HR How To: Dealing with Attendance Issues

April 26th, 2012 Posted by admin

It’s the morning after Mardi Gras, and Joe calls in sick. You were expecting it—after all, he was sick the Friday before a long weekend, and the Monday after the big game. Joe’s not alone – 2007 research from time and attendance software provider Kronos suggested that approximately 7 million U.S. workers call in “sick” after the Super Bowl each year.

While employees may not realize the consequences of their behavior to the organization, excessive absences have a significant impact on workplace productivity. In a small business, these effects are even more noticeable, because the size of the company means the work can’t always be redistributed among other employees. And no matter the size of the company, morale is affected when coworkers have to pick up the slack of a routinely absent worker. But by dealing with as soon as they arise, managers can control the issue and reduce the negative effects on the business.

Step One: Documentation
Record the employee’s absences to see if any obvious trends or patterns exist. It can be helpful to create a chart to record the days, or use specific colors to annotate a printed monthly calendar. Visually representing the leave will help you identify if a pattern of absences is occurring—and it can also be a reality check for the employee to see his leave documented in that way.

Check if he always calls out on the same days, before or after the weekend, or around major events. Determine how long the pattern has been occurring and see if you can identify the reason. More than one employee’s absences have conveniently coincided with the home games of the local baseball team.

Step Two: Consider the Family Medical Leave Act
Has the employee given you an excuse for his absences? If so, review the reasons to see if they are covered by the Family Medical Leave Act, or FMLA. Occasional sniffles and the common cold don’t qualify—but if your employee is suffering from migraines, he is likely to be entitled to family medical leave. Even if you don’t know the reason, a pattern of absences might indicate that the employee could qualify for intermittent leave. Give him the FMLA certification form for his doctor to complete.

Companies with 50 or more employees—or who have employed 50 or more workers for at least 20 weeks within the current or previous calendar year—are required to provide unpaid, protected leave to eligible staff members. The employee must have been employed for at least 12 months, worked a minimum of 1,250 hours in the previous 12 months, and be located at a worksite where at least 50 other company employees are also employed within a 75-mile radius.

Step Three: Meet with the Employee
Once you’ve prepared the chart and gathered the relevant paperwork, set a time to meet with the employee. Choose a private location and schedule a time when you won’t be interrupted.

  • Conversation Tip Prepare the employee for the meeting by letting him know what you plan to discuss: “Joe, I’d like to meet with you at 3 today, in my office. I have some concerns about your attendance that I need to discuss with you.”

Tell the employee you’ve noticed he’s been absent frequently, and explain the effects his attendance has on the company as a whole.

  • Conversation Tip“Joe, when you’re out, customers notice delays, and your coworkers have to take on the extra work. It makes it difficult for us to get the job done the way we need to.”

Share the chart with him and ask if he, too, notices a pattern to the leave. Ask him if there is an explanation for the pattern of absences. Keep a neutral tone and remain calm, avoiding judgments or accusations.

  • Conversation Tip“As your supervisor, I keep records of your leave requests. I’d like you to take a look at this chart—it seems to me there’s a pattern to your unscheduled absences. Can you tell me why you’ve been absent on so many Monday mornings?”

Listen to the employee’s response and evaluate the situation. Provide him with any relevant paperwork, such as the FMLA certification form, relevant workers compensation papers if he alleges an injury caused on the job, or a referral to the employee assistance program if it’s appropriate and your company uses one.

Step Four: Potential Accommodations
Sometimes the employee will reveal a reason for leave that may be protected by either the FMLA or the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). For example, if the employee provides care for a sick or disabled relative and is required to transport them to treatment on Wednesday mornings. The treatment center doesn’t open until 8:00 a.m.— the time the employee is due to start work. As a result, the employee is late or calls in every Wednesday. A situation like this can be easily accommodated in most workplaces by adjusting his start time to 8:15 or 8:30. However, in certain cases—perhaps where the worker is the only employee, required to open the doors for business at 8:00—an unreasonable hardship might occur. Carefully evaluate all possible options for accommodation on a case-by-case basis.

  • Conversation Tip“I want to work with you to resolve this problem. What suggestions do you have for making sure the issue doesn’t continue? Is there anything we can do to help you achieve it?”

