Sick Leaves Issue - Need Urgent Help - DOC Download

dimitrz
Hi

I have recently joined a company in the role of a manager

In the last 6 months I have been here I have noticed a trend of people taking Sick leaves as and when they wish
Sometimes they take two sick leaves along with their normal off days giving them 4 days offs.

Believe it or not most people in the department have close to 8 to 9 sick leaves (overall permitted are 12)


I want to start a system to discourage this process, where people use sick leaves as causal leaves

I want help on how to rate people’s monthly/ quarterly / annual appraisals based on the number of sick leaves taken.

End of the day it has to be a fair parameter but should be strong enough to discourage unwanted sick leaves

If you get what I mean, please help
vipinmanav
Dear,
M very much agreed to u.
pls made some neccesary amendments in ur leave policy.
CL-0.5 a month
SL-0.5 a month
PL-1.5 a month--after 6 month he/she can availed.
so a employee will earn 0.5 cl & same SL.
it means in a quarter -0.5*3=1.5 only/-
PL-1.5*12=18
this can be done.
Don't club SL with PL.
Regards
Vipin
Anurag Jain
Hi Dimitrz,
You have to review the leave policy and its the implementation part which can make the discipline. I am also agreed with Vipin. Please see the leave policy and chalk out a plan of effective implementation.
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Anurag Jain
Hi Dimitrz,
You have to review the leave policy and its the implementation part which can make the discipline. I am also agreed with Vipin. Please see the attached leave policy. It's the implementation part which support you to control the issues.
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dimitrz
Thank you Anurag and Vipin
However what I was ideally looking at was how to fairly penalise team members if they end up taking too many sick leaves
ie: How do I make sure the SL impact during their apprisal ( unless its due to a long SL where there is proof via medical certificate)
Hope you got my query :)
vidyasdl
Hi dimitrz,
I don't know whether it is possible to change your policiy but it may work:
*Remove sick leave clause from ur policy
*merge SL with CL i.e CL+12 a year
*allow only (CL+12)/12 in a month, rest of availed are to be treated as LWP in month
*it would be of accumulative nature and more than 2 or 3 CLs must to be allowed with medical certi. only
*this would reduce the practice of taking SL frequently and unnecessorily.
*link the leaves availed with the confirmation/increment/promotion policy.
*if employee avails after 3 CLs, as LWP, his confirmation/increment/promotion could be extended on prorata basis. ex. 1 emp. takes 10 or more LWPs in a year his/her confirmation/increment/promotion would be extended for 1 month.
*this is somehow linked with the appraisal of employee.
hope this would be of some help.
Regards,
VK
dimitrz
Yes Vidya
I was looking for something like this " *if employee avails after 3 CLs, as LWP, his confirmation/increment/promotion could be extended on prorata basis. ex. 1 emp. takes 10 or more LWPs in a year his/her confirmation/increment/promotion would be extended for 1 month. "
I just now need to try and get this to work when I give monthly ratings for monthly apprisals :)
dylandolan
Hi,

been reading your thread and AM NOT a HR Professsional however was a senior manager within Internet industry for 8 years. Now am project manager / trainer / facilitator.

Had the same problem in a department of 150 people. We made a major reduction in sick leave by introducing the following steps:

1. One 2 One's with Line Manager

EVERYTIME someone rings in sick, they needed to complete a sick leave form which was then followed by a one 2 one meeting with their TL - this has to happen without fail...through the ranks including YOU with your boss!!!

Impact

This meant that all staff felt that sickness was an issue and was being reviewed everytime it happened. With the message to the management team that there may be levels of sickness that we're missing which could be impacted such as
"I get migraines" - "do you need to get an eye test and wear glasses?"
This actually creates a platform where staff feel attended to and that there is a concern for their welfare. The additional point is that they start to run out of "excuses" for getting out of bed. Patterns can quicly be identified and it's obvious when people just aren't happy in their work. (refer to Herzberg's Hygiene & Motivational Factors). This increases the amount of "can't be bothered!". If this is identified through having a relationship with their line manager this can be addressed by the same by identifying work which will motivate staff to want to come into work.

2. Reward System for Positive Behaviour

I've NEVER seen a penalty system implemented into a workplace that has had a long term positive impact. We reduced our churn rate, in a technical support call centre, from 70% to 7% in 2 years.
Would suggest identifying KPI's that can be attributed to your staff on some base indicators relevant to your area...i.e. Productivity, Accuracy, Punctuality, Attendance.

Then record and mark these on a weekly basis which attributes to a monthly program where the best scores acheive a rank in the department.

For attendance...those that DON'T have a day off sick receive 250 bonus points. Those that are never late all month receive 250 bonus points so on and so forth. Depends what's important in your team.

