Sick and tired of absenteeism

Unplanned absences cause millions of dollars in losses to business. Employers have spent decades trying to unlock the secrets of absenteeism management.

 There is no question that the phone message passed to a manager early in the morning outlining who isn’t coming in and why is one of the worst ways manager’s get to start their day! The dreaded gap in production, the cost of plugging it, or even worse, the cost of not plugging it, and all of those little things that individual was meant to do fly in and out of your brain at light speed.

 Once a manager has gone through all of the grieving stages (denial, resentment, anger, guilt, resignation, and total hopelessness), the questions that we are left to ponder are regularly these 3:

     1.    Am I’m being ripped off?

2.    Now what am I going to do?

3.    Why me?

 Let us try and deal with each of these in turn.

 Am I’m being ripped off?

There is no question that sometimes some employees may use sick leave as an opportunity to do other things rather than lie around being sick. The key word in the above statement is “some”. It is easy to jump to conclusions on whether a person is legitimately sick or not. These conclusions may be based on people’s personalities, commitment to their work, rumours around the office, regularity of use of sick leave and more. The big tip here is to work with fact. Fact 1 is that many people do get sick. You may have even got sick! It is better to work in an environment of trust than the alternative. Do not think that you will solve the issue of genuine absence by getting employees to provide doctor’s certificates. The reality is that a doctor, especially ones where relationships with patients are fleeting, work off very limited information. If I challenged you to go and get a doctor’s certificate today, I’ll bet most of you can succeed. That doesn’t mean doctors aren’t doing their job or your employees are good liars. It just means this method is also fallible. It also doesn’t mean abandon asking for doctor’s certificates.

 Fact 2 is that the information passed between a doctor and patient is confidential. That means, if the doctor says on a certificate that an employee is unable to work without disclosing the reason, the employee and doctor are under absolutely no obligation to tell you.

 Fact 3 is that polygraph tests are both unreliable and costly! If you thought of other similar mechanisms like ransom, torture or the like, you may actually see a rise in absenteeism rather than a fall!

 Ironically, I have found over the years that the people who take the most sick leave are those genuinely sick. A person who has a heart attack or hurts their back can be off for weeks. Yet, there I am questioning the person who has taken 5 Mondays off in 3 months! We all have ways of justifying whom we accept and whom we don’t accept as genuine. Realise that you can be wrong in either event.

 The conclusion to draw from the above is that it is better that you trust your employees to do the right thing, and if you think they are doing the wrong thing, look at some of the solutions posed further on in this article.

 Now what am I going to do?

 The obvious answer here is to not stress out to the point YOU have to take sick leave yourself! Have some type of plan that deals with these types of occurrences. Here are some quick tips in this area:

•    Make sure that more than one person in your office understands how to do the most critical elements of another’s job. This gives you some type of emergency back-up;

•    Document responsibilities and systems operated by everyone in your team. In the event of an emergency or absence, at least there will be some hints on how to do things;

•    Have a list of subject matter experts both in your business and externally that you can call upon in an emergency;

•    Have a good relationship with an employment agency or consultant that can back you up quickly if you need to;

•    Take a leadership role if required in distributing and re-prioritising work for the period of the absence;

•    Determine if it is appropriate to talk with the absent colleague for advice. Understand that this is sometimes impossible or misinterpreted as “checking up” on someone, so think this through.

 The whole goal of this thinking is to move from the disappointment of the absence to determining how things can move forward. It is useful if you know at this point how long the absence is likely to be, and how long you can use temporary measures before the issues will become critical.

 Why me?

 You can legitimately ask this question of yourself at this point in time. Unfortunately, if you honestly explored the answers, you may get a shock. This is because some of the following might be revealed: 

•      The work environment is physically depressing

•      Managers create stress though poor management styles

•      Employees aren’t respected

•      There is little interest in people as individuals

•      There is a lack of team spirit

•      There is no tracking or recognition of absences

•      The work environment causes illness

•      The job structure causes illness

•      Family pressures force employees to find alternate time off

•      Informal roster systems of absenteeism have been put in place by employees

•      Managers aren’t respected.

Whatever the cause, the outcomes are the same. The goal of management is to decide if they are causing or contributing to this issue.

Prevention is better than cure

 While this concluding segment’s title is a little misleading, it is true to say that if management cause many people to use sick leave, then they also have the potential to slow it down. Whether employees are (in your opinion) genuine or not, there is one very important statement you can make on the day they return. That statement is:

 “I noticed that you were away yesterday and I’m glad you are back.”

To an employee who is legitimate, they hear that you noticed and cared. To a person who is not legitimate, they hear that you noticed and you cared! Companies that track absenteeism are most likely to be able to manage it because they can give immediate feedback to employees affected.

 If you genuinely believe a person is having trouble attending your place of work often enough, it may even be sensible to send them to a doctor you trust (your insurer may be able to recommend one) to determine what that person can and can’t do.

 Companies that have flexible timekeeping arrangements traditionally have less absenteeism, as employees can take off a couple of hours to deal with a personal issue and make up the time, rather than “taking a sickie” and being off for a whole day. Other companies that have telecommuting find that those employees are rarely sick. After all, they’re already at home, aren’t they!

 Look at other obvious physical issues, such as natural light, ventilation, sound, travel, and even ambiance. All of these can be positively influenced by some thought by management.

 Ultimately, accept that people do get sick, managers can cause sickness, buildings can cause illness, work setup can cause sickness, and some people may not be genuine. But don’t judge anyone until you think back to the last day you took off. I just hope you weren’t at the cricket!