A reader writes:
I am a relatively new manager, and would love your help. I have an employee who, in my opinion, has a sick time problem. Or, alternatively, my workplace has a sick time problem.
Our work environment is such that my employee not showing up for work means someone else needs to carry the weight, and since it’s a very small staff group, that person is me. This involves spending half of the day doing their front-line work, as well as rearranging my schedule (unexpectedly, at the very last minute) to start my day earlier.
We have a set number of sick days for the year (12 at one day earned per month), but no other guidelines on how they can be taken, when, or with what documentation. Each year, including this year, the employee has used all their sick time, and has then started using vacation time they are “reserving” for use as sick time as they know they’ll go over the allotted amount. Sick days are always used as one-off days here and there, never as multiple days in a row. To our knowledge, there are no chronic illnesses involved, they are young, without children, and without any known-of substance abuse problems. I think she’s just “fragile” and calls in over a lot of headaches and stomachaches. If the rate of use were evenly distributed, it would be a sick day every three weeks (and that’s actually pretty much what it has been).
The only thing that seems to be truly concerning my boss is that the employee has used more than they’ve earned for the year, so if they leave, they owe us back money for time (though this is shifting, as I’m heading out on vacation and my boss has waken up to the reliability problem).
So, obviously, something needs to be said, or the policy needs to change, or both. My supervisor and I are planning on meeting with this employee soon, and I’m concerned about saying the right things. But at root, is this simply that the policy has to change and she’s done nothing technically wrong? I know you favor of a system where there are a pool of days, not simply sick days versus vacation days, but I think you’ve also mentioned that that much unplanned time off wasn’t appropriate either. What is an appropriate policy for a small staff group where an absence in a key player means that someone else has to cover their work? No one wants to be difficult about sick time — if you’re sick, you’re sick, so don’t come in — but is the policy too lenient?
First and foremost: Assuming this isn’t covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act or the Family Medical Leave Act, don’t get into adjudicating her reasons for being out so frequently. What matters is the end result — the fact that she isn’t reliably at work.
What often happens in this situation is that the manager thinks, “Well, how can I really tell her that she’s going to be fired for getting a stomachache and staying home? She can’t control that she has a stomachache.” (Or, “I can’t prove that she isn’t sick, even though it seems awfully suspicious.”) But what matters is that the employee is not able to be at work reliably, and that’s where you need to focus.
You shouldn’t get into the business of deciding whose sick days are legitimate and whose aren’t, or whose headache was really severe enough to stay home and whose was minor enough to come in. That’s not your job. Your job is to ensure that you have a reliably present workforce. And right now, you don’t.
So you need to do the following:
1. First, it’s important to note that in some jobs, you’d be able to work around this. But in others, reliable attendance really is a must-have. It sounds like this job really does require her to be there more reliably than she currently is, so sit down with her and say this: “You’ve been missing about one day every three weeks. We need to be able to count on you to be here reliably because of (explain reasons). While certainly things come up from time to time and we want to work with you to accommodate that, right now the frequency of these unplanned absences is too high. Going forward, we really do need you to be here reliably, every day, except in rare circumstances or with time off that’s scheduled in advance. Is that something you can do?”
2. If the employee says that she can’t predict when she’ll get sick, then say: “I understand. But because of (actual workflow reasons), we can’t function as well as we need to if you’re unexpectedly missing work every few weeks. We need someone in your role who will be here more reliably. If you’re not able to do that, I understand, but this particular job really does require it. If you continue to have unplanned absences at this rate, I wouldn’t be able to keep you on.”
That said, in this conversation be open to the possibility that there might be something going on that you could try to accommodate if you knew about it. For example, if she has a medical issue that tends to hit every three weeks or so, is there a way to plan around that so the impact of it being unanticipated on your side is less? Also, is this something where FMLA might help or where the ADA could be in play? But if not…
3. From there, stick to it. If she continues to have unplanned absences at a rate that you find unacceptable (meaning a rate that genuinely causes work problems, not just one that “feels” like too much), you need to decide whether or not you can keep her in the role.
Now, obviously you use some judgment here. If this is a long-term employee whose work has always been good and this is a recent problem, you express concern and ask what’s going on, and you’d go the extra mile to try to find a solution.
4. Stop letting people take paid leave time that they haven’t earned, so that you don’t find yourself in a situation where an employee “owes” you time — because you probably can’t collect on that money if they leave before it’s been paid back. If someone needs time off and used up their sick leave, it’s okay to have them take that day unpaid, or to put limits on how far in the red they can go with not-yet-earned paid leave. (Make sure to enforce this consistently across the board, so that you’re not letting one person do it and not letting someone else do it.)
The issue here isn’t your sick leave policy — it’s that this employee is being allowed to abuse it. Put a stop to that.