Okay - I got one!
mwild31
1,441 Posts
Here's my dilemna...
I'm the HR Manager of a manufacturing company. We have 3 locations, two of which are in Washington State and one that is in North Carolina. All told, we have approx. 325 full time employees in Washington State (the other 60 are temp-to-hire employees) and 59 full time employees in North Carolina. We are a non-union shop and my issue involves our different sick leave policies.
About 25 years ago, the founder of the company, created a liberal sick leave policy. An employee could take as many as 30 paid sick days per incident. Production folks didn't immediately get the paid 30 days. Instead they had to follow this schedule:
1st day missed no pay
2nd day missed 2 hours of pay
3rd day missed 4 hours of pay
4th day missed 6 hours of pay
5th day missed Full pay (8 hrs).
6th day and up 30 work days
About 4 years ago, we changed the policy (we were experiencing extreme abuse) in Washington State and eliminated the 30 paid sick days and put in place a traditional sick policy of 40 paid hours per year. We also created a Short Term Disability bank for the Washington Folks. The Short Term Disability bank was preloaded with hours based on how long you were with the company. Anyone here longer than 20 years, received 200 hours in their bank. The max. someone can have in their bank is 480 hours. They get more hours in their bank if they don't use their sick time during the year. In other words, don't use it & bank it at the end of the year. It has mostly been viewed as a win-win benefit by the employees.
However, although we changed in Washington, we didn't force the North Carolina group to follow, so they've kept the old 30 paid days policy. Now, with a new HR Manager (me - I can't believe I've been here over a year already) and a new President at North Carolina, I think it's time to change their policy to our policy & I'm facing opposition from the plant manager.
His argument is three-fold:
1. We don't have an attendance problem at NC. On a per employee paid sick average, they exceed the hours of our corporate location (one of the locations in Washington). We have an average of 21.65 hours per person and they have an average of 28.18 hours per person. Their argument is that if we eliminated the 6-7 "high rollers" from the total, they would average less than 5 hours per person. Sure they would, but that's not the total number that we are looking at - we are looking at the big picture.
2. There's a great incentive to the current program - you don't call in sick a lot. This seems particularly harsh. Someone has a sick kid and if you stay home then you'll lose a day of pay. Have the flu & are throwing up, if you stay home you'll lose pay. The policy seems to penalize people for taking care of themselves.
3. It sounds like an extra week of vacation to me. This argument particularly boils me. It's not vacation - it's sick time. It's only supposed to be used as sick time & if people abuse it - discipline 'em. We're managers, we need to manage.
This has been a long post, but I'm curious as to your thoughts on how to turn them around or even hear a different point of view. I'm also curious as to which metrics I can use to show that 30 day program is a liability. Any thoughts?
I'm the HR Manager of a manufacturing company. We have 3 locations, two of which are in Washington State and one that is in North Carolina. All told, we have approx. 325 full time employees in Washington State (the other 60 are temp-to-hire employees) and 59 full time employees in North Carolina. We are a non-union shop and my issue involves our different sick leave policies.
About 25 years ago, the founder of the company, created a liberal sick leave policy. An employee could take as many as 30 paid sick days per incident. Production folks didn't immediately get the paid 30 days. Instead they had to follow this schedule:
1st day missed no pay
2nd day missed 2 hours of pay
3rd day missed 4 hours of pay
4th day missed 6 hours of pay
5th day missed Full pay (8 hrs).
6th day and up 30 work days
About 4 years ago, we changed the policy (we were experiencing extreme abuse) in Washington State and eliminated the 30 paid sick days and put in place a traditional sick policy of 40 paid hours per year. We also created a Short Term Disability bank for the Washington Folks. The Short Term Disability bank was preloaded with hours based on how long you were with the company. Anyone here longer than 20 years, received 200 hours in their bank. The max. someone can have in their bank is 480 hours. They get more hours in their bank if they don't use their sick time during the year. In other words, don't use it & bank it at the end of the year. It has mostly been viewed as a win-win benefit by the employees.
However, although we changed in Washington, we didn't force the North Carolina group to follow, so they've kept the old 30 paid days policy. Now, with a new HR Manager (me - I can't believe I've been here over a year already) and a new President at North Carolina, I think it's time to change their policy to our policy & I'm facing opposition from the plant manager.
His argument is three-fold:
1. We don't have an attendance problem at NC. On a per employee paid sick average, they exceed the hours of our corporate location (one of the locations in Washington). We have an average of 21.65 hours per person and they have an average of 28.18 hours per person. Their argument is that if we eliminated the 6-7 "high rollers" from the total, they would average less than 5 hours per person. Sure they would, but that's not the total number that we are looking at - we are looking at the big picture.
2. There's a great incentive to the current program - you don't call in sick a lot. This seems particularly harsh. Someone has a sick kid and if you stay home then you'll lose a day of pay. Have the flu & are throwing up, if you stay home you'll lose pay. The policy seems to penalize people for taking care of themselves.
3. It sounds like an extra week of vacation to me. This argument particularly boils me. It's not vacation - it's sick time. It's only supposed to be used as sick time & if people abuse it - discipline 'em. We're managers, we need to manage.
This has been a long post, but I'm curious as to your thoughts on how to turn them around or even hear a different point of view. I'm also curious as to which metrics I can use to show that 30 day program is a liability. Any thoughts?
Comments
We allow three incidents of sick leave per year with no documentation. They can be up to a day but even going home an hour early with a headache counts as an incident. After that, the employee would have to seek medical care to have paid sick leave. Use of these undocumented sick leave days is noted on the yearly review as I do not believe that employees can have exactly three incidents per year (no more and no less) and have that happen each and every year. By the way, when we went from three days to three incidents, now most all undocumented sick leave is for a full 8 hours. Going home ill or with a headache is very rare now. This tells me the former policy was abused just as I thought.
Bottom line: Everybody gets sick some time. You do want the sick leave for your good employees. Abuse is the price that must be paid for the positive benefit of sick leave. My argument to the other location would be that they knew who their abusers were and yet either did not weed them our or did not demand medical certificates or take other corrective action. That was their choice and this choice drives the corporate decision to make the new policy uniform for both locations.
Last year we changed our sick policy to include usage for parents with children so if the employee was sick and provided a doctor's note, it was a freebie. If the child was sick and the ee provided a doctor's note, another freebie.
Talk about abuse: over 3 quarters we lost approximately $990,000.00 because of the obvious abuse. Therefore we have recently come up with the plan that you get 2 doctor's notes and then you begin accruing absences....and if you use your 5 in a rolling 12 month period, then you're out. EE's can also begin using sick time at the 6 month mark of employment.
Don't know about the metrics but 30 days is a first for me....doesn't the employer qualify for FMLA?
Just random thoughts...good luck!
Jane in Lexington
Why not just start requiring doctor's notes to qualify for the sick leave?
Baby steps Mandi, baby steps.
Plus I DO see a problem in #1. They have 6-7 "high rollers" out of 59 employees. That's a problem.
It's definitely an interesting situation I find myself in and we are going to have a follow up conference call this week. Thanks to those who have offered their comments!
x:-)