Managing Attendance

[RogerB]

In a previous role we converted all leave to what we called consolidated leave. This provided each person with 30 days leave per a year to be taken as the individual wished. At the end of the year any days over 10 were paid out.

The employee only had to submitt a single form that requested (ie annual leave) or notified of time off (ie personal leave). This eliminated problems with those who abused personal leave and cut out a lot of administration.

[HRbeat]

Sure...but my comments on cultural fit stands...any HR policy, procedure and form should align with the culture you're trying to build, or to address current cultural concerns. This was designed for a very specific culture with absenteeism issues.

Questions for Absence Return Interview

REASON FOR ABSENCE
 Work-related  Personal
If work-related:
 Work overload
 Physical stress/Burnout
 Workplace Bullying  Harassment (please specify)
 Discrimination (please specify)
 Others _________________________
1. Did you phone work to inform us of your absence/period of absence?
2. If not, what prevented you from letting us know about your absence?

3. Have you read the company policy on notification and certification requirements for absences? (Supervisor then explains the implication of a consistent failure to comply e.g. non-payment/disciplinary action)
4. What could you have done differently to achieve a more positive outcome? (e.g. fix car, get a lift, go to GP, etc.)

5. Is there a possibility that you would be taking time off work again? If so, how long and when?

6. How can we work with you as an employee to reach a possible solution? (if there are multiple issues, What is more important for you right now?)

COMMENTS/RECOMMENDATIONS


ACTION TAKEN
 Strategy was formulated
 Disciplinary Action (please specify)
_____________________________
 Referred to Manager  Referred to Human Resources
 Linked to external resource (specify)
___________________________

[RogerB]

Sorry HR Beat, but I did not read anything regarding culture in your repley perhaps I have missed some of them. I read your form with some interest and I would have to admit it left me concerned regarding the type of culture you are trying to create. Perhaps I am miss reading but I get a sense of miss trust in your employees.

Rather than treating the being of sick to be an offence if the employee had the perception they were using thier own time rather than the company's there would be a reduction in absenteeism.

I have learnt over the years that forms do not change culture only interaction, involvement and clear directives do

[rockyhr]

Thanks for the form HRBeat In dealing with an absenteeism culture I can see how it would have been applied as a basis structure to at least start the interactions between the employees and their supervisor. It definately provides a basis for me work with in developing one for my organisation.

Roger B thanks for your idea also. It is a popular one and one that has been considered by us . Our big issue though is very much at the front end in addressing some of the obvious discretionery behaviour that is keeping our absenteeism at record levels. To give you an insight set the average benchmark for an industry (days per year per employee) and double it.

I particularly like your comment about forms.......if only the supervisors and employees had the maturity to have the conversations and interactions themselves without prompts or the structure of forms to guide them. Ahhh, the elusive 'holy grail' for all HR practictioners is it not, but then I doubt the profession of HR would exist if it did occur this way. I once had someone describe the best performance mangement system is when an oragnisation doesn't have one simply because it doesn't need one. Imagine supervisosr and employees meeting on a daily basis in open communication to give feedback to other (ie 360) about each other's performance and plans for teh future. (Its a bit Martin Luther King like isn't....I have a dream.....)

I have learnt that a combination of structure, direction, involvement and interaction, along with a pint of courage assists in the enablement of cultural change, but that with cultural change the wheels turn slowly and when there is a high level of organisation around the distrusting of management (strong traditionalism), its a bloody long road to achieve the involvement and interaction desired to move forward. This is where the simplicity of a form assists as at least there will be a discussion even if it is somewhat scripted/prompted.

RockyHr

[HRbeat]

Originally Posted by RogerB

In a previous role we converted all leave to what we called consolidated leave. This provided each person with 30 days leave per a year to be taken as the individual wished. At the end of the year any days over 10 were paid out.

I like this concept! It certainly contributes towards flexibility and whole of life balance!

[HRbeat]

Originally Posted by RogerB

Sorry HR Beat, but I did not read anything regarding culture in your repley perhaps I have missed some of them. I read your form with some interest and I would have to admit it left me concerned regarding the type of culture you are trying to create. Perhaps I am miss reading but I get a sense of miss trust in your employees.

Hi RogerB, it's in page one of this thread, somewhere in the middle. The form was an intervention and not really a platform for culture development. I believe rockyHR has already provided useful feedback and made a convincing argument.

[kevinh]

Originally Posted by RogerB

In a previous role we converted all leave to what we called consolidated leave. This provided each person with 30 days leave per a year to be taken as the individual wished. At the end of the year any days over 10 were paid out.

This is an interesting approach.

Am I correct in thinking that the employee never has more than 10 days accumulated sick leave ? (is this legal in each State ?)

And doesn't the 'paying out' of sick leave (which in effect is what you are doing) encourage people to be at work when they are genuinely sick?

[RogerB]

Kevinh

Under workchoices sick leave, personal leave etc has now been packaged up into a single leave package called "Personal Leave" The act requires the company to accumulate unused personal leave at a rate of 10 days per a year. The Personal Leave can be used by empoloyee for thier family or a member of the household who is "deemed ill". As such the leave is open to abuse.

Yes, it is legal in all states to pay out Personal Leave providing the individual maintains 10 days. Remember that pre workchoices "sick leave"was 8 days and in most states was not accumulated, so at the end of each year what was not used was lost. This has created a culture of using up the entitlement.

In practice there was no evidance that people came to work when genuinely ill. Employees saw that this is what the leave was for, however what it did stop was the absents caused through the traditional Aussie "sickie". Partners were happy for the employee to stay at home when genuinely sick but discouraged the sickie day when they were going to lose money.

In the maunufacturing enviroment where we introduced this, personal leave reduced by 73% in the first year and has continued to decline each year since.

[DaveG]

Originally Posted by RogerB

Yes, it is legal in all states to pay out Personal Leave providing the individual maintains 10 days. Remember that pre workchoices "sick leave"was 8 days and in most states was not accumulated, so at the end of each year what was not used was lost. This has created a culture of using up the entitlement.

Roger, I thought unused sick leave was accumulated, at least in Vic anyway. That's what we have in our employment contracts for Vic employees! We rely on lawyers to draft our employment contracts - I'm now wondering if we got some dud advice...

Nevertheless it's good to hear your strategy is working. Do you think you may have to change it after the next Federal election ?

Dave

PS. How did you go about changing everyone's working conditions?

[RogerB]

Dave,

You are correct in that unused personal leave accumulates, however when you transform annual leave and personal leave to consolidated leave, who is to say what leave has been used. So therefore as long as 10 days remain in the bank it is ok to pay out waht is left. You will find a number of awards have allowed this and it is common in a number of EBA.s (MUA is a good example).

I am assuming you are talking about common law (CL) contracts rather than AWA's. I too started with a lawyer producing the first CL contract for me, it was too hard to read and it frightened off the employees who thought they needed a laywer to interpret it, so i produced my own which I sent to a lawyer to review (with stricked instruction that it was only to be changed where there was a breach of the Act. It came back with one minor change. Happy to send you a copy. (It was produced in Vic).

With AWA,s again I wrote them after having poor results from those written by lawyers all have gone through the system ok.

On the question of the next election, I am not sure ut I do not think much will change from either party.

How did I change the working conditions?

I held educational sessions with all staff on the workplace relations act, inviting the union to participate, at the end of the session I gave staff all the documentation I could find and provided a summary.

I then asked the staff to choose what they wanted. as a result the staff choose common law or AWA's they did not want Union agreements.