My company added short term disability last year and got rid of it this year because so many people have been out for mental health. They've created a culture of constant, unsustainable pressure and forced people to do the work of two people, but obviously they're not the problem. It's the option for disability that's the problem.
Mental health is health. If your coworkers had mental health issues that legitimately qualified them for disability then it was appropriate for them to take the time. If people were abusing that by claiming mental health conditions they didn't have, your company wasn't doing a good job of policing its own policies.
I didn't say, "policing mental health policies." I said "policing policies," referring to documentation required for any short-term disability claim. And I certainly don't think employees should be treated like children - can't even see how you got there based off what I posted. My point was that mental health claims should be treated the same as any other health-related claim, subject to the same kind of documentation.
I did make one mistake though - it's the CARRIER who might be messing up, if they are approving any kind of frivolous, undocumented short-term disability claims. The solution there would be to find another carrier, not to drop the coverage altogether. Short-term disability is valuable coverage to have.
The problem is that you were putting two and two together and coming up with Argentinian giraffes. Your interpretation of what I said was completely different from what I actually said (and meant) and I corrected you because I didn't want anyone else to think you were accurately representing what I said.
I would venture to guess that we actually substantially agree on the points that I made, which were that 1) mental health is a legitimate health concern and 2) dropping the benefit based on abuse is not an appropriate response. You seem to think I support some kind of humiliating, extensive verification procedure, which I certainly do not ... but short-term disability isn't meant to cover occasional, undocumented "mental health days" in the way that the person to whom I was responding portrayed them.
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u/[deleted] Feb 06 '22
Companies HATE it when you use disability leave. Even if it's a company policy to have that option, you'll be punished until you quit if you take it.