Also I feel nobody noticed that this manager would be really pissed off if OP had died under a car or something. Nobody is calling sick so I guess somebody will go to the cemetary to fill a penalty and ask why they didn't call?

My office coworker got a less-permanent variant : he got in the hospital in emergency and was allowed a few minutes on the phone (my wife didn't had this luxury!).
Issue? None of the bosses were there yet to receive the warning, as a last resort he tried my number and tasked me to find anybody in the hierachy that would be busy between the offices.

It worked, but anybody assuming that people with medical emergencies can follow a policy never called sick and blindingly assumes that people safety goes after the job.

Yeah, the new manager can't be entirely blamed. But the whole point that the sick policy depends entirely on the manager when you have a central app...

Time-keeping app > Employee : Unable to fulfill service > (App : Checks shift manager, send email) > Manager notified

No more need to have a list of managers. If my wife is KO'd I don't want to have to second-guess how to call her sick.

> My only point was that 5 hours, without even direct contact will not be enough time to find a replacement, especially if she hasn't talked to the manager directly.

Not her fault when the manager didn't make sure everybody had emergency contact. A employee which is sick or enjuried literally need the simplest way to raise the issue. You can't even be sure THE EMPLOYEE will be the one calling : my wife once lost her voice and they didn't want her husband to vouch for her... yet at the same time only accepted vocal calls.

And in particular, that means a single point of contact that doesn't change depending on the manager. Sick policy shouldn't need a service-wide update because one person quit.

> I always made sure everyone had my number and I was like call anytime for any kind of an emergency.

And that's what that shitty manager didn't do. They sent an email and never checked for confirmation. You would say that it's how some humans behave... but again, the work of a manager is to manage humans.

> With enough notice I can either find someone to cover

As a manager, what do you do when you have no notice at all?
My wife got sent in the hospital in emergency because she fainted around 4pm. She was 18 at the time and not allowed to call her parents, because you know, she's an adult. She had to plead to be allowed to call... at 10pm.

> but I do need you to make sure I know, and 5 hours is pushing it.

In our country, emergency hospital procedure is that the patient is not allowed basically anything if there's no doctor to examine : no eating, no calling. If no doctor is available you're basically in prison because they have no idea what is or is not a danger to yourself.

The fact is that you are running a business, and you need to plan for the case where an employee will not even be good enough to follow the sick policy.
If your employee get hit by a car, do you let the coworker handle the entire shift?

Trust in a job is important. My own work sets 2 or sometimes even 3 reminders for policy changes that can cause a risk. And changes are publically available a month in advance.
Heck, I know since August that we will have less time off next year.

Forgetting the new name of our division is an happy mistake. Changing sick leave procedure is important and requires to be SURE the employee knew about it.
Also email is NOT a guaranteed medium if done online, my dad's email about his train accident was received by my grandma... one year later.

Your managers have absolutely no idea how to manage or communicate with their employees and happily throw them under the bus when the issue comes up. It's not a safe work relationship, stay safe. :(

> it's the employee job to be responsible and to read the email

And it is the manager's job to ensure the employee did his job. If the manager had done their job, they wouldn't have gotten understaffed. An issue was bound to happen with their system. I'm even surprised it wasn't done on purpose tbh.

> Edit: that being said, you did FU by involving your mother. You should be able to solve your problems.

You may have missed that OP is a minor.
It is the legal representative's job to verify that OP's employer is not endengering OP's safety and as such the mother has all the rights to call out the manager.
If the minor is so sick they couldn't stay at school, they are not well enough to go at work.

So they send a very important email and never check that employees did read it? Email is one-way for a reason.

> We have zero idea on whether the manager's phone was there.

But the manager can be sure she didn't receive an acknowledgement from OP to confirm she had received the policy. Which is kinda important.
Before covid I was stuck at home in sick leave with orders to come back to work at X day... but in the mean time lockdown happened.

Absolutely everybody assumed that everybody knew the procedure and forgot that people on sick leave have no way to reach the company-wide comms.
THANK GOD I had my boss's personal phone number to call directly against the usual policy.

> The whole point of the app is to get everyone on the same page and so that there's no he said/she said about call ins.

Or the clock in app has a messenging system that's so bad everybody else use something more covnenient.
My own work has a centralized workday-keeping system that is so bad at doing changes that we only "officially request days off" after we already checked the shared calendar and asked the boss.

> on that app is where you’re able to communicate with your co-workers and manager, so I thought it would be okay to message her there since that was the only way I could of get a hold of her

It should be okay to use work-provided tools for work-intended communication. Your employer and manager are dumb.

> my manager explains to my mom that there was a sick policy and I was supposed to call or text her

Your job reeks of mismanagement, which tells a lot about your new manager.