapt, but you tick a box for yourself, and you will respond accordingly to a request for an extra day off or to leave early. The current generation is probably very weak in health. As soon as the girls find out that they are pregnant, endless sick leave begins, twice a month. It’s downright painful. According to the Labor Code, we can no longer fire these employees, and you won’t hire anyone in their place, because they seem to be planning to return to work after maternity leave. We haven’t found a solution yet. We try to give preference to the 40+ category.”

Founder of the dry cleaning and laundry service “Akvareli” Tamara Nekhorosheva: “There was no such thing as sick leave being issued dishonestly. But this is a really painful topic. Especially young employees with small children often leave. Either they themselves get sick, or the children take turns. When we are talking about a micro-enterprise of five to seven people, it is understandable that other employees react strongly. You can’t hire someone off the street. Somehow we get out. I marry someone myself and have to do this quite often. It is extremely rare that two applicants come in, and we choose between an older employee and a young one with small children. The state can talk about this as much as it wants, but so far we have not felt even a shred of support in this sense. Of course, it would be great if the state at least partially compensated us for these losses.”