HOPE FOR CURE FOR SERIAL SICKIE

BC-LABOUR-SICKIES LABOUR-SICKIES JOHANNESBURG

Jan 26 Sapa

HOPE FOR CURE FOR SERIAL SICKIE

A caring catch-up chat may be all that is needed to cure the "serial sickie" and improve work attendance on a Monday and a Friday, an absenteeism monitoring company recommends. "A good place to start would be to institute a return to work policy whereby employees are always interviewed by their managers on returning to work," said CAM solutions, which produce software that tracks sick leave.

"This makes employees uncomfortable if they have been fraudulently ill, and it makes them feel cared for if they have genuinely been sick." Managers can't assume an employee has been lying about being ill, but the meeting leaves the abusers feeling embarrassed, an effective way of stopping the abuse, they advise. A study of sick leave information from more than 60 companies in South Africa with over 150,000 employees showed that Monday and Friday are the favourite days for sickies. Flu, gastro and lower back pain are the serial sickies' ailments of choice, statistics show. "These illnesses are relatively easy to fake and so lend themselves to employees as good reasons to take a day off. The illnesses have quick recovery times, making it more likely that a person who took the false sick leave could show up the next day looking fine, without raising too many suspicions," said CAM's CEO Johnny Johnson.

Doctors can also be fooled when a patient says they have a headache, or describe the same flu virus symptoms as everyone else. "A lot of employees feel they are owed the sick leave and if they don't use it, they lose it. But it is really only there to cover an employee if they do get sick, so that they don't lose their jobs, and abusing it is paramount to fraud," said Johnson. The company also recommends rewarding managers whose team is rarely off sick and who are all happy and productive. Study exposes opportunists in the workplace – they use the same excuses, in the same patternIf an employee gets sick for just one day, on a Monday or Friday, and sites flu or gastro as the reason, bosses might just be justified in feeling suspicious.

Recent information provided by CAM Solutions, a specialist absenteeism software company, shows that employees abusing sick absenteeism tend to use the same excuses and follow the same patterns in terms of the day they choose to be absent - all around the country. The information is based on sick leave information from more than 60 South African companies with over 150 000 employees. According to statistics generated by CAMS software ABSOLV, most employees abusing the system chose to do so on a Monday or a Friday and they only took one day’s sick leave per incident. When it came to the reasons for being sick on these one-day absences, 2.23% of employees in the sample said they had influenza, followed by gastroenteritis for 1.49% of the 150 000 strong sample, and 1.47%of the sample said they had lower back pain for a day.

“We call these one-day sick days – taken on either a Monday or a Friday - opportunistic, because they mostly, but not always, occur when employees are looking for an opportunity to take the day off without taking annual leave,” says CAMS CEO Johnny Johnson.

“These illnesses are relatively easy to fake and so lend themselves to employees as good reasons to take a day off. The illnesses have quick recovery times, making it more likely that a person who took the false sick leave could show up the next day looking fine, without raising too many suspicions,” says Johnny Johnson. Johnson says it’s generally easier to fake a cold than to walk around pretending you had pneumonia, for example. And if a doctor’s certificate is required, doctors generally can’t argue with someone who says they have the same flu virus every one else has. A bad headache or an upset stomach is not something that is easy to detect without relying on what a patient tells them.

“A lot of employees feel they are owed the sick leave and if they don’t use it, they lose it. But it is really only there to cover an employee if they do get sick, so that they don’t lose their jobs, and abusing it is paramount to fraud.

“Companies looking to manage rife sick absenteeism abuse can be guided by wellness management companies. A good place to start would be to institute a return to work policy whereby employees are always interviewed by their managers on returning to work. This makes employees uncomfortable if they have been fraudulently ill, and it makes them feel cared for if they have genuinely been sick. Managers can’t assume an employee has been lying about being ill, but this return to work meeting generally makes the abusers very embarrassed and it’s very effective in stopping the abuse.” Johnson says another strategy is to reward managers who have a team of employees that is rarely off sick and who are all happy and productive.

“It’s easy to pick up the serial sick leave abusers using our software, because they take one day sick leave around the weekend, every few weeks and this is detected by our unique indices and report. “These serial abusers are costing the economy R 1 billion a year, and they are holding jobs that could go to more worthy, willing candidates in a difficult economic climate,” Johnson adds.

ends

Calculation of Absenteeism Rates

By Johnny Johnson – CEO of absenteeism management specialists, CAM Solutions

Many employers do not pay enough attention to absenteeism, both the measurement and affects of absenteeism and its control. Almost all employers understand that high absenteeism rates have a negative affect on their business but the monetary effect of abnormally high absenteeism is usually not quantified.

AIC Insurance specialises in the underwriting of the direct cost of absenteeism and proactively managing the time that employees are not at work. Through contact with over 60 South African companies, we have found that in most instances employers are not aware of their absenteeism rate or they have not measured the absenteeism rates correctly. The old adage “You can’t manage what you don’t measure” applies and we have found that in the cases where there is uncertainty concerning the level of absenteeism there is almost always a low level of management control accompanied by a high level of absenteeism.

It is also common for employers, who have calculated their absenteeism rates, not to quantify the monetary cost of the absenteeism. This is particularly important with regard to unplanned absenteeism, which is mainly sick absenteeism and absence without leave (AWOL). The absenteeism rate multiplied by the basic earnings will provide management with the direct cost of absenteeism.

