Considerations & Components for Building a World-Class

Absence Management ProgramEVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW

ABOUT CREATING A COMPANY -WIDE AT TENDANCE POLICY

BY GINA DUKE

IntroductionThe considerations and components of this slide show are made up of a virtual team’s findings and experiences while implementing a new attendance program in 2005 for a tier one automotive supplier.

It was implemented in approximately 28 plants, both union and non-union across North America.

The virtual team was made up of several Human Resources Manager.

Within the first year of implementation, it brought every plant’s absenteeism rate below 2%, which qualified it as a World-Class Absence Management Program.

In the slides that follow, are the details of the considerations and components of this project.

Consider Best Practices Benchmark:

• Internally

• What aspects of your sister plant’s absenteeism programs work well?

• Externally

• What is working well for your competitors and similarly-situated manufacturers?

• What worthy findings can you ascertain from other industries?

• What are other organizations who depend upon high attendance doing well?

Our FindingsInternal Findings

One of our facilities had stopped writing employees up for absences. WHAT? Yes! And it works! (I’ll share more specifics at end of slide)

Findings from the Competitors/Similarly-Situated Companies

Most adhered to point systems where termination point was between 5-7

Some used percentages (98% presenteeism expected), but difficult for employees to calculate

Findings from other Industries

Call Centers seemed to have the worst absenteeism problems of any other industry – noted that they often REQUIRED all PTO/Vacation/Personal Days be exhausted for unplanned absences to help deter unplanned absences.

Findings from Other Organizations Who Desire High Attendance

School Systems Rely on Positive Reinforcement Initiatives to Encourage High Attendance.

Findings from the Experts

Review the statistics. In 2004, most employees called off at least 4 days per year for various reasons without advanced warning.

Standardize All ComponentsStreamline

Time and Attendance Systems Use the same system to insure that the same absence codes and point calculations are consistent

Criteria for What Constitutes Planned & Unplanned Absences for Consistency First day only of bereavement, emergency medical/personal leaves are unplanned, for example.

All scheduled time off, including vacation and leaves are planned absences

Absence CodesMake absence codes for everything, i.e. UPPL=Unplanned Personal Leave Day for the first day of an

unexpected absence that turns into a personal LOA and then use PPL=Planned Personal Leave Day for remaining days.

Metric Calculations for Reporting To insure you are comparing apples to apples across your organization, provide the calculation.

RecognizeObservations

ChallengesWith the challenges that FMLA protection has introduced to both absence administration and rewards

systems, consider the term “High Attendance” instead of “Perfect Attendance”

Positive Reinforcement Works

Rewards motivateWe implemented a quarterly drawing. For every month that an employee had high attendance, their name went into the drawing for cash

prizes. This was done at our monthly all employee meetings and we made a big deal about it.

High attendance was for any month where the employee did not have any unplanned absences nor had more than five planned days off (excused days off included FMLA, Leave of Absences, Jury Duty, and Bereavement).

Special Recognition motivates Those who were able to have their name in every month’s drawing received special recognition from various initiatives.

Involve OthersGet input/feedback from:

Employee Focus Group - input

All HR Managers – input & feedback

Operations Personnel – input & feedback

Corporate Leaders - feedback

Union Representatives – input & feedback

*Most CBA’s give latitude to the company for attendance policies. Unions also want employees to come to work.

DO ALL OF THE ABOVE BEFORE ROLLOUT!

ImplementHere is what we implemented:

7 Point No Fault Attendance Program

Standard Time & Attendance System

Standard Absence Codes

Standard Metric Reporting Calculation

Disciplinary Action Omitted

Positive Reinforcement through Quarterly Drawings for High Attendance

Special Note for Removing Disciplinary Action from Attendance Policies Goal is for the company is to move from a parental role on attendance, which is much more respectful to the employee

Must add new verbiage to orientation / company handbook, advising employees that they will no longer be written up for attendance and should sign an acknowledgement form.

At the point of “excessive absenteeism” send a complimentary notice informing them of their standing in the point system with a reminder of what point they will be terminated. Include a printout of their absences from the time and attendance system for their review.

Must communicate the various ways an employee can check their attendance Information printed on payroll stubs

Kiosk in break area or other accessible areas to give employees unrushed times to review

Ability to check on key pad of time and attendance system

Request information directly from Supervisor or Human Resources who can check the T&A System

At Termination Point, review absences with the employee. If there is a discrepancy, remove employee from workforce with termination pending. Give employee 3 days to prove themselves; aid

in investigation with due diligence and document, document, document!

If employee proves their absences were covered under program, pay them for time missed & excuse absences (have a code for this)

If employee fails to respond or prove absences were legit to program, terminate on the original termination date.

Note: Unions cannot file grievance where there is no discipline.

Other NotesWe chose a point system for its ease in administration and understanding by employees

We chose 7 as point of termination based upon the national average of absenteeism being 4. Anything above that would be what we considered excessive. 5 to 6 points is the trigger point for issuing the complimentary notice. This can be mailed to the employee’s home or hand-delivered.

We did away with “Grace Periods”

“No Call/No Show” is any absence greater than 2 hours after start of shift without calling in. An employee is terminated after the second day of a consecutive “No Call/No Show”

Personal Time was approved in 2, 4 and half-day increments. We required that they be pre-approved to encourage scheduling/discouraging unplanned absences.

For excusing absences due to weather & other special circumstances 33% absenteeism of workforce – excuse

State of Emergency is issued for area – excuse

Since ThenThis policy was implanted in 2004. Since then, other preferred practices learned:

Instead of granting personal days, shift to a system where employees earn personal time off. This encourages high attendance, and continues to separate those with excessive absenteeism.

Awareness can get you half-way to your goal. The more leadership and supervisors reiterate how important attendance is and how much each person is counted on, the harder it is for employees to lay out of work because they know their team is counting on them.

If your company has high turnover, do not use a low point system. Consider using a 10 or 12 point system, that can be adjusted later.

When changing systems, convert employees present standing to new policy. For those who would be at the point of termination, move them to the point of excessive absenteeism, which is a 5 on this scale.

Should you decide to wipe everyone’s slate clean and start with new program, do not give advance notice, otherwise, your employees may take advantage of the time in between to be absent.

About the AuthorThis PowerPoint is part of a presentation of the Chronicles of the Corporate Mom by Gina Duke.

Gina is an award-winning author and Human Resources professional.

For the back story and more details of the development of this Absence Management Program, or to check out encouraging and humorous stories, along with other HR programs of the Corporate Mom, go to

http://ginaduke.com/the-chronicles-of-the-corp-mom/

The title of this edition is “Absenteeism Will Always Cost You Something.”

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