Abuse of Sick Leave

Ms_Shepard

Hi All,

I was wondering if I could get some feedback on how you handle abuse of sick leave. I have been with my organization for about a year now, and have noticed frequent abuse of sick leave. We give a generous amount (12 days a year) and it seems that some are using this to supplement their annual leave. My solution would have been to take it away all together, and just simply have "leave" that could be used for anything. Our Sr. VP wants to keep our policies similar to other organizations like ourselves, and all of the other organizations offer sick leave. Sick leave is not paid to the employee upon resignation, as annual leave is, so logically, people want to use their sick leave first.

A chronic abuser of sick leave is our receptionist. She frequently calls in and sometimes, her excuses are lousy, such as her daughter had a tooth-ache, or she schedules a dr. appt. and then calls after the appt and says she was referred somewhere else and wont be in at all, or that on the way in from the dr. appt she was in car accident, etc. Her boss is reluctant to discipline her for these reasons: she is in more than one protected class, the receptionist's former superviser never disciplined her, she has been with the organization over three years, and the fact that there are others that seem to be abusing the policy as well.


And so it goes.

Any feedback is appreciated

HR in PA

We too have a generous amount of sick leave available to our employees. However, in order for an occurrence under the sick policy to be excused, the employee must provide a doctor's note. In the event that no documentation is presented, the absence is marked as unexcused. The number of unexcused absences allowed in one year's time is seven and then disciplinary action is issued. Further, more than two unexcused absences affects the attendance rating on an employee's performance evaluation. Those absences listed as excused do not factor into the equation. An additional incentive for our employees is that we do pay 100% of the value of sick time upon termination/separation. Good Luck!!

Gillian

The first thing to find out is how serious the bosses want to be in having a sick leave program and enforcing it. There is no point in being assertive in this area if the bosses aren't going to back you up. That means that they have to question absenses, not merely give an OK when someone makes a phone call. If you want to enforce some standards, but the bosses don't, you will have a neverending battle with the bosses caving in to employee excuse and wanting to make exceptions. You can administer the program if the bosses want one, but it isn't a good idea for you to become the sick leave police.

Brad Forrister

Your situation sounds almost exactly like ours was before we decided to go to an all-inclusive "annual leave" policy. One part of our workforce was virtually never sick, the other part was sick for almost exactly 10 days a year, which was our sick leave allotment. Going to a combined annual leave policy solved the problem. You can achieve close to the same thing through the kind of combination of policies and tough enforcement that Gillian and HR in PA mention. But it's amazing what market incentives can accomplish.

Brad Forrister
Director of Publishing
M. Lee Smith Publishers

Margaret Morford

If there is a pattern to the use of sick leave (always on a Monday or Friday, always before or after a holiday, always the day before or after scheduled vaction), I have some language you can put in your attendace policy to address a pattern of absences even if the employee has benefit time to cover it. If you want it, email me and I'll send it to you.

Margaret Morford
theHRedge
615-371-8200
[email]mmorford@mleesmith.com[/email]
[url]http://www.thehredge.net[/url]