Latest / Best of Business / Paula O'Kane: Otago University associate professor calls for changes to be made to sick leave

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Paula O'Kane: Otago University associate professor calls for changes to be made to sick leave · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: Heller Duper see Ala here.
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  Speaker 2: They don't freak out too much. We are just maturing
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  Speaker 2: and our labor rates right now are so high that
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  Speaker 2: we're not just labour like that anymore. And our country
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  Speaker 2: is more about innovation and technology and we're them putting
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  Speaker 2: stuff in boxes and pulling it out of the ground.
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  Speaker 2: That's from Mike, and that's a very positive way of
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  Speaker 2: looking at shutdown of the manufacturing eighteen past five now
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  Speaker 2: and academic reckons. The government has missed the chance to
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  Speaker 2: improve our laws around sickleave. So there's a bill before
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  Speaker 2: Parliament at the moment that's intended to bring the two
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  Speaker 2: thousand and three Holidays Act up to date with the
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  Speaker 2: modern working environment, but it doesn't significantly change the way
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  Speaker 2: we deal with sick leave. Associate Professor Paula Okaine from
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  Speaker 2: Otago University's Business schoolers with US high Paula Jorder, Hey,
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  Speaker 2: so do you reckon we should be able to accrue
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  Speaker 2: the sick leave, have it roll over the unused sickle
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  Speaker 2: year of year after year.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely, I think if we could allow that sick
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  Speaker 3: leave to accrue on uchcrue when you move jobs as well,
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  Speaker 3: so create more of a centralized system. You would give
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  Speaker 3: people access to better sick leave, You might discourage misuse
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  Speaker 3: of sick leave, and when people are actually sick for
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  Speaker 3: a longer period of time, they're better covered. So it
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  Speaker 3: would really help to deal's issues around people with long
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  Speaker 3: term illness, for example, and those who move jobs quite
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  Speaker 3: a lot.
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  Speaker 2: A crew to what how high could you take it
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  Speaker 2: before it kept out?
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  Speaker 3: I mean potentially you'd want to put a limit of
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  Speaker 3: a year or something like that on it, but yeah,
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  Speaker 3: it could be as much of that, and at ten
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  Speaker 3: days accruing a year, you're probably at what's that maybe
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  Speaker 3: twenty years before you'd have a full crew of working days.
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  Speaker 2: Do you know think people will take the mickey where
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  Speaker 2: they will. They'll get to a certain point where they've
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  Speaker 2: got a fair amount, maybe they're thinking of leaving the
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  Speaker 2: job start sort of faking the sicknesses.
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  Speaker 3: I think that would be really difficult with long term
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  Speaker 3: sick I can get it for a day or two,
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  Speaker 3: but I think if you're actually properly long term sick,
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  Speaker 3: you need very good evidence for that. So actually probably
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  Speaker 3: takes away some of that ticking the mickey.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, And do you think we need different types of
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  Speaker 2: sick leave as well?
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  Speaker 3: I think we need good sick leave. I think in
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  Speaker 3: most countries it covers off the different types of leave,
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  Speaker 3: whether you're caring for people or caring for children, or
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  Speaker 3: caring for older people. And if we create that a cruel,
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  Speaker 3: we actually give people more in the long run, hopefully
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  Speaker 3: because they've got those days that follow over. So I'm
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  Speaker 3: not sure that we need different types, but I think
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  Speaker 3: if we had that a cruel, it would make it fairer.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, Paula, thank you very much. By the way, have
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  Speaker 2: you calculated how much this might cost?
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  Speaker 3: Oh? I have not done that, but it may also
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  Speaker 3: reduce some of the costs for the government and relation
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  Speaker 3: to support it, living payments and so on. So I'd
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  Speaker 3: say there's a good thing to do for the economic
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  Speaker 3: economists out there to really look at how much it
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  Speaker 3: might cost. But it would be the employers paying ten
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  Speaker 3: days a year every year, regardless of whether somebody takes
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  Speaker 3: that sick leave or not.
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  Speaker 2: Right, Paula, thanks very much, appreciate Paula.
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  Speaker 3: Okay, thank you.
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  Speaker 2: Associate Professor at Otaga University Business School.
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