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Merrill Lynch Doesn't Like Sick Employees

May 22nd, 2007 @ 12:01 pm

3 Comments

Categories: Career, Management, Productivity, Workplace

Tags: Employee, Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc., Joseph De Avila

Apparently Merrill Lynch has announced a new sick day policy. After missing four days of work, the company can start deducting an employee’s pay. And if an employee misses nine days of work, he or she will be fired. And by the way, this policy applies to Merrill Lynch’s admin staff and not its investment bankers. Seems a little ruthless doesn’t it?

Update - May 24, 2007: New York media news Web site Gawker originally broke this story and said that the new sick policy applied only to Merrill Lynch’s admin staff. A follow up article from Bloomberg said it was for all employees. The report also said that the company cut the number of sick days for employees from 40 per year to only three. You can read that story here.

 
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  •  
    1

    jpmuir@...

    05/23/07 | Report as spam

    Merrill Lynch Doesn't Like SIck Employees

    I would hate to be the HR person who has to manage that policy. I would be the first to go....

    Its hard to believe that in modern times, a company could adopt a command and control policy that is so punitive.

    Sounds to me like the company is in trouble. There are much better ways to handle employee absenteeism. Of course, in a free market culture, this policy might still work, its just that I wouldn't want to be at the other end of any transaction (administrative that is) that involves employees who have to work under the conditions spelled out in that policy. It just sounds so "blow-hardish"

    Jim M.
    an HR Director

  •  
    2

    myracloud

    05/23/07 | Report as spam

    Is this legal?

    This sounds discriminatory! How is it that the policy can be applicable to Admin's only. Someone may have a legitimate case here if it ever went to court.

  •  
    3

    andrea.cruise@...

    05/24/07 | Report as spam

    I say boycott Merril Lynch

    As consumers, this is our only option for penalizing companies with insane and unfair HR policies. There are millions of options, you don't need to deal with morons.

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