No sick pay, 10% pay cut per personal day: Viral HR call stuns the internet — “How is this even allowed?” | Today’s news
With more and more companies today valuing corporate health and work-life balance, the viral post brought the focus back to the continued prevalence of employee exploitation.
During the shocking 10-minute introductory call, a professional named Upasana Sarbajna shared that the company has a “flexible” policy that does not allow any sick or personal leave. And if an employee took a single day off for personal reasons, it would trigger a massive 10% pay cut.
Too stunned to respond, Upasana questioned how some organizations actively use the lack of strict labor laws to penalize workers for simply being human.
“How is this even allowed?”
In a viral post on LinkedIn, Upasana Sarbajna said that she received a very surprising phone call from the company. She clarified that this call was “different” because a regular call from HR isn’t too surprising “given how active we all are on work platforms.”
“We had a conversation for almost 10 minutes where the individual explained their company vision and their client base and so on,” she said, adding that up until that point everything had been fine, but when they finally introduced their vacation policy, “things went south.”
HR reportedly told Upasana that the company has a flexible leave policy – “You get leave for festivals and stuff like that.” However, HR said: “Our leave policy does not entertain employees taking sick or personal leave at all.”
Upasana said she was “too stunned to credit that sentence with an answer”.
In case an employee takes leave for personal reasons, HR said, “it will be treated as a loss of salary. So, hypothetically, if you are getting a salary of Rs 10,000 per month, one leave may cost you Rs 1,000,” they added.
“I told them I needed some time to think and hung up,” Upasana shared on LinkedIn. She said she was still shocked at how companies were “taking advantage of the lack of strict labor law to exploit workers on this scale”.
“How is this even allowed?” she asked.
How did netizens react?
Social media users were shocked to learn about the leave policy of Upasana, who chose not to name and shared that “sick leave is mandatory in all states in India.”
“This is shocking, more than surprising. Vacation is not a favor or a reward, because basic sick and casual leave is a mandatory thing,” the user said. “1000 deduction per day, how do they even calculate that?”
Another user noted that companies should formulate their leave policies in accordance with the state’s Shops and Establishments Act and Indian labor laws. However, he stressed that there is a loophole: “There is no planned regular control/audit mechanism by the Ministry of Labour. They can visit once a year, even with their own interest. So all the unethical rules that employers follow remain unchecked and there is no improvement.”
“Calling it a ‘flexible vacation policy’ when every vacation is unpaid is like calling salary ‘performance-related’ because you can choose not to pay it,” said one netizen.
