Forums
Sick days taken Fridays and Mondays
Benefits & Compensation
Sick days taken Fridays and Mondays
Exchange ideas about health plans, retirement, work/life benefits, and employee assistance.
Lately many staff in my department are calling in sick on Friday or Monday...just one day at a time, which makes it difficult to ask for doctors notes. This is impairing our productivity, and it also
1
Cat:Topic ForumsForum:ForumId52
Cat:Topic ForumsForum:ForumId52Discussion:DiscussionId36425
Forums » Topic Forums » Benefits & Compensation » Sick days taken Fridays and Mondays
|
Sick days taken Fridays and Mondays
posted at 4/21/2010 11:48 AM EDT
|
Posts: 1
First: 4/21/2010 Last: 4/21/2010 |
This is normal human behaviour and may signal a degree of disengagement. I would look at the direct manager and peer relationships. Recapturing the intrinsic motivation, required for an attendance level where an employee will come to work and perform unless they are really sick or has another legitimate reason, requires a wider view rather than looking to policy. After all, having a person attend every day does not automatically mean you will obtain the desired performance level. |
|
|
Sick days taken Fridays and Mondays
posted at 4/21/2010 1:19 PM EDT
|
|
Posts: 2
First: 3/26/2009 Last: 4/21/2010 |
I assume this is the worker's entitlement that can be used when appropriate. The fact that it occurs on a Monday or Friday is not the issue. Is the issue is that we want to do it but are restrained from doing so?
The best time to take off is Wednesday or Thursday because it breaks up the week, stalls work (beacuse that is when meetings tend to occur) and disrupts others more so than taking the other days |
|
|
Sick days taken Fridays and Mondays
posted at 4/21/2010 5:05 PM EDT
|
|
Posts: 562
First: 11/12/2009 Last: 9/14/2011 |
Unplanned absences are NOT a worker's entitlement. An employer can and should establish an attendance policy that limits the number of unplanned absences before a progressive discipline policy kicks in.
|
|
|
Sick days taken Fridays and Mondays
posted at 4/22/2010 3:31 AM EDT
|
|
Posts: 1
First: 4/22/2010 Last: 4/22/2010 |
That you report many staff members taking Monday or Friday off as a sick day tells me a couple of things. 1) Your sick policy may be too generous if more than one or two employees can regularly afford to "burn" sick days to create a three-day weekend for themselves. 2) Your staff members agree, on some level, that they need the three-day weekends more than they are motivated to report to work.
Some of the comments by other posters (cracking down hard, moving quickly before absenteeism becomes a serious problem, etc.) could help this issue become a cause celebre and make you appear authoritarian. It will also diminish the professionalism that you want to instill and maintain. Moving to a PTO bank, on the other hand, acknowledges that employees are adults who will use their sick days appropriately. Beyond the PTO bank, however, it sounds as if your employees aren't motivated to work as a team of professionals. Changing their outlook will require you to do some team building that's not superficial. |
|
|
Sick days taken Fridays and Mondays
posted at 4/22/2010 4:18 AM EDT
|
|
Posts: 1
First: 4/22/2010 Last: 4/22/2010 |
Depending on the work environment why not add to your attendence policy a section about monday-friday sick days. Many years ago in a factory environment when m-f absense resulted in production issues we amended the policy to state that at the 3rd instance of a sick call-in on a monday or friday would be subject to review/written warning if a doctors note was not provided. A suggestion was was to charge a double sick day at the 3rd instance - but it was not done. |
|
|
Sick days taken Fridays and Mondays
posted at 4/22/2010 10:09 AM EDT
|
|
Posts: 3
First: 4/22/2010 Last: 5/4/2011 |
Oh, boy, here we go...
1 - is it really as bad as it seems (I've found that this problem is generally overstated)? 2 - could be people are getting burned out. 3 - does your time off policy treat people like adults or are denials of time off common and bosses unapproachable? 4 - is it really causing that many productivity issues (often, this is overstated, also)? 5 - do you have a policy that tracks patterned absences (absences on the same day of the week over and over)? 6 - is this something that started happening in recent months? If so what/who changed in your company? 7 - we had problems with Monday absences this past fall and winter. They've since stopped. Why? Because people were getting exposed to other people over the weekend and becoming sick. I had a Monday and a Friday through Monday absence for this very reason. Do some corporate self-reflection before getting out the policy bludgeon. Talk to the people and have an honest, no-consequences dialogue to see if you can find out what's driving the behavior (if in fact it's actually as bad as it seems). |
Forums » Topic Forums » Benefits & Compensation » Sick days taken Fridays and Mondays
