Case Study - employee takes 3-5 days of leave every month without any intimation to management

Re: Case Study, solve this.
Well according to me if he is such a good performer he is not having any kind of problem in his life, otherwise it would have affected his performance as well.
He is diligently taking the leave without prior intimation to the management. Because he knows that he is in good books of his immediate seniors because of his performance. There are two solutions:-
1). Find out some other potential equivalent to him.
2). Take disciplinary action according to the policy.
Regards,
Prabhjot singh

Absentieeism is a menace in many organisation ,it should be handled case to case basis.You can not have a universal solution for all employees. An employee with good productivity is absenting himself more frequantly we need to understand his problem.If there is a solution to his problem and which is possible to provide by the organisation and the same should be done immidiately in most cases the issue will be resolved and the employee will be more loyal and productive
There should be a step ladder proceedure starting from counslleing to reliability or counscelling to termination.
You can have the following steps.
Oral warning
written warning
2 days suspension
5 ,,
10 ,,
15 ,,
30 ,,
Each time warn him and counsel him and all the efforts to correct him and not for terminate.The termination for the misconduct of absenteeism many a time not viewed as an dis propotianite punishment.

Hai Radhika,
There are some parameters while analyzing the individual performance, such as -
Target achievements (Job performance)
Attitude
Discipline
Trouble shooting abilities etc. etc..
Everything should be on track for a perfect employee.
Performance alone doesn't and shouldn't speak. Balancing all the parameters only forms a complete employee / position. First should be personal discussion with motivation. Second should be the warning letter. And third should be Show cause. Termination follows based on his response and complete analysis of the case.

Thanks & Regards
CRK
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My opinion on this would be, give a counselling sheet, even after that if the employee continues the same we need to ask the employee to resign, because one employee with this attitude will spoil the entire team.
Just one request to all HR professionals in this site, donot use Termination, please term it as "Discharge of servies" that would be the apt word to use....

Hi Radhika,

I agree to all those who say discipline is of prime importance in an organization. This particular employee needs to be disciplined and to do that is your job as an HR person.

There are various ways to bring about this change. The first is obviously closed door meetings with the concerned HR and the Management People. You would probably need to understand that this employee might be under certain stress and hence the leaves. Or it might be that this employee has already understood that he does his job and is good at it, hence it won't really matter to the Management if he/she takes a few days off without any notice.

Another solution is to make sure that the employee fills in the required hours as leave period in your Leave and Absence Management system and thus, the organization makes sure that the leaves this person is taking is accounted for with substantial reasons.

Apart from this, a probable training course on Organizational Behaviour and Etiquette or, Training on professionalism can be routed and made a part of his/her KPI. This should help.

Further, you also need to analyze the organization itself. See if there is a laid back attitude on this situation simply because the employee is a good performer.

Another solution is to start deduction of his perks and salary, basis the number of days of absence and related call of the HR person in charge.

This should be good enough to make this person see the light of the day.

I would be happy to provide further guidance if required. Please do let me know of the same.

Regards,

Mustafa Mazumdar,

Corporate Trainer - Human Efficiencies and Development.

It does not appear to be a big problem.

First of all let's have a re-look on the targets allocated to him. These targets should not be lesser than his peer level and equal market potential/opportunities available to him under his area of working.

Secondly, some senior functionary in your organization (not Manager HR or his immediate Manager) should talk to him in confidence to find out the reason for his such indiscipline behavior. if there are genuine reasons for the same and any help from the organization can help him that can be extended to him (e.g. in case of serious illness of some of his family members which necessitate his presence ignoring his company, etc.)

After identification of the above, the concerned employee should be motivated positively to understand his responsibilities towards the organization. However, it is equally important that who in the organization motivates him. Needless to add, the motivator should not be immediate Manager/manager HR/ any junior in the hierarchy.

Hi All,
i totally agree with what Madan_hrm had said and Diciplinary action are necessary to be taken against him/her so that other should not take advantage if we favour a employee if he/she is completing targets.
Regards,
Sachin Kadam

Hi,

I am surprised the speed with whihc the experts of HR jump the gun in the name of "discipline", even as so many questions remained unanswered in the so called case study.....

1. Is there a pattern in the leaves taken, apart from the fact that these are taken without prior approval?
2. Are there family issues, requiring travelling that make this person rush some where? health? parents? wife?
3. Is the discipline to be pursued without any refrence to perfromance?
4. Is the performance is consistent, then, these absence is not hurting the performance?
5. Has the HR discussed the issue, the real reason for taking these leaves?

Between opinions and facts there is some thing called as process of verification of core issues involved.

No consistent performer wants to undertake "indiscilpine" to dilute his own credentials.

There is need for proper and detailed investigation and if HR cannot find out the inside story, then what is HR doing? Behaving like glorifed clerk, checking only the muster?

The concept of performance must guide definition what is discipline. The traditional ideas of discipline are under going change with technology.

Contribtuion, productivity, pefromance, organizational goals and pursuit of excellence should be our guide, not just physical attendance as an end in itself.

Today, one does not need a desk to contribute, follower to be leader.

The contribution and work comes through many other avenues then merely physical presence.

Do some home work, dont just report "facts" like news paper journalist. Find out the real reason for absence, sicne there is a pattern. Then there must be some personal issue, which requires tact and understading and not just "should be " demands.

Terminating a performer without adequate understading of the issue does not augaur well for any HR professional. There are ways to discipilne or dedcution to compensate. But first things first. Find all the facts first.

Radhika, first, you show some substance in your capacity to comprehend with issues involved.

It is the responsibility of the HR to find out the real problems this employee is facing and try to sort out the same. At the same time, the company should not tolerate his indiscipline at any cost as it may set a bad precedent for other employees. The employee should be given an opportunity to improve. If he doen't improve, he should be dismissed from services

The employee is an asset to the company and for him getting another job would never ever will be a problem, you cant let this person go. Better have a T-group session and the stuff out of him. There has to be a issue with him otherwise no sane person would like to play with his career.