Step Five: Requiring Improvement
If the employee does not provide a justified or protected reason for his attendance problems, inform him of the consequences of continued absenteeism. Make sure he realizes that continued excessive or undocumented absences could lead to disciplinary action, and even cost him his job. Consider requiring the worker to produce a doctor’s note for each unscheduled absence from the workplace, otherwise he will be considered absent without leave. Put this requirement in writing, or include it in a performance improvement plan*, with other documented expectations for improvement, such as calling in to speak to a live person, and reducing the number of unscheduled absences. Review the plan periodically—at 30, 60 and 90 days—to determine if the employee’s attendance has improved. This isn’t a permanent solution—once a sustained improvement has been observed, you can remove the verification requirement or graduate the employee from the performance plan.

  • Conversation Tip“From now on, I’m instructing you to bring a doctor’s note every time you call out sick. We’ll meet again in 30 days to review your progress and I’ll let you know then if this requirement will continue.”

Step Six: Disciplinary Action
If you’ve ruled out FMLA and ADA, and the employee still fails to improve, despite counseling, performance improvement plans and any accommodations you provide, it’s time to take further disciplinary action, up to and including dismissal from employment. If you discover the employee was dishonest about his leave, this is also a reason for discipline.

Things to Consider:

  • Make sure your company has a strong sick leave policy, emphasizing that verification may be required.
  • Check that employees are aware of the call-in requirements.
  • Lead by example. You can’t expect your employees to adhere to a strict attendance policy if you continually flout it yourself.

Don’t discipline an employee with an attendance problem by suspending him—it’s not usually an effective resolution to the problem.

Note: With business management in mind, we understand that our readers not only need compliance topic blogs, but office communications as well. This entry was previously published on our Newsletter. This is just one of the many benefits we offer to our Compliance Management Service members. Learn more here: http://www.laborlawcenter.com/c-211-compliance-management-services.aspx

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Our New Community For HR Professionals, www.HumanResourceBlog.com Is Now Available

July 31st, 2007 Posted by Sarah

HR professionals or owners are faced with my conflicting HR questions or situations everyday and how to solve the issues can vary depending on who you ask.  Many business owners or HR professionals often ponder the same question, “Is there an agency or source where I can go to get guidance or assistance on these HR issues?”.  Well now there is a solution!  www.HumanResourceBlog.com is now available for any HR professional to come and share their thoughts, questions, or issues and to openly discuss the situation or issue at hand.  Where else would you be able to go to find a community or center that has professionals sharing your same common problems and also having suggestions for you to possibly consider.  Like they say, two brains is better than one.  In this particular case, it’s two professionals better than one! 

www.HumanResourceBlog.com has a goal to build a community strictly for HR professionals all across the states to be able to post and receive answers from actual professionals in the same situation or have the knowledge to possibly guide you to answer.  State laws vary from state to state.  If your organization operates in multi-states, this is the place for you.  www.HumanResourceBlog.com does not limit the answer to any particular state or topic.  It does not have boundaries and/or limitations in the state the question is deriving from.  If you are seeking an answer to your HR question, www.HumanResourceblog.com will be the solution!

Answers are posted daily from Real HR experts that are emailed the questions instantly.  There is no automation to the postings of answers.  The website is strictly for owners, HR professionals, supervisors  and managers to post their HR related issues, questions, or concerns.  Post your questions today! The web site is not intended for employees to post employee related questions. 

Come join and lets build an HR Community together.

Hope to see you there!

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Human Resource New Hire Reporting in Wyoming

December 17th, 2006 Posted by Mark

Ah, the last state of the bunch, alphabetically speaking only. When it comes to new hire reporting, Wyoming is right up there with the rest of the states, so no offense meant, Wyoming employers and residents!

In Wyoming, the labor law that kicks the new hire reporting into effect is the Wyoming Statute, Section 27-1-115. It complements the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, or PRWORA, passed by the United States Congress in 1996.

We know how the whole process works. You as a Wyoming employer are required by the Wyoming labor laws to send in all new hire, re-hire, and temporary workers information to the state New Hire Reporting Center within 20 days of the new hires starting on the job.

The info includes the new hire’s name, address and social security number. Along with that, according to the Wyoming labor law, you must provide your company’s name, your company’s address, and your company’s federal employer identification number. All of that information must go out for all of your new hires—via the mail, fax, phone, electronically, on magnetic tape, or by email or Internet. Pick your format.

That seems like a lot of work, right? We have heard the same issue brought up by employers from all other states, and it is a fair question posed by you and your human resource department.

But as I told those other employers in the other states, you should find this process a cinch if you already have all of this information in your system. And you should. On the new hire’s employment application, on their resume, on their payroll deduction forms, on their direct deposit forms, on their background investigation release FMLA forms, on their interview evaluations—you take your pick, you already have a form or forms with all of the new hire’s info that you need on it.

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