Doing away with our sick leave

Ms_Shepard

After much complaining on my part about sick leave abusers in our organization, Senior Management is now looking at options. Currently, we have a generous amount of leave, 12 days sick leave per year, 10 days vacation the first year, 15 after the first year and 20 after the second year. Vacation leave can be carried over and is paid out upon leaving the organization. Our policy attracts many who like to take three or four days off a month, usually unscheduled.

Senior Management did not want to go totally to a PTO policy and has proposed this: Vacation leave times stay the same. Sick leave is abolished all together, and in it's place, an employee would get five days of personal leave that could be used for illness, or anything else. The personal leave could not be carried over. Currently, the sick leave can be carried over, but is not paid out upon leaving the organization.

Any input is welcome.

Down_the_Middle

From an organizational standpoint, this should save you some $'s.... Employees, however, will almost certainly view this as a "take away" and while you're free to change the benefits at your discretion (assuming there's no CBA), you'll likely have an employee relations problem on your hands. You don't say whether you have an STD or LTD plan in place.... One thing you can do it to take the difference between the employee's total accrued sick pay and 5 days and convert this to some extended illness account to be used for a lengthy absence. Presumably new hires come in with 5 days and the remainder of the workforce gradually transends to the new policy...... I think you need to soften the impact for your current staff, otherwise, you're probably slamming everyone for the infractions of a few.......... involve the staff in your dilemma and you might be able to lead them to a mutually agreeable solution. Good luck....

Ms_Shepard

Thanks for your input. We do have STD and LTD. The sick time already accrued would not be taken away.

jimlegal

Possibly a sick leave and or time away from work policy might be helpful. One that may require a doctors note, prior to returning to work, say after the second time missed in a thrity day period? Just a thought...

JudyRoy

We had the same problem. Our "fix" was to reduce the amount of sick leave from 12 to 6 days per year and give the employee the option of carrying over their sick leave or paying it out at the end of the year if they didn't use it. Most opted for the payout (they can not be paid for more than 6 days in any one year). This saved a lot in overtime costs as we had to pay the person who was out sick and then overtime for someone to fill in at the last minute. This has been working great for us for 5 years now. You'd be surprised how many aren't "sick" as much anymore!