Absenteeism, illness & parenting

[Valerie Heimerich]

We're a 24/7 emergency call center for a large private utility company. There are 60 employees, most of which are part-time. Their work schedules are flexible & we have a respectful & employee-friendly environment.

Our attendance policy says that disciplinary action occurs after 5 absences within the same calendar year. I'm not sure how to handle employees who miss excessive time when their kids get sick. Not long-term illnesses (as covered by FMLA), just the basic stuff that kids share. If their kids (or they themselves) are legitimately sick, they don't have much choice but to stay home.

How many absences do other call centers allow before progressive discipline results in termination?

[ESB225]

I too manage a call center and had a similiar problem with absenteeeism. Here is what I had to put into place. I know it may sound harsh but I really can't put it any other way. My policy is plan and simple. Anymore that 6 occurances results in a termination. I know people get sick and i know things happen but I have to keep it fair for those who do not have children. If it is a family leave sit. then I do make exceptions. But just regular ramdom sick days and after 6 your gone. I don't know if this helps but that's how I did it....

Edmund S. Brown
JR Cigars
Call Center Manager

[gkern]

No easy answers on this one, but one thing that we did that helped was to automate a process by which agents can make schedule changes (swap shifts). It is a paperless process in which the system looks at the schedules and agent profiles and allows that agents to make the change.

I can show it to you online if you would like to see it.

Greg Kern
CallTech
512-261-0409

[cjw17]

I think those guidelines are too strict. Our call center has a staff of 100 CSR's, about 20% are part time. The part-timers tend to be mothers, & they are our most senior people-average length of service over 5 years. Their turnover is almost nil, whereas our full timers last less than 18 months. Not to mention they treat our customers really well! As director of Quality Assurance for this department, within a division of a national bank, I should know.
We allow them 7 occasional absences before they are docked (they're all salaried). They go on disciplinary action after 8, & terminated after 10. As salaried staff, most of them will use their emergency personal days (2) & vacation days (most of them have 3 weeks after 5 years) before they'll get anywhere near 7 chargeable absences.
I'd rather keep these people than terminate them, being forced to keep hiring & training, which is expensive.

[Rebecca Oettinger]

Hi Valerie.

Our firm did some research for a large utility company in the fall of 2001 where we looked at industry human resource trends. We found that most companies treat an absence or tardy as an occurrence regardless of the reason because of legal and morale issues if company management gets involved with subjective reasoning. Also, you want definite guidelines in place so acceptable practices do not change as managers come and go.

We recommended measuring occurrences on a rolling 12-month basis with 3 occurrences resulting in a verbal warning, 5 occurrences resulting in a written warning, and 6 occurrences resulting in suspension or termination. The last category allows management some freedom in not losing good employees but you need to be aware of the precedence you set.

In addition, we implemented a tiered scale for what constitutes an occurrence: absence was 1 occurrence, tardiness ½ occurrence, etc. You may consider factors such as how to treat multiple day illnesses with vs without doctors notes, failure to log in and out of the phone system for breaks and end of day, etc. Feel free to call if you have additional questions.

Good luck!
Rebecca

[markrobinson66]

Hello, in the past my experiences with employee absenteeism have always been part of the call center beast. I currently challenge my employees to be within 95% of their Schedule Adherence target. Schedule Adherence includes all forms of absenteeism as well as ensuring that all breaks and lunch times are followed as per the daily schedule. Any deviations from this schedule will throw off your service levels.

Also, I look at each individual situation and employee as a separate issue. Absentee patterns that emerge, i.e. Monday's and Friday's off, calling in sick at the last minute, etc., will tend to show themselves quite easily. I have always found that those employees, who are dedicated to their job, will find a way to show to work most of the time. As long as you set the expectations with your staff by informing them of what is expectable and what is not, those who abuse it should be ready to face the consequences.

Excessive absenteeism, regardless of the reason, will always affect your companyÂ’s bottom line.

[tdtuck70]

I managed a 24/7 large call center in an urban environment. The majority of our staff are former welfare recipients.

We work very closely with the city and job referral agencies regarding attendance.

