Setting yourself up to fail

Two weeks ago I had an interview for an HR position locally. For several reasons I determined it was not for me. One thing that was a definite flag to me was their attendance policy. This company was an independent entity until about 10 years ago when they were bought by a larger corporation. Some time after the purchase their sick time was taken away. Previously each employee received 5 sick days per year. If they didn't use them, they could sell them. Of course, the employees are still not happy about losing the days as they basically got nothing in return. They also have no personal time either. During the interview I asked the plant manager how they handle it when associates need time off for illness or other unforeseeable events. They can use their vacation time, but it counts as an occurrence. After 5 occurrences they receive disciplinary action. He was a nice guy, but he didn't really seem to get why this was a problem.

Hello, you are setting yourself up to fail. Life happens to us all. You or a family member gets sick, your car has a flat tire, etc. Since things like this will occur, you as a company need to make it easy on yourself and your staff by giving them an appropriate amount of time so that they can handle such things without occurrences. Your peeps are already mad, and justifiably so, over losing 5 paid days off/year. You then add insult to injury by adding occurrences to the mix. You will not be shocked to find out that for this reason and others, morale is in the toilet. I told them they need to rework this system. What I didn't tell them was they have set themselves up to fail.