ABSENTEEISM POLICIES

ABSENTEEISM POLICIES

Most employees are conscientious workers with
good attendance records (or even if they are forced to
miss significant amounts of work, the reasons are
legitimate). But as Markowich noted, ‘‘every company
has a small number of abusers—about 3 percent
of the workforce—who exploit the system by taking
more than their allotted sick time or more days than
they actually need. And when they begin calling in
sick on too many Monday or Friday mornings, who
picks up the slack and handles the extra work? More
important, who responds to customer requests?’’
To address absenteeism, then, many small businesses
that employ workers have established one of
two absenteeism policies. The first of these is a traditional
absenteeism policy that distinguishes between
excused and unexcused absences.


Under such policies,
employees are provided with a set number of
sick days (also sometimes called ‘‘personal’’ days in
recognition that employees occasionally need to take
time off to attend to personal/family matters) and a set
number of vacation days. Workers who are absent
from work after exhausting their sick days are required
to use vacation days under this system. Absences
that take place after both sick and vacation
days have been exhausted are subject to disciplinary
action. The second policy alternative, commonly
known as a ‘‘no-fault’’ system, permits each employee
a specified number of absences (either days or
‘‘occurrences,’’ in which multiple days of continuous
absence are counted as a single occurrence) annually
and does not consider the reason for the employee’s
absence. As with traditional absence policies, once the
employee’s days have been used up, he or she is
subject to disciplinary action.
‘‘USE IT OR LOSE IT’’ Some companies do not allow
employees to carry sick days over from year to year.
The benefits and disadvantages of this policy continue
to be debated in businesses across the country. Some
analysts contend that most employees do not require
large numbers of sick days, and that systems that
allow carryovers are more likely to be abused by poor
employees than appropriately utilized by good employees,
who, if struck down by a long-term illness,
often have disability alternatives. But Markowich
warns that ‘‘today, most employees feel entitled to a
specified number of sick days. And if they don’t take
those days, they feel that they are losing a promised
benefit. Your company may be inadvertently reinforcing
this ‘use it or lose it’attitude by establishing
policies under which employees ‘lose’their sick time
if it is not used by the end of the year.’’