Time-off benefits that give more bang for the buck - absenteeism banks, etc

Business & Health, Sept, 1996 by Tammy Darling

Sick time is out of sync with the times," concludes Paul Gibson, an analyst at CCH Inc., in response to the firm's latest annual survey on workplace absenteeism. In the past year, according to the study, employees have become a lot less likely to take unscheduled time off because they're ill and more likely to call in sick to take care of personal business, relieve stress or just because they feel they deserve a break. Gibson suggests that the findings raise serious questions about the value of sick time as an employee benefit.

In fact, the changing priorities of the U.S. workforce--much of it the result of record numbers of dual-income families with young kids--have been slowly but surely imprinting themselves on America's corporate mentality. Benefits managers and HR executives have been recasting the way their firms dole out time off. Besides trying to accommodate workers, employers are driven by the need to trim both the number of days lost and the costs. With good reason, in view of the latest findings.

While unplanned absences leveled off this year at an average of 2.8 percent of the workforce on any given day, according to CCH's 1996 Unscheduled Absence Survey, the average was under 2.5 percent in 1992 and 1993. The average cost per employee is $603. The total annual expense tops $160,000 for firms with more than 250 employees and is around $2 million a year for firms with a staff of 2,500 or more. And that's not counting intangibles like decreased productivity, unmet deadlines, low morale and poor customer service.

THE NATIONAL SICK CALL

While the 500-plus HR executives CCH surveyed report a big drop in personal illness-they attributed less than 30 percent of unscheduled absences to it, down from 45 percent in 1995--it's still the No. 1 reason workers call in sick. The primary ailment: The flu. Family issues--which often mean the care of sick children--scored a close second, at 26 percent.

Workers' attitudes about unscheduled absences, which run the gamut from a pervasive sense of entitlement to excessive guilt, clearly have a lot to do with whether, or how often, they call in sick. But anyone who doubts the influence of company policy need only look at the correlation between days granted and days taken. Government workers, for instance, enjoy a more generous sick leave policy than most employees in other sectors. They also take more sick days than any other group of workers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, although the CCH survey shows utility workers (granted nearly 17 sick days to the government employees' 13) beating out the utility workers (granted nearly 17 sick days to the government employees' 13) beating out the latter group's six-day average by a hair. Employees in the retail/wholesale industry are allowed only about six sick days a year--and take less than four.

Company size also alters the picture. People who work in small firms or work groups take considerably less unscheduled time off than those in bigger firms. Presumably, that's because their absence leaves a bigger gap in operations, not just the result of more stringent company policies.

An increasingly prevalent entitlement mentality among workers who routinely take all the days allowed simply because they feel they deserve it, accounted for 15 percent of sick calls in this year's CCH survey. Respondents were also more likely to blame unscheduled absenteeism on stress.

Gibson attributes the increase to corporate downsizing, which has left the remaining workers expected to "do more with less." But there may be other factors at work, and the 11 percent CCH reported may be a vast underestimate. The Department of Health and Human Services estimates that more than four in 10 adults suffer adverse health effects related to stress. The cost to American industry: more than $300 billion a year in lost work hours. reduced productivity and workers' compensation.

ALL IN THE FAMILY

Parents of young kids (mostly mothers) take more time off than any other employee group. In one recent survey, more than 90 percent of the employers polled blamed absenteeism and tardiness on child care. More than half the nation's employers, according to the Small Business Administration, prohibit employees from using paid sick time to care for sick children. The predictable result is that many parents lie to avoid losing a day's pay.

That's starting to change, at least among larger firms. Nearly three out of four respondents to a 1996 William M. Mercer study of work/life issues (more than 800 organizations were surveyed, most of them with more than 1,000 workers) said flexible scheduling is their top priority. Yet bona fide flextime programs exist in fewer than four firms out of 10. More than half have "informal" programs, however, in which individual managers can accommodate personal needs on a case-by-case basis.

It's a similar story for compressed work weeks, another boon to working mothers: While only one in three of the companies surveyed officially allows it, off-the-record compressed scheduling occurs in another one in four firms.