It's not a new phenomena [1]. I do not think "hospitals are incapable of keeping people safe from Covid" is the best expression. I think "encountering any humans bears increased risk in Covid times", regardless if those humans work in a hospital (although, arguably lower risk) versus a shoe store.
In that case, paxys, I stand corrected and can see where the questions in this thread are coming from, indeed.
In my experience in Europe, an employment contract will state number of hours (say 36, 40, etc) and you need to be present and available for that time. These are non-hourly contracts (e.g. salary is expressed by month not hour). None of that has anything to do with productivity, to your/mine point.
Yes, your employment contract has likely a minimum number of hours of work stipulated (otherwise PTO etc becomes hard).
Look, i’m not saying it is a valuable way of looking at productivity at all, but the fraud aspect is reasonably clear.
So if it states 40 hours, you put in 40 hours. If you do nothing during those 40 hours, we can have a moral/ethics discussion about if and how you should change the situation etc, but at that point we’re outside of the fraud scenario in my opinion.
The wording is slightly negative, but it does describe that side of the role well.
There are also positive aspects that hang in the balance. Personally (as a people manager) I appreciated the positive impact (coaching, career development) I could make to people around me in ways that are not easily replicated in other roles. And there are many others.
I hope this reply chain doesn’t grow in length, but I’m in the same situation (terminal), and father to two. I wish everything could continue as normal as possible while acknowledging that the situation has changed.