Jason Thistlethwaite
5.1 KiB
aliases, infraction, tags
| aliases | infraction | tags | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| absenteeism |
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Absenteeism occurs when an employee exhibits unsatisfactory attendance by missing an unacceptable amount of their scheduled work hours. Mainly, that means missing scheduled shifts, but there are some other forms of absense this article will cover.
To a certain extent, absences can be excused or overlooked. This is mainly the case when an employee has otherwise very good attendance and is absent for reasons outside of their control. The same is often true if an employee who has great attendence needs to unexpectedly take a day off work for personal reasons.
In general, an employee is considered to have satisfactory attendance if they are at work for 97% of their scheduled hours. For a person who works full-time, that roughly means they can miss about 7.5 days a year. More than that generally means the employee does not have satisfactory attendance, and even absences for "good reasons" could be considered absenteeism.
Other types of absense
A person is normally considered absent when they miss all or most of a day they're scheduled to work. However, there are some other kinds of absense. The article on Foundations and Governance/General Policies/Attendance goes into more detail about this.
The primary forms of absense aside from the obvious (missing work completely) are as follows:
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Missing from post: an employee is mysteriously missing from their assigned or expected work area. This could be considered absenteeism if it happens often.
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Presenteeism: a person is at work when they shouldn't be. Examples include being very sick and contagious (presenting a risk of getting other people sick) or being in a state where they can't actually do their job (like a bad hangover or without sleep). This could be considered absenteeism if it occurs often.
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Virtual absense: The employee is working remotely or at a satellite location but they're not reachable by coworkers or managers. For example, an employee working remotely has their chat app muted and isn't responding to messages. Another example might be the employee is supposed to be on the clock but isn't answering the phone.
Examples of Absenteeism
An employee should be written up for Absenteeism in any of the following cases:
Absent with inappropiate notice
The employee should be written up if they were absent without appropriate notice and they don't have evidence they couldn't have provided notice.
Example 1: Sick kid magically feeling better
A person texts you an hour before their shift is supposed to start and they tell you they're going to be absent because their kid was puking last night and is still sick this morning. They don't have any real explanation for why they couldn't send notice last night or the reason they thought their kid would magically feel better this morning.
Example 2: Notified the wrong way
A person is absent from work, and they notified you by emailing about or texting a coworker instead of reporting it in the online timeclock software. Their reason for not using the timeclock is their computer was messing up, but they don't have any evidence of that or the same thing has happened several times.
Multiple absences with a pattern
An employee who is absent more than once for the same general reason over a period of 90 days should be evaluated for a write-up. Factors to consider include:
- Do they have proof the situation is real?
- Do they have proof the situation couldn't be avoided or planned for?
- Do they have proof they have taken reasonable actions to prevent similar situations from happening again?
If the answer to any of the above questions is no, the employee should be written up for Absenteeism.
Example 1: Particular days
The person has shown a trend of being absent on a particular day the week or month, like calling off on Mondays or Fridays. For example, the employee has called off work on a Monday every month for the last 3 months. In one case they said it was because of a broken water heater. Another time it was a sick kid. A third time it was car trouble. However, it always seems to be on a Monday or Friday.
Example 2: Reactive to situation
The person has a pattern of calling off work based on a particular kind of event or situation. For example, an employee who is supposed to assist with unloading trucks calls off work for some reason the day after actually having to unload a truck. It's happened 2-3 times within the last three months.
Excessive absences
If an employee is absent too often, regardless of why they are absent, they should be evaluated for a write-up. Factors to consider include:
- Have they been absent for more than 3% of their scheduled days over the last 90 days? For most people, this means missing more than 2.5 days.
- Did their life circumstances change, but the employee failed to update their schedule availability to reflect when they can work?
- Will they have less than 8 hours of PTO remaining if we were to apply PTO to the most recent absence?
If the answer is yes to any of the above questions, the employee should be written up.
#hr #infraction #attendance