Without raising suspicion to your manager and a strategy to “speed up the process.”
Short Term Disability and/or Long Term Disability. If you have been putting off any medical procedures I suggest you get them done this year and next year. Bad knees? Frozen shoulder? Hip replacement? Etc, etc.
Based on your Years of Service , you will get 100% Base Salary of STD Benefits for 26 weeks per year. At week 27 you get 65% of your Base Salary if you opted for LTD Coverage during benefits enrollment. If you did not opt for the additional LTD, it will be 50% of your base salary.
Once you are LTD approved, you will be paid this amount until your Social Security Retirement Eligibility age. For some it’s 65, other 67 and so on.
Remember that you no longer have job protection of FMLA after 12 weeks. So you are speeding up the process of getting a Severance Package, since your position can’t be filled during those 12 weeks or backfilled until you are gone.
I noticed after 19 years that the “seniors” who did this eventually got the pink slip. As if it set off alarms in HR to flag them. It hastened their Severance Packages in addition to having financial and medical benefits.
Is it gaming the system? Absolutely. Learn to play the game to your benefit. You paid for it.
Crack open the Benefits Book and read it Chapter by Chapter, Line for Line. Use the knowledge to your advantage.