One common employer practice that I have never liked is requiring employees who call in sick to bring in a doctor's note. I'm not talking about extended or recurring absences that would be covered by the Family and Medical Leave Act, or time off that would be covered under a short-term or long-term disability policy, or requests for reasonable accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

I'm talking about garden-variety, short-term absences for things like colds, sore throats, tummy bugs, or the flu.

And I am feeling so validated right now because I see that Cynical Girl and most of her commenters (presumably Human Resources people) agree with me.

Here are five reasons why I think it's not a good idea:

1-It screams to the employee "I don't trust you." Sure, there are some employees you don't trust, but why treat them all like abusers? Even employees who use a lot of sick time or paid time off may have legitimate reasons -- they may have genuine chronic health problems, or they may have young kids who get sick (my sons are grown now, but I certainly remember the days when our family was a veritable tag team of illness), or they may have been incredibly unlucky, or they may be expectant mothers with morning sickness. 

2-It is a hassle to the employee and may actually retard recovery. I may legitimately have a miserable cold or sore throat, and I may get over it in 24 hours if I can sleep it off. But if I have to waste half of my sick day driving my sorry body over to the nearest walk-in clinic, waiting 2-3 hours with other sick, contagious people, to see a doctor who prescribes (surprise!) bed rest, and driving my sorry body back home, I may not get over it quite so quickly.

3-It is a hassle to our poor, overburdened health care providers. It's bad enough that these poor souls have to deal with the FMLA and HIPAA privacy, and now try to make some sense out of the "safe harbor" language under the Genetic Information Non-Discrimination Act. Do we really need to add to their grief by requiring them to see patients who are sick with illnesses that nothing can be done about anyway?

4-It is a hassle to HR and supervisors. Even though having employees out sick is a hassle, it is also an administrative hassle to parse every single request for a sick day. 

5-It encourages sick, infectious people to come to work and make everyone else sick. 'Nuff said.

On the other hand, employers may want to request doctor's notes when there is good reason to be suspicious of a request for sick time. For example, if your employee is a teacher in the Madison, Wisconsin, public school system, you might want to ask for a doctor's note.