The Contented Cow Blog

Building Workplaces That Work

CNN and other networks did a piece Wednesday on a guy who called his boss on Halloween to let him know that due to an emergency situation that required him to travel to New York, he would be unable to come to work that day. For whatever reason, his boss decided to do a little checking around, and visited the employee’s Facebook page where, low and behold, he saw a picture of the guy all decked out in a costume at a Halloween party. Oops!

Employers are understandably starting to lose their sense of humor about absenteeism. As corporate America reaches the point where most of the fat has been wrung out of the system, unplanned absences throw a serious kink into the works. The folks who once could be counted on to pitch in and make up for the absentee don’t exist any more, so things, important things grind to a halt pretty quickly when someone calls out.

Moreover, with work-related pressures increasing and employee engagement levels sinking, people are more inclined than ever to take time off for non-medical reasons, like our friend with the New York “emergency.” According to Reliable Plant Magazine, which references a Commerce Clearing House report on absenteeism, unplanned absence reached a rate of 2.5% of scheduled days in 2006, with only about 1/3 of those absences truly caused by personal illness of the employee.

In response, some organizations have adopted a noticeably less friendly outlook toward employee absences. In its November 12 issue, Business Week chronicled, in a piece entitled, “Shirking Working” the steps taken by organizations like Wal-Mart, Dell, Delphi, and others to stem the tide. Two of the referenced measures, notably having employees call an 800# rather than their supervisor, and requiring employees to consent to having the company review their medical records sound a little too much like water boarding to suit me. A f ew things you might consider:

1. Know what your rate of unplanned absence is and what the trend looks like, with discrete reporting for each manager. As unplanned days off tend to spike where there are morale problems, this metric is both compelling and useful.

2. Firmly adopt the stance that “sick days are for when you are sick.” If a person has an emergency or other personal need, don’t make them lie to you. Find a way for them to get the time off.

3. Resist the urge to always be building bigger and better mousetraps to catch attendance miscreants. The only thing that produces is smarter mice. Remember, there are more of them than there are of you. Those who get caught cheating or abusing your trust need help getting a job elsewhere, preferably with a competitor. Give it to them. The remaining 98% of the folks who show up every day will appreciate your treating them like an adult, and you’ll get more of their discretionary effort, or what we call Oomph!

For my part, I must admit that, like our Halloween celebrant, I once took a day off under the guise of illness, to fly to Boston for a job interview with Digital Equipment Corporation. When I reached my departure gate at Newark Airport, I discovered, to my horror, that the absolute last person I wanted to see that morning, my boss, was traveling on the same flight! With my heart and mind racing, I hung out in the men’s room (narrow stance, mind you) until the last boarding call, at which point I raced up to the gate, upgraded to 1st class (betting that my boss was flying coach), boarded the flight, and made damn sure I was the first one off the plane in Boston. As those who have read our new book already know, the interview was a complete waste of time. Lou Ordini, if you’re out there, you almost caught me, fella. I’m glad the interview didn’t pan out though, because Digital didn’t last long after that, and besides, I also got an extra year to have the pleasure of working for you (I sincerely mean that).

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