May 13, 2020

Are your employees’ numerous last-minute absences affecting your “bottom line?”  Last-minute absences can cost employers thousands of dollars each year, per employee!  There are many contributors to employee absenteeism.  Some of the top reasons for employee absenteeism include burn out, bullying or harassment from other co-workers, and elder care or child care conflicts.  So what can you do to curb the number of unscheduled absences at your place of employment?  Here are several helpful ways to alleviate the problem of absenteeism.

❏ Flexible scheduling:  Depending on the amount of flexibility you have at your workplace, consider scheduling work functions around employee needs.  For example, if you have employees who have young children with early morning commitments, schedule work meetings later in the day so they are able to attend the meetings.

❏ Communicate with your employees:  As simple as this may seem, communicating with your employees about attendance can help to reduce absenteeism.  Explain to your employees that you will try to help them out when they need time off, but that they need to be honest when requesting this time off.  Encouraging this open communication between you and the employee will help facilitate workplace morale, trust, and at the same time discourage excessive absenteeism.

❏ Clear anti-harassment/discrimination policies:  An employee manual is the perfect place to lay out a clear and confidential process on how employees can report harassment or discrimination claims in the workplace . Remind your employees that they will not be retaliated against for reporting such violations.

❏ Attendance bonuses:  If possible, consider a “reward” system where employees with perfect attendance are paid bonuses.

▸ Be very careful with this, however, as an employee cannot be legally disqualified from getting this bonus for taking time off under family and medical leave laws.

❏ Paid Time Off (PTO) Plans:  PTO plans give employees a lump sum of paid days off rather than a set number of days each for vacation, holidays, and sick leave.  With these plans, employees control their leave without having to lie to employers.  These plans typically require advance notice of time off from the employees which is also helpful to the employer.

▸ However, please note that, as with accrued vacation, California law requires employees to be paid for any accrued PTO leave which remains in their PTO accounts when employment ends.

❏ No-fault policies: No-fault policies track unplanned time off, paid or unpaid, without making a value judgment about the reason for the absence.  After accumulating a certain a number of points, an employee is terminated or disciplined.  Again, be very careful with this, since leave taken under the family and medical leave laws cannot be used against an employee in a no-fault system.

Need more information?
ESKRIDGE LAW may be contacted by phone (310/303-3951), by fax (310/303-3952) or by email (geskridge@eskridgelaw.net).  Please visit our website at eskridge.hv-dev.com.

This article is based on the law as of the date posted at the top of the article.  This article does not constitute the provision of legal advice, and does not by itself create an attorney-client relationship with Eskridge Law.