[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 06-21-04 AT 02:43PM (CST)[/font][br][br]It looks like Carrie is looking for a no-fault, point kind of attendance system. We don't have that at my company. We don't have much of a policy on it at all. We have a no call/no show policy of 3 consecutive days (pretty standard) and administered consistently, regardless of years of service. However, our policy statement on absenteeism simply says that repeated absenteeism / tardiness can result in disciplinary action. No definition of "repeated". We would evaluate each situation and treat similarly situated employees the same. I don't necessarily disagree with no fault systems, but in our environment, our practice works. A termination for attendance of a short-term employee has never lead to any kind of charge because we may not have termed a long-term employee with the same type of attendance issues. We are a very large, non-union employer.
Just because an employee has five weeks of PTO on the books doesn't mean he can take those five weeks off whenever he wants to with no repercussions. The employer has the right the approve or deny requests to use PTO (unless for illness, emergency reasons, or a protected leave). So, even if an employee has enough PTO to cover their absences, they still may be subject to disciplinary action. We allow our employees to accrue leave up to 2,080 hours. We certainly wouldn't allow an employee to take off a whole year paid just because he has the PTO to cover it.
Your no-call policy makes perfect sense to me and mirrors ours, except ours is two days. Some would suggest, however, that if you have a 20 year employee who no-call/no-showed three days in a row you should launch an investigation as to why and what might be wrong in their lives or otherwise. My take is that you administer it consistently. In other words, the employee has self-terminated on the third day if I read you right.
[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 06-21-04 AT 10:15PM (CST)[/font][br][br]My guess is that the company would probably try to contact the 20 year employee and then see what should be done.
This type of situation of x number of consecutive days of absence without a call in to the employer should be handled in that way. If the non-report/callin results in the employer terminating the employee then that's okay.
If in a couple of days the employee contacted the emplyer and explained and documented an unusual situation that resulted in an inability to come to work or call in, then that's where the emplyer may want to consider the work history of the empolyee to decide whether to take the emplyee back.
Wouldn't you do it that way Don?
Or would you just say, "Forget the 20 years of good work and our tremendous investment in you. Despite the difficulty you had, you violated our call in policy for 4 days out of those 20 years, so, you're gone!"
[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 06-21-04 AT 10:34PM (CST)[/font][br][br]Unless an employee is in a coma or in a car accident in the bottom of a ditch or otherwise shows that he could absolutely not contact the company, there is no further inquiry into the situation. No shows are no shows.
I will forever disagree with that tired analogy of yours, "Do what is right". That's left totally to the whims of who is at the moment defining 'right'. I don't like the danger that suggests. You don't seek out people to have them explain absences when you have a clear policy with precise sanctions. The 30 year guy who is a no show is no less a no show than the 6 month guy who is a no show. Again, and hopefully for the last time, the message you clearly send to employees is, "The longer you work here, the less seriously you need to take our policies, and finally you will reach a destination along that continuum where you will get passes for your behavior as perks for your loyalty."
Don, I agree with you. The whole point of policies is so that every employee (including those with many years of service) are aware of what is and is not acceptable in the workplace. Why even bother having an employee handbook if you aren't going to ask your more tenured employees follow the rules. I think that having blanket policies make it better for everyone...there is never any gray area, everyone is aware of the consequences of their actions, no matter how long they have been with the company.
In the few no call/no show situations I've been involved in, we did try to contact the employees, regardless of what kind of employee they were, to see if there was anything wrong. In one case, we were actually trying to RIF the employee and thought he had gotten wind of it so decided to not show up out of denial. We tried to contact him for a couple of days and finally overnighted his termination package. When we didn't hear from him that day, we contacted the police to do a welfare check and he was lying on the floor of his house unconscious (he'd had a stroke). Awful story. We rescinded his term & put him on disability/FMLA . Talk about rotten timing. But I guess, it ended up saving his life because he had no family or anyone else who noticed he wasn't around for a few days.
Carrie, there are clearly lots of different views on this issue and I guess that's no surprise to me. Policies reflect the culture of the company and like people, each company is different.
I support the right of each company to adopt the culture that works for them the best. If the culture that works is "just the cold hard facts" and "one size fits all" then so be it, it's their culture.
For me though, the seven tests of just cause have provided a framework for these decisions that have served me well for over 30 years. For those that are not familar with them they are: (somewhat abbreviated)
1. Was the employee adequately warned? (policy posted etc.) 2. Was the rule reasonable 3. Was a thorough investigation conducted? 4. Was the investigation fair and objective? 5. Did the investigation produce substantial proof of guilt? 6. Were the rules enforced without discrimination? (Title VII) 7. Was the penalty related to the seriosness of the offense? If Employee A's past record is significantly better than Employe B's, the company may properly give A a lighter punishment than B for the same offense.
In summary, I use all the facts to make the decision including past record. Now that you've gotten every type of advice humanly possible...make your culture decision. Good luck.
Jake: Not to be disagreeable, just to disagree. There are not 'lots of different views on this issue'. There appear to only be two. One, a consistent, hard line enforcement of attendance policies and the other, discipline by analysis and review.
Company culture is optional and somewhat based on the personality of the company's leadership and paths chosen. Enforcement of an attendance policy doesn't so much reflect the 'culture of a company' as it reflects the experience of many seminars, expert labor law advice and years of hearing the EEOC's mantra of consistent application of attendance policies, shored up by as many years learning of that expectation in hundreds of UI hearings. I only have 35 years in the discipline, but have never, ever known a pure attendance policy to entertain subjective extraneous considerations, outside those the law prescribes, such as FMLA.
