How Sick Day Policies Turn Your Business Into a Daycare

Sick day policies have been in the news lately.  This isn’t a political commentary, I promise.  I am a fellow entrepreneur, and there are times when we can write our own rules as long as we don’t break the law or discriminate. This is why I think that sick day policies, for the most part, suck for small businesses.  I tend to gravitate toward “trust and reward” than “police and punish.”

Most business owners write sick day policies like David Hilbert wrote algorithms.  “If you work for three consecutive orbits around the sun, then you are entitled to one Earth day of sickness, provided you bring us a vial of infected blood and a note from your physician of record.”  What the hell?  Why not give the new employee a slide rule and a set of litmus strips and wish them good luck?

Sick day policies immediately make everyone think they have to call you with hourly updates.  I have a 10-year old daughter, and I can remember her daycare calling me hourly to update me when she showed the smallest sign of not feeling well.  “Mr. Godwin, she’s not as active as she usually is, but she ate her strained green beans so we think she’s OK.”  I had a client tell me the other day that one of his employees called him to let him know how her…um, intestinal regularity…had turned into chronic stomach upset…no lie.  And she was much more graphic than I’m being here.  You could be reading this over lunch, right?

You become the hall monitor.  Jeez, running a business is hard enough without you having to read a doctor’s note and a summary of hourly fever changes.  You’re making things happen….generating profits….talking about matters of state….being the MAN.  You have no time to do a drive-by and make sure that your employee is really in bed and not waiting in line for “Mockingjay” tickets.  Give me a freaking break.

If you can’t trust your team, then you don’t need them in your office.  If you can trust them, for the love of all that is holy, please don’t treat them like children.  If you expect them to deliver like grown-ups, treat them like grown-ups and they will.  Life is too short and entrepreneurship is too challenging to require you to act like someone’s second grade teacher.  I get it, Mr. President….paid sick leave makes for a great headline.  But for small business owners, let’s call it “salary.” Get out there and tear up your sick day policy, and then watch people act like adults.  It’ll change your life.

The Prayer Walk

You may think by the title of this blog that I am writing about a spiritual experience.  Maybe I am, but it didn't feel that way at the time.

If you've owned a business for any period of time, you've made the Prayer Walk.  This was my version of the Prayer Walk:

My first office was in an old house, built in 1909.  I had no mailbox, only the slit in the door where the postal carrier would PLOP my mail.  When it hit the hardwood floor, it made this popping sound and I was out of my chair and on my way.  I was on my Prayer Walk.

You see, when I started my firm, no one paid you online or with ACH.  You got a check.  Every now and then, someone paid in cash.  But 99% of the time, you got a check by mail.  I can distinctly remember days of updating my accounting records and looking at a small balance in the checking account, knowing that I had to make payroll the next week or pay my rent.  I would say aloud “How am I going to make that happen?”

When I would hear the mail hit the floor, my Prayer Walk began.

Two steps…echo, echo….Please let there be a check in the mail.

Two more steps…echo, echo….Please let there be a check in the mail.

Two last steps…I only need $750 to get me to next week….come on, no Whammies, no Whammies…

Then, I would see the result of my Prayer Walk.  Some days, prayers were answered.  Other days, I was told to ask again later. Prayers aren't always answered when you pray them and sometimes they aren't answered at all.
Sometimes you are required to hold on until the next day. Which means you have to figure out how to hang on one more day. String together enough days of "figuring it out" and you are running a business, like any true entrepreneur.

We Are Who We Serve

Meghan and I heard a news story this morning on NPR, and the interviewee was a financial planner.  He said “It’s not all about money.”  Meghan chuckled and said “Only people who have lots of money say it’s not all about money.”  I had a good laugh at that, but I began to think….Are we who we purport to serve?

I confidently answered yes to that question.  In the case of our Start-Up School, it definitely is so.  We are entrepreneurs.  I didn’t start out as an entrepreneur, however.  I can honestly say that over the 12+ years I’ve owned my firm, I have only been an entrepreneur for about half of that time.  I couldn’t have offered this class to entrepreneurs after owning a business for 5 years….I wasn’t ready.  I didn’t know the difference between a technician who began a business because he was angry about how he was treated at his previous job, and an entrepreneur.  Frustrated technicians don’t have the vision that entrepreneurs have.  They’re too busy being technicians!  I remember what it was like to be frustrated technician, and I can definitely speak about how it feels to make that transition.

So, yes, we are who we serve.  That is what makes this Start-Up School experience so much broader than the free hour you get with the speaker at the latest Chamber of Commerce function.  As your designated mentor for this intensive 10-week adventure, I will deliver information, opportunities for learning and share life experiences in order to prepare you for your entrepreneurship journey.  Because that’s what it is….a journey.

Why Do We Offer Start-Up School?

Start ups can find an endless supply of free resources for assistance when beginning a new business adventure.  There are two-hour seminars on writing business plans and learning how to read a financial statement. There are websites, blogs and Facebook pages devoted to the start up and the newly adorned entrepreneur. And they’re usually helpful.

However, the missing piece is an ongoing mentoring relationship with a professional who also owns a small business, and will walk the new entrepreneur through even more important areas.  We cover pricing strategies, learning why reading financial statements is important, tax issues, payroll questions, and the nagging scary issues that entrepreneurs feel foolish bringing up. These are skills that take time and practice to get good at. 

Owning a business is sometimes pretty scary, and having someone beside you who has been through those scary times is reassuring.

Every entrepreneur suffers from the “do-everything” syndrome.  Head-down, doing every single thing they can think of to just survive and continue to do good work.  We want to offer a forum for Q&A and an environment for learning…a place to discuss caution flags before they turn into four-car pile-ups.