Employees taking too many sick leaves - how to handle the situation?

Hello Saswata Banerjee,
They would be based in India--typical of BPOs.
And since it's related to USA, the employees would be working in US time-zones from India.....basically late-evening/night shifts.
@ Sonia.Kapoor--
You have mentioned the problem/issue.
But you haven't mentioned what has been done SO FAR by you or the organization. Those details would help the members to skip such suggestions AND look @ the issue from OTHER perspectives. I am sure you would tried-out at least some of the suggestions suggested by the members here.
I guess you also need to value OTHERS' time.
Rgds,
TS

Very often employees apply for leave on medical grounds in piecemeal that too for short period viz 3 days stating reasons as fever etc. In some organisations
The employees are advised to put sick leave for minimum five days based on medical certificate / fitness certificate issued by a registered Medical practitioner and allowed to rejoin duty based on the above Certificates. In case there is frequent application of leave on medical grounds, then such cases are referred
to the Medical Board for opinion. The maximum period allowed will be determined based on such opinion.
R P Ramanathan

I appreciate the suggestion by Dinesh-ji regarding attendance bonus.Surely it would be a motivator and bring down incidence of absenteeism on medical grounds . However , i would like to point out that the way the organisations make their employees work these days , there is no wonder that it becomes a strain for them. My niece has joined a Central Research lab recently and during interview itself the candidates were told that working hours are 9 A.M. TO 9 P.M. ! Similarly my nephew has to work for twelve hours, and all this without any overtime.Add to this the time spent in journeying to and fro to work place and it makes it two thirds of a day ! It appears that all laws/rules/regulations regarding work hours are blatantly violated , perhaps because ours' is a employers' market.In the US however President Obama has recently made it compulsory for employers to pay overtime to staff detained beyond permissible work hours.Coming back to the query raised , in the organisation where I worked ,we had a system by which an employee taking three days or more of sick leave had to get a medical fitness certificate from company's doctor.This proved to be a deterrent for habitual offender.In extreme cases of absenteeism on medical grounds a medical board used to be formed to assess the employee's fitness to continue in his/her job and in rare cases services were terminated.

S.K.LIMAYE

MBL-09433722046

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Dear Sonia,
A High Leave consumption for medical reasons requires attention on few pointers mentioned below:
1. Leave policy of the organisation - The no of days alloted , process of application , approval and documentation process.
2. Communication to the co - workers through various channels ( Mailers , Connects , Soft boards Display of Policies) to understand the process and implications of exceeding the count alloted.
3. Detailed study of working conditions and worklife balance.(Survey to understand the pulse)
4. Recognition Framework to appreciate employees with less usage of the leave benefit.
I hope this helps.

""My niece has joined a Central Research lab recently and during interview itself the candidates were told that working hours are 9 A.M. TO 9 P.M. ""

Doesnt this violate working hour rules.

Presently it is 48 hours a week.

"" It appears that all laws/rules/regulations regarding work hours are blatantly violated , perhaps because ours' is a employers' market.""

There are thousands and thousands of degree holders.

Even highly qualified people work as peons etc in Government departments along with 10th standard pass colleagues.

MBA, PhD degree holders apply for peons' jobs in Rajasthan university

This is a result of the booming population and education industry mass producing graduates with no technical skills.

The point is that regardless of rules on leave ,there will always be a segment who would be absent,fall sick at the right time.

We can only try and control it from time to time and case to case.