[CenterLead]

I am a lead in a inbound call center with about 150 employees all full-time. We branched off from our tech support department to create a new customer retention department and in the beginning had absenteeism issues. Due to this we had to put a new attendance policy into place. It goes like this: (on a rolling 6 months)

2-3 occurences = verbal warning
4 occurences = written warning
5 occurences = final written warning
6 occurences = termination

The definition of an occurence for us is from the start of the absence to the finish. So an employee can be absent 1 day or even 3 days in a row it is still considered one occurence. So the above would represent each seperate absence occurence.

Then we also incorporated the policy that if you give 24 hrs advance notice of the need for an absence, and it is approved by management, then it does not count as an occurence.

This policy has given us the flexibility needed for special situations as well as created an equal policy for everyone in the department. It works well for us.