Impact

This creates an environment where people have goals to acheive and can see the fruits of their labour. You're going to need to request budget for this for rewards, however they don't always need to be financial. You could award an addiitonal days paid holiday or 2 days? Something you can manage internally. Or you can assign the member of staff to a team once a week each month to another department for them to understand how they work as part of their personal development process. Get creative! Find out what motivates them!

As part of all the above you'll need to ensure your line management team all understand the new culture of encouragement. Might be an idea to set up a team scoring process where the best peforming team of the month then is rewarded with a lunch out together paid. Peer pressure is extremely effective!

I've attached a note on Herzbergs theory. Let me know if this is any help. It's the first time I've replied on this site, quite interested.

Thanks

Dylan

Frederick Herzberg – Hygiene and Motivation Factors

1923 - 2000

Frederick Herzberg proposed from his research, that satisfaction and dis-satisfaction at work resulted from two different factors – “Hygiene” and “Motivation” factors.
Hygiene factors
  • Supervision, work conditions, salary, security, relationship with peers and management
Motivation factors
  • Achievement, job itself, recognition, responsibility, advancement.
Herzberg stated all hygiene and motivation factors must be present for job satisfaction. Hygiene factors need to be present to avoid job dis-satisfaction, but will not cause job satisfaction.
Motivation factors need to be present for job satisfaction, and are different to dis-satisfying hygiene factors. Motivation factors are not the opposite reaction to hygiene factors.

Herzberg called the dis-satisfiers "hygiene factors" because they helped prevent dissatisfaction, but in themselves would never provide real satisfaction. Perhaps you have a good salary, in a secure job in a company you like, but there's something missing. You're not dis-satisfied with your work, but you're not satisfied either. The key to job satisfaction is having one or more of the "motivator factors" present.

To put Frederick Herzberg theory into practice, consider these two questions;

1) "Which of these cause me irritation or frustration if I don't have them?"
2) "Which of these when I do have them, make me feel fulfilled and involved in my work?"

Critics consider Herzberg's two factor theory to be simplistic - what motivates me may be a dissatisfier for someone else. For example, increased responsibility for one person may be a motivator as they can grow and develop in their role, allowing them to further their career. But to another person, increased responsibility can be a dis-satisfier, particularly if pay does not reflect the new role or if they are over-stretched already.

To make use of this criticism, you need to consider your team as a collection of individuals, not as a homogeneous group with one set of wants and needs. Take each individual and ask the same two questions, and by the time you've worked through your team, you will have a clear idea what you need to do to increase job satisfaction.

Some factors may be within your control, some may not. For example, it many not be possible to influence company holiday policy, but you could decide within the team how holidays are allocated. Work with what you can change and highlight those you can't to your manager or through the company's employee feedback mechanisms.

Unlike some staff motivation theories, Frederick Herzberg theory is easy to remember, easy to explain and easy to use. By considering Herzberg's two factor theory, you can work out what dis-satisfies your team, what motivates them and most importantly, what you can do to increase job satisfaction.
vidyasdl
Dear Mr. Dylon,

A very warm welcome,

Seems to be a good suggestion for implementation, the only perception of mine is that people get motivated more to save than achieve something by the time.

Ex. :
If an employee is doing everything well, performing excellence, he/she would never want to deteriorate his/her career by taking leaves unneccesorily if this is linked with his/her appraisal because appraisal is the tool that decide your carrer and financial growth, after all employee is working for making himself and his/her family happy for which they would need time and money.

Time and Money are the two factors that affect employees motivation level all around the lifecycle, I agree that some other motivationl factors are also there like esteem, social security, recognition, self actualization etc but at the end of day Time and Money matters with the near and dears.

Motivational boosters must be decided keeping the age of employees in mind.

Let me come to the main question which was put for discussion..... I just want to say or ask how many of you would like to get 250 bonus points in a price of a holiday with your family without loosing your pay? Which is more motivational, getting 250 points or getting your leaves accumulated for a planned vacation with your family members?

I agree with Mr. Dylan,theories can give us a start in creative thinking to design a good motivational program, but to my mind adherence to the theories would not be a justice with them, we will have to think forward keeping time, age, region, culture, work environment, industry type etc in mind while designing a motivational program.

Thanks for putting this deep human behavior discussion to this forum. I would also want to know the openions of my seniors, because all the thoughts described here are of mine only, may be some differences with someone but i would appreciate if they express the differences.

Regard,
VK
dylandolan
I think your missing the point...
My point is, as opposed to setting up a solely penal system against people being sick and taking time off. I'm suggesting rewarding POSITIVE behaviour by attending work.
Which is directly linked to the issue of "how to address the sick leave issues in the work place".
Irrespective of what might work in different workplaces according to cultural or realistic norms...my suggestion to rectify this is to create an environment of awareness and interaction as opposed to "legislation / beuracracy" through additional HR policies.
Does that clarify it more?
your thoughts
Dylan
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