Employers Shifting away from Traditional Sick-Day Policies

by: Michael Aneiro

With recent statistics showing unscheduled employee absenteeism at a five-year high, employers are increasingly turning to alternative methods in hopes of curbing this trend, which can contribute not only to lower morale, but also to increased costs.

“What we’ve seen is a shift,” said Lori Rosen, an employment law expert at CCH, which publishes an annual survey of employee absenteeism patterns. “Employers are understanding that their employees are not necessarily sick, and we’ve seen a steady trend away from traditional policies into more of a ‘paid time off’ or PTO bank, where it’s not differentiated and the employee has more control.”

The 2004 CCH Unscheduled Absence Survey released last month found that as employee absenteeism continues to rise, employers are also tightening their grip on employee sick days by decreasing the amount that can be rolled over from one year to the next. It said that the number of employers who allow workers to carry over unused days into the following year has plunged from 51% in 2000 to 37% in 2004. Ninety-one percent of the organizations CCH surveyed use some form of disciplinary action to control absenteeism, but such policies can discourage employees from staying home when they are indeed sick.

“It’s not so much a question of cutting off sick days Rosen said. Employers are taking a look at much more than sick time and trying to match their policies with their employees’ actual needs.