Employees Calling Out “Sick” (United States)

This Wisdom of the Crowd (ACC member discussion) seeks advice in dealing with employees regularly calling in "sick" near weekends and holidays. This resource was compiled from questions and responses posted on the forum of the Employment & Labor Law and Small Law Department ACC Networks.*

*(Permission was received from the ACC members quoted below prior to publishing their forum Comments in this Wisdom of the Crowd resource.)

Question:

Does anyone have a policy in place which helps discourage employees from regularly calling in "sick" or otherwise on Mondays or Fridays? This seems to be happening more and more often lately and we're trying to come up with a creative way of handling it. Our employee handbook only requires doctor's notes for 3+ days absences. The employees seem to be okay with missing pay when they've run out of PTO. I appreciate any suggestions.

Wisdom of the Crowd:

• Response #1: We have rules against short notice call offs. Those rules provide the justification for looking more closely at suspicious patterns like Mondays and Fridays. We've addressed Monday/Friday patterns without having a specific policy on that, but because it is disruptive.ⁱ

• Response #2: You take disciplinary action against them and then fire them if it keeps happening.ⁱⁱ

• Response #3: You don't need a policy on this. An employee with a pattern of calling in "sick" on Mondays, Fridays, the day before/after holidays or scheduled vacation days, is abusing your sick leave system and should be subject to disciplinary action. Even if you have a policy of not requiring a doctor's note except for absences of more than 3 days (and you should review that policy also based on FMLA compliance issues and HIPPA/ADA privacy concerns), you can require an explanation from an employee with a pattern of suspicious absences and if you are not satisfied with the explanation, you can properly discipline the employee (provided the absences are not documented as qualifying for FMLA protection). You don't have to have a written policy statement for things that are intuitively an indication of bad behavior or poor work performance.ⁱⁱⁱ

• Response #4: I think [Response #3] covers it well; the only thing I'd add is to confirm that you're looking at a pattern with regard to the individuals prompting a concern. I recall this was the basis of a Dilbert comic several years ago; the Pointy-Haired Boss was outraged when he learned that 40% of all unscheduled absences occurred on a Monday or a Friday (failing to concurrently appreciate that 40% of all workdays did, too).^iv

• Response #5: Unfortunately, I do not have a policy to share but at a former employer, we had a policy that allowed disciplinary action based on excessive and abusive absenteeism, which included as examples a pattern of unscheduled absences on the same day of the week (such as Monday or Friday) or the day before or after a holiday. I think a pattern was defined as 3 or more occurrences of a 3-month period, but I cannot recall if that was the actual definition. The policy encouraged staff to work in advance with their supervisor if they had personal or household responsibilities on a particular day of the week to determine if a flexible schedule would be appropriate without an impact on the business needs of the unit. The company was in the business of professional services so we did not have union or shift workers so flexible works schedules were allowed in some areas (e.g., start at 10 am instead of 8am). The policy was quite detailed in the definitions to try to have consistency among supervisors but because it was tied into a progressive discipline program the superior had to monitor and counsel an employee, with opportunity to correct, before there could be a discharge due to absenteeism.^v

• Response #6: I think that some positive incentives could help in this situation, though of course your strategy may depend on how large your organization is and how critical those employees are who are taking 3-day weekends. Our organization is very large and there are some built in incentives that I think are motivating for staff. First, there is an annual 3.5% salary increase that is only awarded if employees are performing as expected - this takes into account reliability in showing up to work. Second, hourly employees get a small quarterly boost to their accrued PTO if they have "perfect" attendance – our employees rely on this for planning vacations, etc. I could double check, but I think it is at least a half-day extra per quarter, so 2 extra vacation days a year.^vi