Employers need to trust their employees to foster loyalty and ensure higher productivity. This concept is widely discussed and debated in corporations around the world. However, many firms in Germany are taking a different approach when it comes to employee sick leave. Some employers have resorted to hiring private detectives to verify whether employees are genuinely unwell or simply using sickness as an excuse to be absent.
When employees are found to be misusing sick leave, they face termination on the grounds of underperformance. In October 2024, Tesla made headlines when managers at its German factory began visiting the homes of workers who called in sick to check the authenticity of their claims.
In Germany, employees are entitled to six weeks of fully paid sick leave. However, it has been observed that about 5% more workers request sick leave on Fridays compared to other days. Additionally, a higher proportion of night shift workers tend to take sick leave. Tesla’s factory experienced a 17% increase in absenteeism in August, which was three times the average in the German auto sector. This spike prompted CEO Elon Musk to consider investigating the issue, hence the home visits by managers.
It appears that Tesla is not the only company grappling with this problem of absenteeism, which is reportedly impacting the German economy. Interestingly, the demand for private investigators has increased, as more companies seek to verify the legitimacy of their employees’ sick leave requests.
Data shows that while German workers took an average of 11.1 sick days in 2021, this figure rose to 15.1 days in 2023, negatively affecting the country’s GDP.
