Excused or Unexcused?

SamanthaQ · December 2004

We are in the process of re-defining our attendance policy and are trying to determine what is considered "excused" and what is "unexcused" along the lines of counting absences and tardies. It appears that our supervisors are not consistent in determining whether the situations listed below are excused or unexcused. Assuming that excused would not count against the employee's attendance record and unexcused would. What do you do with the following:

1. Calling in sick for self (no Dr. Excuse and not FMLA)
2. Calling in to take care of sick child (no Dr.Excuse and not FMLA)
3. Car Problems
4. Traffic issues or late because of a train
5. Overslept

Please give me your thoughts/opinions!

POPEYE · December 2004

Trying to determine what is and is not excused leads to too much subjectivity on those making the decision.

We use a No Fault attendance policy and assess attendance incidents as needed. EX: If an EE wakes up one morning and wants to go to the lake instead of coming to work, they call in and go and received 1 attendance incident. Two weeks later they are so sick they can't get out of the bed, they call in and receive 1 attendance incident. Of course incidents are not assessed if the absence is approved under FMLA.

SamanthaQ · December 2004

How many incidents do they get before disciplinary action? We are re-writing ours and we're allowing 4 instances in a rolling 90 day period and then it moves up from there for further disciplinary action.

No fault is interesting to me. What type of industry are you in?

POPEYE · December 2004

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 12-14-04 AT 02:54PM (CST)[/font][br][br]We allow 3 incidents in a rolling 180 days - no questions asked. 4th gets a verbal, 5th a written, 6th 3-day suspension and 7th termination. If we have an EE that plays the system, we send out a "special" letter advising them that we will not tolerate them continuing to get at the written stage of discipline and then not missing any days until 1-2 of their incidents roll off.

We are both a manufacturing facility - approx 200 EEs and a contracted Accounts Payable - 100 EEs.

Balloonman1 · December 2004

When I arrived with my current company they had a system like that excused or unexcused. To me that is begging for a discrimination lawsuit. The supervisors lack of consistency should already identify to you that it will be a problem.
Go with a no fault points system. To account for the truely top performers who would never be late unless they had two tires blow out, well you can take care of that by having a system that eliminates points for going 60 days without an occurrence.
Trust me, you are begging for a discrimination lawsuit allowing individuals to deterime who is excuse and who is not.
My $0.02 worth,
DJ The Balloonman

HRCalico · December 2004

Popeye is right on target, and I've looked long and hard at a no-fault. However, with the full support of my president who wishes our employee manual could just read "do the right thing", we occasionally make judgement calls.

For example, all employees get one "free" official late per month (clocking in 12 min or more after their start time without calling as below to say they'll be late). Two lates in a month means they'll lose incentive pay for the month (if we get it; it's based on our monthly profits). Three is a written warning. Three written warnings in 12 mos could be termination.

An absence is unexcused when employees do not call in and leave a message prior to their start time. One unexcused absence in a month eliminates incentive pay, two is a written warning. 3 warnings in a year = termination.

I mentioned in another post that we're looking at revising our policy. I think we'll revise to no "I'll be late" call-in is excused, and up to two free lates per month (half of our employees live other towns). Call-in absences are excused only if the employee has some sort of paid time off available to them. They can arrange ahead of time if they want to take unpaid time off.

I haven't quite figured out how to get all this on paper and not sound like the wicked witch of the west. I like the idea of a no-fault, but our employees consider it a benefit that they may take time off for harvest, kids' sports events, and etc.

SamanthaQ · December 2004

I met with our supervisors this morning to present the fact that allowing for one excuse and not another is discrimmination. We are a very family oriented environment (although we have 7 locations and 125 employees). We tend to have a lot of single working moms in our culture here as well - so the conversation seemed to turn to sick child/daycare issues.

They had a really hard time with the thinking that anything not scheduled 24 hours in advance is an incident (that's what we were proposing). I'm still trying to smooth out the wrinkles and come up with a good plan but I think we've got a good start!

Ruskanen · December 2004

Any change will cause grumbling until people get used to a new system. We have a no fault policy of 12 points a year. Any absence of 1 minute up to half a shift is 1/2 point. Any absence of half a shift or longer is one point. It works out well for us and people can manage their time the way they need to. Some employees are never gone, some have appointments from time to time, and some use up the majority of their points with tardies. I can't imagine managing an excused/unexcused policy. It's very easy to get a note from a doctor's office for an absence, whether you are sick or not. No system will work unless you have the support of upper management to back the policy.

Excused or Unexcused?

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