The indirect cost of absenteeism is often overlooked. This includes the cost of replacing the absent employee in critical positions, possible overtime payments to these replacement workers, as well as the affect the absenteeism has on workforce levels, medical aid costs, group life and disability premiums. We estimate that the indirect cost of absenteeism is at least 200% of the direct cost of absenteeism at normal absenteeism levels. This factor will be different for various industry types and will also increase when the absenteeism rate increases.

The general lack of focus on absenteeism is possibly due to the fact that the costs of absenteeism are not shown separately on management reports. This could be due to the fact that the amount incurred for paid absence is usually grouped with all staff costs. This includes the unproductive portion as well as the cost of replacement workers and overtime. The indirect costs are more problematic and it is very seldom that employers quantify the monetary affect that absenteeism has on the indirect areas such as production volumes, quality and morale.

Steps to manage and control absenteeism
It is important for any employer to follow a focussed approach and it is recommended that the following steps be considered when developing a plan to manage and control absenteeism.

Develop a company attendance policy and communicate this to all employees. The importance of attendance should be stressed and the policy should be communicated to all employees as a means of developing a culture of attendance. A balance between being firm and fair is suggested.

Evaluate and modify company policies and procedures to ensure that the correct framework exists within which to manage and control absenteeism.

Design a detection, monitoring and reporting system which will provide accurate and reliable data for reporting on absenteeism. This should ideally be based on information extracted from the time and attendance system, which is then filtered until final absenteeism data is obtained.

Calculate absenteeism rates and break these down into the various forms of absenteeism - both planned (annual leave, study leave, training leave, paternity, maternity leave, etc) and unplanned (sick leave, AWOL, family responsibility etc). It is recommended that these are incorporated into the monthly management reporting system.
Determine the appropriate level and department that will be responsible for absenteeism management. The best results are achieved when the departments where unplanned absenteeism has the greatest negative affect assume direct responsibility for managing absenteeism. The Human Resources Department should play a support role only - by assisting with setting policy and providing guidance for counselling and disciplinary procedures.

Prepare a detailed study to determine the affect that absenteeism has on all costs, determine appropriate factors and apply these to the direct absenteeism rates to obtain the total cost of absenteeism for the entity. This can be done by department or more accurately per employee.

Over time, develop benchmarks for certain absenteeism indicators and measure employees against these indicators.
Based on the broad results and individual profiles determined over a reasonable period of time, establish the causes of high absenteeism. The causes could be due to, among others things, social problems, occupational risks, employee morale, poor management and control systems, health problems, poor working conditions as well as delinquent employees.

Formulate attendance management guidelines which will focus on:
Policy
Ongoing monitoring and reporting
Introduction of employee assistance programmes

Calculation of sick absenteeism rates:
The calculation of sick absenteeism rates can at times be complicated with various methods evolving. As a rule, the rate should be based on productive lost time as a percentage of total available productive time for a certain period.

We recommend using the following formula:
A = B / C

Where:
A = Absenteeism rate for the period
B = Total number of mandays lost due to absenteeism in the period
C = Total number of working mandays available in the period

And where:

C = D x E

D = Total employees planned to work in the period
E = Number of available working days in the period

Where shifts are worked the calculation is more accurate if the “days” in the above formula is changed to hours.

The calculation and accumulation of the mandays/manhours lost due to absenteeism and the total planned working mandays/manhours per working period or shift will improve the accuracy of the measurement.

In addition the calculation should be performed per department to provide further indications on where possible interventions are required.

The higher sick absenteeism rates in the lower income groups are due largely to their poor living conditions and also reflects the type of work, mainly manual, that these employees are involved with. The level of income is also an indication of the level of responsibility. We have found that employees with lower levels of responsibility have higher levels of absenteeism.

Sick Absenteeism in Large Companies versus Smaller Companies:
Small employers are more successful at limiting sick leave abuse than the larger companies.

Blue collar workers take more sick leave

Statistics issued by Corporate Absenteeism Management Solutions (CAMS) have shown that absenteeism in South Africa is greatest among production and factory workers who earn less than R 5000 per month.

The CAMS statistics, recorded in 60 South African companies with more than 7000 employees, state that employees earning R 5000 per month or less have an absenteeism rate of 2.30%. This rate drops to 1.33% in the group that earns between R 10 000 and R 15 000 per month. The absenteeism rate is calculated by dividing the number of days employees are absent by the number of days they should have been at work, over a period of one year.

Chief Executive of CAMS, Johnny Johnson says, “Generally, higher absence is positively correlated with lower income earners, those who have lesser responsibilities and more repetitive, less satisfying work. Blue-collar employees have consistently higher levels of absence than their white-collar compatriots, who have more job satisfaction.”

“Sick absenteeism should at about 1.5% - which means that for every 250 working days per year, the average employee should take 3.75 days off sick. Most companies have an overall absenteeism rate of between 3.5 and 6% - way over the acceptable limit. Simply applying a return to work policy can reduce sick absenteeism to acceptable levels, saving companies millions,” he says.

Johnson explains that a return to work policy means that when employees have been off sick they must see their supervisors immediately on return to work. The supervisor must show concern toward employees and question them about the nature of the illness and if they need any further help. This communicates care and to employees who are sick and might need further medical help. It also curbs abuse because staff have to face their managers on their return.

Johnson adds that sick absenteeism costs the country about R 19 billion per year, so looking after sick employees and managing sick leave abusers correctly is just good business practice.