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November 15, 2011, Employment Law News, Number 20
Surviving Tough Financial Times: Minimize Absenteeism
By and
and
“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” Confucius
The U.S. Department of Labor reports that nation-wide, employee absenteeism costs employers an estimated $100 billion per year. With the arrival of the cold and flu season, it is particularly timely to address and revise your policies and practices for managing employee absences. This newsletter reviews useful options for managing absenteeism.
The Skinny on Absenteeism: What It Is and What It Costs
Employee absences generally fall into one of four categories:
(1) Planned: These are absences that are requested by the employee and subsequently approved by you. While they are costly, they are probably the least intrusive type of absence and are necessary to recharge your workforce. An example is when an employee takes a personal day or a vacation day.
(2) “Call offs”: Perhaps the most difficult and expensive type of absence, this is when employees call off of work for a period of time without prior approval, such as a sick day. These absences typically do not last more than 5 days.
(3) Long term: Extended absences that are most likely not planned and are generally due to disability or medial leave under the Family Medical Leave Act (“FMLA”). Employees on long term leave are most often compensated by short or long-term disability, workers’ compensation, or accrued sick leave time.
(4) Intermittent: Sporadic leave that may either be pre-approved or without any advance notice. Examples are employee doctor or therapist appointments or when employees need to leave work early due to a particular condition, such as asthma attacks.
The most obvious cost of absenteeism is the pay an employee receives for time not worked, such as sick or personal time. However, perhaps a greater cost is the unavoidable impact on the operations of your business. If you choose to replace the absent worker, you are faced with either bringing in a temporary worker, who is unfamiliar with the job, or paying extra compensation to another worker in overtime, or adding responsibilities to another employee or supervisor.
Each option hurts the productivity of your business, and may well increase employee dissatisfaction due to the increase of responsibilities without, in many cases, a corresponding increase in pay. If you choose to do nothing, however, your bottom line may suffer due to lower productivity.
What To Do With Habitual Offenders
Almost every business is plagued by the occasional employee who is forever calling off of work. Many well-meaning business owners, HR managers, and supervisors “let it slide” when an employee frequently calls off, thinking that it is easier to acquiesce to one or two sick days to avoid a complaint or lawsuit. Sometimes this philosophy does save money but many times it does not.
Generally, the two laws that require employee leave time are the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) and the Family Medical Leave Act (“FMLA”). In a nutshell, while the ADA and FMLA may require you to give employees extended leave time, both laws permit you to seek medical documentation substantiating the employee’s request for leave. More importantly, neither law provides employees with an indefinite excuse to take off of work.
For small business owners, it is of utmost importance to know that the ADA only applies to employers with 15 or more employees and the FMLA only applies to employers with 50 or more employees. So, you may not have any obligations under the FMLA or even the ADA, depending upon the size of your workforce.
The most common way to manage “repeat offenders” is to require a doctor’s note after a certain number of days absent. Note that any request for a doctor’s note must be pursuant to a generally applicable policy. Otherwise, you could be found liable for discrimination under the ADA.
Due to the intricacies of the ADA, you would be wise to seek legal advice before asking any employee for a doctor’s note or to submit to an examination.
Take Action: Greet Cold and Flu Season Head On This Year
To get started, here are some tips to weather the cold and flu season:
• Review your internal policies and create generally applicable practices for managing absences, such as requiring a doctor’s note from all employees who have had three consecutive absences.
• Notify employees of policy revisions. It is advisable to have a meeting with staff to discuss leave procedures, including the consequences for any employee who abuses the system.
• Create an absence management system in which everyone, regardless of position, must report her or his absence to a designated individual. If one individual is receiving all reports of absenteeism, it is much easier to develop a system for reallocating the absent workers’ responsibilities.
• Absence management is best accomplished as a team. Some businesses have benefited by having regular absence-management meetings of their HR, safety professionals, and benefits coordinators to collaborate regarding absence trends, numbers, and causes.
• Do not assume that a particular employee is owed an obligation under the FMLA and/or the ADA. Remember also that neither law precludes requests for documentation. Finally, neither law requires tolerance of indefinite absenteeism.
• For wage-earning employees covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act, overtime is only owed to those actually working more than 40 hours per week. Therefore, one way to manage sick leave abuse is to make sure you factor sick time out of your overtime payments and only count time on the job.
• While you certainly do not have to, ultimately it might save you money to pay for your employees to get flu vaccinations, or, depending upon the size of your company, you could pay for a “house call” to vaccinate all willing employees during the work day.
Bottom Line for Employers
Regardless of your workforce size, absenteeism is probably costing you more than you realize. However, due to legal intricacies, particularly the FMLA and ADA, an employment attorney should assist you in revising and implementing your policies.
* KingSpry Employment News is meant to be informational and does not constitute legal advice. Those who require legal advice on this matter should contact their legal counsel or request a legal opinion from KingSpry.
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