I have been working at the same company for the last 3 years.
I have barely taken any sick leave, or even much annual leave. I have more sick leave than actual leave!
I am really getting sick of the low wage growth. Plus a dead end job with not much development. Also, the company has significant downside for the foreseeable future.
This is my first job, and I think I have clearly failed to manage my sick leave balance optimally. That is, I should have been taking it as it accured, regardless of whether I was actually sick.
I have not done much research, but I think sick leave is not paid out on resignation. If this is the case, then that is a significant loss to workers ( now employers have a huge incentive to treat loyal workers like shit with no wage growth - so they leave and it extinguishes their liability).
I guess I can claim all the interview appointments as sick days, but it will look at bit dodgy for the line manager, and I will still lose significant value
I can’t believe I have to explain this to the OP, but the reason why they keep track of accrued sick leave is so you don’t take too much and don’t abuse the system. In an ideal world, they’d just believe people without having to waste resources getting things like medical certificates on a day of rest, but because people (like you) would clearly prefer to abuse it, they have to place a quantifiable figure to ensure the damage is minimal.
This isn’t a count of what you’re owed.
This is a count of the amount of time you could have possible been off sick without having your role come into question.