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Re:Paternity leave at startups: designing a policy for new p... by ryandrake on Tuesday September 04, 2018 @12:14PM (#17910093)
Honestly I had the same initial reaction. It’s kind of like sick leave: people who get sick a lot use it and people who are healthy cannot. Perversely incentivizes getting sick. The alternative is “paid time off” which can be used if you’re sick or for vacation. Unfortunately this means you can blow half your vacation time for the year by getting a cold that lasts a week.

Just provide more time off to everyone and don’t bucket it into specific purposes. Why does your employer need to know whether you’re using your allotted time off for vacation, taking care of a kid, or due to illness? I’d argue it’s none of the employer’s business.

Re:Paternity leave at startups: designing a policy for new p... by mmt on Wednesday September 05, 2018 @05:01AM (#17916248)
> Perversely incentivizes getting sick.

This is a stretch, since "getting sick" isn't generally something one controls directly. At most, it could incentivize illness-risking behavior. However, even then, to be an incentive, the benefit of paid leave combined with being sick during that leave would have to be more attractive than being healthy and working, which is not a foregone conclusion.

Instead, lacking distinct sick leave perversely incentivizes getting coworkers sick (in situations that a sickness is contagious and workers are co-located). Rather, it incentivizes the risky behavior, where the risk is borne by everyone else and, by extension, the employer.