Before I speak about the topic I want to focus on workplace.
I'm not an expert here, but I feel like an obvious solution to employees taking sudden leaves of absence, is to hire on call workers for that very occasion. Why can't you just have people on the books ready to temporarily take the place of those absent?
I realize this may not work for complicated jobs that require training and education. But most labour jobs specifically, are pretty much child's play. Anyone with a brain could show up and take orders. Also labour jobs especially take a toll on people. It would make sense to offer your employees time off whenever they need it, as a lot of labour work is extremely taxing on both physical and mental health, and with them being the jobs that have the most work for the least pay in today's society, it makes sense.
Hiring on call workers would stop the issue of being short staffed. In turn, offering MUCH improvement for the mental health of the workers and higher ups. This would increase productivity of the workers also. I don't see why hiring a line up of people you only pay when you need them, would affect the bottom line. People are looking for a side job anyways these days. Possibly hiring an agency that provides a plethora of on call staff would completely solve the issue, as if one “on caller” couldn't make it there's still a ton of other candidates.
I know the reason why they don't do this. It's because, why bother? You can just force people to work in horrible conditions for very little pay, and there's always someone else willing take their place when that person gets fed up. Well the answer to that question is becoming more apparent. People are quitting these toxic jobs and becoming more self sufficient. There's a major labour shortage for a reason. Because the workforce has now come to a similar conclusion. Why bother? You could essentially become completely self sufficient with a 10 acre piece of property, a bit of savings and some self taught skills. Missing out on modern conveniences is a pretty small price to pay to never have to work in a toxic environment again. Not to mention living a MUCH more fulfilling life.
The only reason the general population abandoned traditional self sufficiently is because it was EASIER to live modernly. Pay was decent in comparison to essentials. But now the tables have turned and it is becoming easier to live self sufficiently again. But for those who simply cannot afford a piece of property that can offer self sustainability, the simple change of hiring on call people for when a full-time employee is feeling burned out, could drastically improve someones quality of life.
Obviously better laws governing how much an employer can make you do is the proper step, but we all know how reliable the worlds governing bodies can be. Frankly it's a joke, and a depressing one at that. Maybe if we can all hold firm and work on phasing ourselves out of our current living situations, maybe then something can change.
If the 1% can't hire enough people to run their corporations for them, their business will crash and they will lose a lot of what they have just to keep up they're lavish lifestyles. While they have fun discovering what real struggle is, the rest of us could adopt a self sustaining lifestyle free of our workplace overlords. Only mentioning this because I'm sure everyone would LOVE to see rich people whine about being poor. There's entire TV shows dedicated to it. Might help motivate.
Obviously it's not a drop everything and adopt a new lifestyle kind of thing. But judging on what direction the world's going in, slowly phasing sustainable living into all of our lives should be a priority if you don't want to face MAJOR issues later down the line. It's easier than it seems too. Just do some research about what grows best in your climate, and when to grow it. Use YouTube tutorials and information from the many options available online, and slowly you'll get there. Nobody says you have to be FULLY self sufficient.
I don't know about everyone else, but I'd rather sit on my little patch of land, eating my home grown food, while I watch these corporate giants slowly shrivel up. But it takes a decent amount of struggle to achieve this freedom. That's why you have to work, for now. Live cheap. Save up. Buy out. Stand firm.