Stressful biz

One of my techs is out on medical leave, for stress.

I do what I can to keep the stress down, but I think the change I can make is minimal, and how much stress a person feels depends mostly on how they respond to stress. I am obliged to set goals for everyone, and that is a good thing, much better than just having a mass of work ahead - get to it. And the goals have to be similar for people doing similar jobs, or even the very same job, though they are personalized.

So there are goals and they have to be worked at; they're not so low you'll pass them without even noticing just halfway through the year. They're not excessive, either.

We're also flexible. Things come up in the course of the year that can't have been planned for. Goals don't need to be fully attained, either, but have to be tried for. 

In our annual evaluations, though, things are very black and white. A goal is partially or fully attained, but partial is a big bag and explain as I might that we're at 90% here, for some people that's not better than 10%. Then in conclusion, a person can get a B (inadequate in some area), an A+ (super duper gold star clearly beyond what was expected), or an A, which covers everything normal. So if you fulfill your goals without going beyond them, you don't get an A+ (this has been explained and reexplained to me by my own superiors who firmly believe I give out way too many good notes). 

A good tech, with good notes, and she's stressed. A firm A, no problem. But she's stressed, and it's affecting her.

So she goes to her doctor and says she's stressed, and the doc gives her two weeks medical leave to get better. Then at the end of that she saw the doc again and got another 2 weeks.

Now, having some time off can be all you need to regain some balance. You might just need some sleep and relaxation. But I'd like to know what really goes on with this sort of leave. Do you get some sort of treatment? Or just four weeks vacation? Is there some kind of therapy going on, to help my technician learn to deal with stress more effectively? Is she following a program to learn to not internalize everything, but to let things go that should be let go? If all this is is 4 weeks at home, I don't see why it shouldn't be 6, or 8, or the rest of the year. Won't coming back to work be even more stressful, since you should be 'fixed', but really it's all the same?