Management and malaise

Source: Exec Digital UK

Date :08/04/2008 14:18:04

When absence becomes a problem, who is sick - the staff or the organisation? Exec looks for some answers

By John O’Hanlon

For a long time it has been a mystery to me why companies that have adopted the most enlightened CRM programs - often these days the very same people who have embraced environmental and social responsibility with the zeal of the new-converted - continue to treat their staff like the denizens of a Dickensian counting house.

Take the frequently rehearsed question of absenteeism. We are fortunate in this country to even have the option of taking a sickie. Spare a thought for the 48 percent – yes, nearly half – of the American workforce that has no access to paid sick leave. It is enshrined in United States law that workers may take time off if they are sick - but their employer does not have to pay them. In just two cities, San Francisco and Washington DC, local legislation has recently been introduced to impose on all employers the obligation of paying employees for up to seven sick days a year. Other than that it is up to the beneficence of employers.

Pestilence and plague Back to the UK. Employers are often faced with statistics to tell them how much time is being lost to them through the abuse of the system – such as the CBI’s regular forays. The last CBI report claimed that in 2006 we took an average of seven days off sick compared with 6.6 in 2005, and from that calculated the loss to British industry as 175 million working days or £13.4 billion.

Now, is this a real business threat or a spectre? Nobody denies that there are employees who are more of a liability than an asset. They ring in sick every Monday and are hung over every other day. Such people are conspicuous. Any manager who can’t spot these people and either get them help or get rid of them shouldn’t be in his job.

Most people who call in sick have a good reason for it. They are in crisis. They may be sick themselves, have a sick child, a family emergency or an intolerable worry. Of all these, the last is the most common. Stress now accounts for more absenteeism than physical illness, says Cary Cooper, the man who coined the expression ‘presenteeism’ to describe the phenomenon of people who come to work when they shouldn’t, either because they are afraid of not meeting their targets or because they don’t want to build up a poor attendance record.

Surely though we should keep a sense of proportion, I suggested. After all, we have it good compared to the USA, where the average annual leave is ten days, sick leave is widely unavailable as I already said, and they’d laugh at the idea that long term employees should get severance pay when business declines and they have to go. Yet they don’t seem to get as stressed there. “Exactly!” exclaims Prof Cooper…

Click here to read the full article on absenteeism