We have heard from three of you who support that. Many others have voiced support for the other approach. I like your seven steps and certainly have often used them in disciplinary considerations OTHER THAN the several cut and dried policies the companies I've worked for have. But, in a large manufacturing environment with anywhere from 7 to 15 individuals committing attendance infractions on any given day, if we muddled through seven steps of just cause for each of them, we'd have little or no time for anything else. That's why the overwhelming majority of work environments strictly apply their attendance policies.
Welcome to the Forum. I've enjoyed your participation in this particular debate. x:-)
I have to agree with Don on this one. As long as it is a cut and dried policy - as our attendance is (though some might not think so!) - there's no time to apply seven steps. I work with 1200 employees - I can just imagine how time consuming it would be to evaluate each absence/late start/early quit. Now, that's not to say we don't get our butts kicked in UI every once in a while because the terminating absence was "beyond the employee's control." Of course, no one pays attention to the 10 he had before that put him in a terminating position in the first place.
Don...thanks for the welcome, I've enjoyed the debate. I find it an interesting fact that two who have a combined 65 years of experience can have a completely different approach to this basic issue. Perhaps that's why for many, this field is the most interesting career possible and others find it terrifying.
I respect your position on this issue and shall defend your right to be incorrect with my last breath. J/K..have a good evening
Good one Jake. I can tell already that I will enjoy your contributions, but, more than that, your humor. I can't live without several injections every day of good humor. Too many people have a frown and serious face on all day long. So, again welcome, but this time, welcome to the minority. x:D
Just wondering what you all consider a "tardy" ? Do you have a "minimum" before you consider it tardy.. 5 min., 10 min... ? I am having a meeting with managers on Friday regarding this and I know it's going to be asked - just curious what you all do...
Comments
Just because an employee has five weeks of PTO on the books doesn't mean he can take those five weeks off whenever he wants to with no repercussions. The employer has the right the approve or deny requests to use PTO (unless for illness, emergency reasons, or a protected leave). So, even if an employee has enough PTO to cover their absences, they still may be subject to disciplinary action. We allow our employees to accrue leave up to 2,080 hours. We certainly wouldn't allow an employee to take off a whole year paid just because he has the PTO to cover it.
This type of situation of x number of consecutive days of absence without a call in to the employer should be handled in that way. If the non-report/callin results in the employer terminating the employee then that's okay.
If in a couple of days the employee contacted the emplyer and explained and documented an unusual situation that resulted in an inability to come to work or call in, then that's where the emplyer may want to consider the work history of the empolyee to decide whether to take the emplyee back.
Wouldn't you do it that way Don?
Or would you just say, "Forget the 20 years of good work and our tremendous investment in you. Despite the difficulty you had, you violated our call in policy for 4 days out of those 20 years, so, you're gone!"
Otherwise, no chocolate pudding for DESSERT!! x:9
I agree with you. The whole point of policies is so that every employee (including those with many years of service) are aware of what is and is not acceptable in the workplace. Why even bother having an employee handbook if you aren't going to ask your more tenured employees follow the rules. I think that having blanket policies make it better for everyone...there is never any gray area, everyone is aware of the consequences of their actions, no matter how long they have been with the company.
I support the right of each company to adopt the culture that works for them the best. If the culture that works is "just the cold hard facts" and "one size fits all" then so be it, it's their culture.
For me though, the seven tests of just cause have provided a framework for these decisions that have served me well for over 30 years. For those that are not familar with them they are: (somewhat abbreviated)
1. Was the employee adequately warned? (policy posted etc.)
2. Was the rule reasonable
3. Was a thorough investigation conducted?
4. Was the investigation fair and objective?
5. Did the investigation produce substantial proof of guilt?
6. Were the rules enforced without discrimination? (Title VII)
7. Was the penalty related to the seriosness of the offense? If Employee A's past record is significantly better than Employe B's, the company may properly give A a lighter punishment than B for the same offense.
In summary, I use all the facts to make the decision including past record. Now that you've gotten every type of advice humanly possible...make your culture decision. Good luck.
Company culture is optional and somewhat based on the personality of the company's leadership and paths chosen. Enforcement of an attendance policy doesn't so much reflect the 'culture of a company' as it reflects the experience of many seminars, expert labor law advice and years of hearing the EEOC's mantra of consistent application of attendance policies, shored up by as many years learning of that expectation in hundreds of UI hearings. I only have 35 years in the discipline, but have never, ever known a pure attendance policy to entertain subjective extraneous considerations, outside those the law prescribes, such as FMLA.
We have heard from three of you who support that. Many others have voiced support for the other approach. I like your seven steps and certainly have often used them in disciplinary considerations OTHER THAN the several cut and dried policies the companies I've worked for have. But, in a large manufacturing environment with anywhere from 7 to 15 individuals committing attendance infractions on any given day, if we muddled through seven steps of just cause for each of them, we'd have little or no time for anything else. That's why the overwhelming majority of work environments strictly apply their attendance policies.
Welcome to the Forum. I've enjoyed your participation in this particular debate. x:-)
I respect your position on this issue and shall defend your right to be incorrect with my last breath. J/K..have a good evening
CarrieMP -
In answer to your original post we have a policy that states:
3 tardies/absences within 6mth period - verbal warning.
4 - 6 tardies/absences within same 6mth period written warning/final.
7 tardies/absences within same 6mth period calls for termination.
If they pass the 6mth period from verbal warning with no further tardies/absences time frame starts over.
I believe that company policies should be followed and consistent.
Hope it helps.
Lisa
XX.01 your late and assessed an incident.