To preface, I’m a newer manager (~3 years) and I work in a industry with a both a greying workforce and workforce and in a region where “kids” (30+) are either taking care of adults for various ailments. I’ve never turned down PTO and if you need to go, just tell me what needs to be covered and bail.
I just had an employee lose a cousin and her mother was involved in the accident as well (stable now thankfully) – since cousins aren’t covered by policy, she’d have to use PTO for bereavement, and was scared out of her mind to use it. Having leeway by policy I can and said instantly “I got this” and tried to put her at ease that we’d be set w/o her and any time off, I’ll work it, but she kept spinning about PTO.
Earlier in the year we had another guy worried about taking PTO to the point he wasn’t going to go with his wife to see about biopsy results (cancer scare).
Long winded but, I was raised that with things like that, you’re not “asking for PTO” or worried about time, you’re just gone (and we address that later) and as a manager get you your person out and figure it out later (no hard feelings, no nothing).
How would/should/can I go about changing the culture so that I don’t have to explain to folks “get out and be with family” so they don’t have to worry about something trivial where I’m at?