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 the 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 at the issue from other perspectives. I am sure you have tried out at least some of the suggestions suggested by the members here. I guess you also need to value others' time.

Regards,
TS

Very often, employees apply for leave on medical grounds in a piecemeal manner, often for short periods, such as 3 days, citing reasons such as fever, etc. In some organizations, employees are advised to take sick leave for a minimum of five days, based on a medical certificate or fitness certificate issued by a registered medical practitioner. They are allowed to rejoin duty upon submission of the mentioned certificates. If there is a frequent application of leave on medical grounds, such cases are referred to the Medical Board for an opinion. The maximum period allowed for leave will be determined based on the Medical Board's opinion.

R P Ramanathan

I appreciate the suggestion by Dinesh-ji regarding the attendance bonus. Surely, it would be a motivator and bring down the incidence of absenteeism on medical grounds. However, I would like to point out that the way organizations 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 the interview itself, the candidates were told that the working hours are 9 A.M. to 9 P.M.! Similarly, my nephew has to work for twelve hours, all this without any overtime. Add to this the time spent journeying to and fro the workplace, and it makes two-thirds of a day! It appears that all laws/rules/regulations regarding work hours are blatantly violated, perhaps because ours is an employer's 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 organization 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 the company's doctor. This proved to be a deterrent for habitual offenders. 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

Dear Sonia,

A high leave consumption for medical reasons requires attention on a few pointers mentioned below:

1. Leave policy of the organization - the number of days allotted, process of application, approval, and documentation process.
2. Communication to the coworkers through various channels (mailers, connects, soft boards displaying policies) to understand the process and implications of exceeding the allotted count.
3. Detailed study of working conditions and work-life 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 the interview itself, the candidates were told that working hours are from 9 A.M. to 9 P.M.

Doesn't 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 an employer's 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, Ph.D. 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."