Absenteeism costs the British economy millions of lost working days per year. Not surprisingly, companies are hitting back. Is the sickie doomed?
Pick up the phone, put on your gravel voice and convince your boss that it would be selfish of you to come into the office and inflict your disease-infested germs on everyone else. It’s that easy to pull a sickie and the rewards are a whole day to do whatever you want on the company’s expense. Few drinks the night before, the prospect of a sport of shopping or even just a sunny day can tempt even the most conscientious of us into trying it on.
But businesses are striking back and the sickie may have had its day. An increasing number of companies are monitoring employee’s absence rates and investigating the reasons why people take time off work and ways to conquer the trend.
Tesco is one such firm. Last year the supermarket giant introduced ‘attendance management procedures’ to tackle the problem of absenteeism. Every worker who had taken sick leave had to have a ‘return to work’ interview with a store manager to identify why they called in sick.
They found that in a substantial number of cases the reason given wasn’t due to a genuine sickness. Workers were then given a list of options. That might mean working unpaid overtime to compensate or marking the day off as a holiday.
Workers who had two consecutive days off had to endure an even more rigorous interview, and had their attendance monitored. If they were found to have exceed five per cent of their total annual working days, they would face a further interview and the possibility of being banned from overtime opportunities for up to six weeks. If the problem continued the worker could be in line for the sack.
Although this appears harsh, it makes commercial sense. Tesco predicts absenteeism was costing them between £30 million and £40 million a year and was adversely affecting customer service. Since the interview procedure began, the rate of absenteeism has fallen from 5.8 per cent to 4.6 per cent within a year.
According to Keith Luxon, human resources policy manager at Tesco, people will take off more sick days if they don’t think they will be missed, a situation far more likely to occur in large organisations. Statistics support his argument. According to the Employment Health Bulletin, on average, employees in companies with fewer than 100 workers took off six sick days less than those who work in companies with over 5,000 staff. If the 228 working days, women take, on average, 7.8 days off, with men taking 5.7 days.
Adecco’s Stuart Neill echoes this argument, suggesting that the level of absenteeism depends on how valued the employee is mad to feel by the employer. Creating an environment of ‘no glass ceilings’ and rewarding success will help reduce absenteeism, although the commission-based atmosphere of the recruitment industry helps to reduce the problem anyway.
According to Mr Neill, the problem is more prevalent with temporary workers that recruiters place. “Among our temporary staff the problem of absenteeism depends on the client,” he says. “The actual day-to-day management of temporary workers is down to the client and if they don’t look after people properly then absenteeism is often higher.
“Absenteesim can be avoided through good management and the client has a responsibility to enure the temp is happy in the work environment. The best employers make sure there is no differentiation between temporary and permanent staff. Xerox are brilliant for this and have a very low absenteeism record because of it.”
When Adecco supplies workers to a client, it give the client advice and guidance on how to treat the temporary worker. Mr Neill says this helps remove a lot of the problems temps encounter, and benefits all parties as it pleases the client, helps the temp and enhances Adecco’s reputation.
“Ultimately the responsibility is with us and many of the temps we place with our larger clients are classed as Adecco employees so we have to deal with the,. If we find somebody has a record of absenteeism we investigate the reasons for that and try and help that person.”
He does admit that some temporary workers simply haven’t got the right attitude to work and in that case Adecco tries to distance itself from the worker.
If creating a good work environment fails to stop permanent workers from taking sickies the law appears to be on the employers’ side. In most cases, where an employee regularly takes days off and cannot produce sickness note, the employer is perfectly within their rights to dismiss the worker. Even if the employee is genuinely ill they can still be dismissed if the employer can prove that it is affecting the performance of the company.
Michel Huff, senior employment law specialist at law firm Peninsula, is surprised tht companies didn’t take the Tesco route earlier and is confident that many businesses will follow the example.
He warns that there are a number of pitfalls employers should watch out for when looking to dismiss overly absent workers. For example, Tesco found that parents who had to look after sick children or other dependable took a substantial number of sick days. Under the Parental Rights Act, parents are entitled to take these days off, although for no pay.
Another problem employers encounter is the lack of assistance given by doctors. Mr Huff cites certain areas of the country, which he calls ‘sick note cities’, where doctors will give out sick notes without even seeing the patients first. Also doctor’s notes can be vague and in most instances unhelpful. Unless the employment contract states that the employer can demand and independent medical assessment, the employee is protected.
Mr Huff also warns employers about the Disability Discrimination Act, which gives workers who have long-term illnesses protection. Although employers can dismiss someone because of a long-term disability, they have to conduct as much research as possible as to whether that person could do the job if supplied with the right equipment. A dismissed assembly line worker who had a back complaint recently sued a large manufacturer for a significant sum under the act. The company looked at ways to accommodate the worker, but the tribunal found that they did not do enough. It was found that the worker could have been supplied with a special chair, which would have helped the worker’s back complaint.
He says: “The law surrounding the issue of absenteeism is complicated and depends on a whole host of variables. As the saying goes, ‘one rotten apple can ruin the whole barrel’ and that does apply to business and workers.” Which is why Tesco, and surely a host of other businesses, have decided to attempt to cure the problem of the sickie.