We implemented a modified occurence policy - consistent days out represented one occurence, i.e., three days out consecutive represent one occurence, with three occurence qualifying the agent to enter the corrective action process.

At the third level of the process, we schedule an one-on-one session with Human Resources and a senior executive.

These sessions have been very successful in discovering the real issues of the problems and provides insight to the executive level on the problem.

It also gives the agent the opportunity to meet executives one -on one. Hope this helps! It works well for us.

Francis Tuck

[project518ceo]

It seems to me the larger issue at stake here is how to stop burning money on nonproductive agents by gradually squeezing out the in-house agents that aren't pulling their weight.

One way to do that is to switch over to a pay for performance structure. If agents don't want to come to work fine! They can telecommute. The difference is, the company will only pay stay at home workers for active talk time on a per minute basis. These agents operate as independent contractors. No salary. No Insurance. No equipment. No work station.

Agents provide their own phone and high speed Internet connection. Let them work 24/7 anytime they want over a secure Virtual Private Network. That way they can skip the excuses and get paid strictly for performance or you can replace them with a Virtual Call Center team for 25% of their salary and benefits.

[HRdude]

In my experience, Rebecca's suggestion can work well in most situations. A 12-month rolling period could work in some situations, but a 6-month rolling period can oftentimes be a better fit (especially in an outbound environment). A 6-month rolling period affords the outstanding rep who may have an extremely difficult period (child care issues, trouble at school, etc.) the chance to get back to their previous standards more quickly.

I've found that for especially productive and dependable workers, even the thought of accruing occurences (even for situations that were not their fault) tends to demoralize them and make them question whether they should just leave your company and start over elsewhere. It sounds crazy, but I've seen it time and again.

I also agree with MarkRobinson, that your dependable people are that way for a reason. They plan for emergency situations before they happen. They have back-up or at least some options when a tuff situation pops up and they'll usually find a way to make it in. In my new hire orientation classes, I cover this area by brainstorming with the class the situations that may arise and how (with a little planning) they can be ready for them and work right through them.

[Mike H]

I manage a large center (500+ employees and growing) We track attendance over a rolling 12 month period. And we do not count each day as an occurence, if they are consecutinve work days, it is only one occurence. And if it is a pre-approved (not a call in) we don't count it. We kept this in the policy to cover scheduled doctor's appointments and things like that. Our policy states 4 occurences verbal warning, 5 occurences written, 6 occurences final written and 7 possible termination.

I have always felt that attendance policies are written for employees with chronic attendance issues. The good employee that comes to wrk every day, and only calls on when they are sick won't be affected by this type of policy.

Mike

[HRdude]

I agree, consecutive occurences should only warrant one reprimand. Pre-approved time-off shouldn't be counted against someone. I also agree that attendance guidelines are written for abusers only - when I rollout a plan, I say "If you haven't had attendance issues in the past, you're not likely to have them under the new plan either." Unfortunately, these plans need to be written to address the 15% of our employee base, wasting time that could be used positively rewarding exemplary behavior. It's too bad!

[markrobinson66]

We certainly have some talented and knowledge people sharing their ideas and suggestions here.

I certainly agree wholeheartedly with both Mike and HRdude regarding their comments.

One area that we implemented here is that we offer all full-time associates 10 sick days per year. This is ten actual days rather than ten occurrences. Out of these ten days, four can be used as personal days, i.e. doctor's appointments, mental health days, children related absences, etc. Since implementing this we have seen a great improvement within our schedule adherence guidelines.

I think the biggest beast to tame in this regard is educating the staff to understand that their allotted sick days are there to use when needed and are not extra days that can be added to their vacation days and used as "days off." We also incent our staff who falls within the range of their schedule adherence %, which is 95%. This sends the message that I can still take time off when needed, however, as long as I don't abuse it, I may be financially rewarded for doing so. Its a small extra percentage on their end of year bonus, however, it has worked wonders.

[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.

[Mike Knowles]

As a manager, you must manager to exceptions. There is no set number of occurences for anything. If your staffing is poor, then you obviously might want to use much more prudence and caution when dealing with corrective action issues.

The problem I have is distinguishing true life changing events with the day to day "drama" that some employees seem to bring to work with them.

[Jakob]

sounds good to me