Sick Leave and Chronic Absenteeism

I recently came across a study that caught my interest. Have you ever wondered how many of employees who call in sick are actually ill? A 2003 study by Harris Interactive found that only 36% who claim to be sick are sick. Not only is this figure disturbing, the trend is disquieting. It seems that back in 1995 45% of those taking sick leave were sick; we have lost 9 % in 8 years.

A summary of the full study is available at www.cch.com in an article titled Unscheduled Absence Survey. The actual data on the reasons given for using sick leave, as provided by Harris Interactive:

36% Sick

11% Stress

13% Entitled to their sick leave

18% Personal matters

22% Family Matters

100%

The study also viewed the data from the standpoint of companies with very good morale (12%) and good morale (44%), fair morale (34%) and poor morale (10%). As you might guess, morale did have a marked impact on absenteeism. Companies with very good/good morale had an overall absenteeism rate of 1.8% compared with 2.1% for companies with fair/poor moral. More importantly, Companies with very good/good morale saw an increase in absenteeism of 34% compared to 15%.

There was one other thought-provoking piece of information in the study. It seems that there are a growing number of employees who have decided that they would rather be sick at work than to stay home (presenteeism). Suffering at work, for these employees, is better than suffering at home and you get to save your sick leave for more important things. Obviously, from the employer’s perspective, this can be more of a problem then absenteeism.

There are a number of different responses that one might take to this information. One response is to view it in the context of data, as reported in e-zine #6, that employees are on average working 199 more hours per year than they were thirty years ago. In that case, the use of sick leave to reduce stress or deal with personal/family matters may seem quite reasonable.

Another way of looking at the problem is to find in the data support to beef up your absenteeism policy. The implementation and regular enforcement of a no-fault absenteeism program may very well be justified and cost-effective. Details on how to implement such a program were provided in e-zine #3 and I will be happy to resend that e-zine if you did not receive it or have misplaced it. However, 96% of companies responding to the survey indicated that they had a discipline policy related to absenteeism. This fact makes me wonder both as to the consistent application of the policy and/or the overall effectiveness of formal discipline as an approach to address the problem.

Finally, the survey clearly provides support for modifying the employer’s approach to the larger issue of structuring the program by which employees take time off from work. The old approach is to make a distinction between time off that is an earned benefit (vacation and holidays) with time off that is protected in the form of an insurance policy – only those who need it should use it (funeral leave, sick leave, personal leave, jury duty). The survey mentions that more and more employers are changing to a single paid time off program (PTO) by combining all of the above. This seems fully justified since so many employees do not make a distinction between the two. Moreover, a PTO program is so much easier to administer.

Given the significance of the absenteeism issue, I have decided to devote the next e-zine to laying out the issues and approaches to a PTO program. So, stay tuned, there is some good stuff to come.