re: 'Occurances'

BarbG

Do any of you count absences by 'occurances'? We are trying a new 'no fault' absence policy. The policy states that (7) absences in one year is considered excessive. We say nothing until someone reaches the 4th absence, and at that point issue a written counseling. The next counseling form is issued at occurance number (6). When they reach occurance number (7), they may be terminated. But.......how many consecutive days do you allow for one occurance? I have an employee that wants to take seven days off for a family event. The employee has no vacation time. I could make it a Personal Leave of Absence, which doesn't count against attendance, but I'm leary of sending the message that people can take this kind of time (or more)off without penalty. I told her I may have to count it against attendance. She still wants to take the time. If it were an FMLA situation, no problem. Should there be a limit on the number of days that constitute an occurance? What provisions do you have in place for this kind of situation?

Sunny

>Do any of you count absences by 'occurances'? We are trying a new 'no
>fault' absence policy. The policy states that (7) absences in one
>year is considered excessive. We say nothing until someone reaches
>the 4th absence, and at that point issue a written counseling. The
>next counseling form is issued at occurance number (6). When they
>reach occurance number (7), they may be terminated. But.......how
>many consecutive days do you allow for one occurance? I have an
>employee that wants to take seven days off for a family event. The
>employee has no vacation time. I could make it a Personal Leave of
>Absence, which doesn't count against attendance, but I'm leary of
>sending the message that people can take this kind of time (or
>more)off without penalty. I told her I may have to count it against
>attendance. She still wants to take the time. If it were an FMLA
>situation, no problem. Should there be a limit on the number of days
>that constitute an occurance? What provisions do you have in place
>for this kind of situation?


I think the main questions are: what does your policy say and how have you addressed this in the past? If you have a personal leave policy and have granted leave in the past for family events then you will have to do so now. If you haven't then I would be very wary unless I intended to make this my policy from now on. I used a "no fault" policy in the past and that one specified that an absence of more than three days for the same illness would be counted as one occurrence,(this was pre-FMLA)with verification to to the Company. The pitfall here is that if this is a "good" employee you may be tempted to let her have the leave and set a precedent you must follow with less "good" employees.

LindaS

My former employer used a "no fault" attendance policy with the following provisions:

One occurrence per day of absence. An absence was defined as an absence of one hour or more from their shift. At one time they allowed what was called a "two-fer" which meant that an employee could take two consectutive days off and receive only one occurrence but due to the amount of abuse, they changed it to one occurrence per day. If an employee provided medical documentation verifying multiple absences for the same condition, they were only assessed one occurrence (illnesses not falling under FMLA, of course). They also allowed a "Management Approved Leave Of Absence" and this was administered on a case-by-case basis and only the HR Director could approve these leaves. This was used for things like an out of town funeral, family medical emergency that was not covered under FMLA or a new hire who had a previously scheduled vacation (wsith proper documentation). Employees taking this type of leave only received one occurrence.

Hope this helps!

Trinity

We are pretty generous in our time. We have 12 sick occurrances a year. You can be sick more than one day and if it is related to the same illness, we only count it as one occurrance. However, if you are absent 3 or more days you have to have a doctors note and 5 or more days you have to have a physicians release to come back to work.

We have had the occasional abuse, but we address them in a disciplinary manner case by case when the abuse occurrs. We don't feel it is fair to punish all the employees for the few bad ones.
We also have separate funeral leave (3days for immediate family, 2 days for non-immediate family),which doesn't count against their attendance (I mean come one, you are going to PUNISH them because family died??!!) but no personal days, just vacation.

thanks

POPEYE

We use a "NO FAULT" attendance system. It is a rolling 6 month period. Absent, late or leave eary from shift - 1 INCIDENT. We allow 4 per 6 month without penalty, 5 = 3 day suspension, 6 = termination. (with Dr. certification, 3 for 1 for illness) We do have a very liberal Personal Leave - after 90 day probationary period 4 weeks in a 12 month rolling period to be taken in no less than 1 week intervals.

Nat

We also have a no-fault attendance policy that counts occurrences. We do not have a number of days limit, however, we do not count scheduled absences against the policy. If they do not have enough time to cover with pay, then we consider time off without pay or deny the request. Our attendance policy counts unscheduled absences, tardies or non-completion of shift only. We do require at least a two-working day notice in order for the absence to be considered scheduled unless there are extenuating circumstances such as you go to the doctor today (scheduled) and he refers you to another doctor tomorrow. We would not penalize the employee in this case. We do encourage our employees to schedule appointments according to our policy.

Leslie

My employees keept telling me our policy is tough, but by reading the above it isn't. Ours allows for 2 or more absences AND 3 or more punctuality issues (late starts early quits) in a rolling 30 day time frame before disciplinary action begins. The disciplinary action starts at the discretion of the department manager and is a 4 step process in a rolling 365 day time frame. Every day missed is an occurrence.

We have no leave without pay allowances, though I do not individual department managers have allowed it to happen on without HR's invovlement.

blw

Our policy is pretty strict due to the nature of our business. We operate child care centers and must be staffed to meet state ratios. However, we count absences by occasions and also determine scheduled vs. unscheduled. Staff are allowed 5 occasions of scheduled absence and 3 occasions of scheduled tardy in each calendar year beyond their benefits. That is especially helpful to our large part time staff that only gets 4 vacation days per year.

We had a few abuses in regards to occasions so I added more information. Policy now reads, "One or more consecutively missed workdays will be counted as one occasion, if for the same reason and beyond the employees control, i.e., illness, family emergency, funeral, etc. However, consecutive absences due to dress code violations, failure to meet licensing requirements, taking vacation days that were not approved, or other policy violations will be counted as one occasion per day."

That seemed to help. For those of you wondering about dress code violations for multiple days, that stemed from an employee who said he couldn't remove his tongue stud (not allowed in dress code) because it would close up and he couldn't afford to buy a clear one (allowed) for two more weeks. It takes all sorts!

Barbara