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Paid Sick Leave


This blog was sparked by an article in SHRM (US Society for Human Resource Management) about Ohio and paid sick leave. Seemingly, the decision to call of the referendum was in part due to anticipated federal solution and in part to avoid a potentially damaging, recriminating debate in Ohio.

The referendum, if approved, would have required Ohio employers with 25 or more workers to provide seven days of paid sick leave.

The background to this is that during his acceptance speech on the final night of the Democratic National Convention in Denver, presidential nominee Obama pledged, “Now is the time to help families with paid sick days and better family leave, because nobody in America should have to choose between keeping their jobs and caring for a sick child or ailing parent.”

I remember when I first started working - as a graduate at The Post Office - people still talked about taking their 'Witneys or Witney Days'. This was a hang up from the introduction of sick pay into the Civil Service (I think) but may have been the post Office. In fact, having never seen it written it might be Whitney. I was told that this was named after the person who introduced a set number of paid sick days. The culture that was then created is that if someone had not been ill enough to use up their days they would 'book a Whitney day'. By the time I arrived the sick pay provision had been extended to 6 months and this custom and practice was dying out, yet from time to time people still talked about not having taken their Witneys.

Reading the note of the planned referendum I was reminded of this and wondered about the idea that if people are given a specific number of paid days off sick does this inevitably lead to an entitlement expectation. And if this is the case, what feeds this - the idea of taking anything you can, the idea that this is now your basic ‘contract’ or the idea that some people are getting it and thus you are losing out. I worry a bit that this is made worse if this is time off for personal illness or to take care of an unwell family member.

It seems to me that the latter puts increased pressure on the system - if I have an allocated number of days to look after sick family what internal test do I apply as to whether I take time off to do this myself or whether to impose upon my family or friends to cover for me. Interesting.

Also, what incentives do I have for not taking the time off? Do I think that I will be better viewed, and more likely to be promoted if I do not take time off sick or to look after my family? And if this is the case is it actually moving society forward. The above pledge talks about not having to choose between your job and caring for a sick child or ailing parent, but what about your promotion? Or is this fair game?

There is an increasing trend in the UK to reward employees for coming to work - i.e. not taking time off sick. I recently read in a forum that Royal Mail had introduced this last year - paying a bonus on a monthly basis if you had 100% attendance the previous month. Whilst I think that this practice is not unreasonable it does raise an interesting question - I pay you to work and I pay you even more to actually come to work. Now, I know that last comment was a bit frivolous but it does illustrate a point.

A number of these measures are, of course, aimed at a general concern (real or otherwise) that not all sickness absence is genuine. Ignoring the intentional fraud, there is and always will be different standards here. Some people do have a lower threshold and a cold for one person is a bad cold for another. In many ways the bonus type approaches are geared towards levelling this threshold - a sort of 'think twice before you take time off sick'.

It will be an interesting study if the US do introduce federal legislation in this area to see what trends emerge and how individuals and employers adjust to the new arrangements.

Allowing people to have time to get well without fear of job loss feels like a basic human right. Yet the cost of sickness absence is huge. So is, of course, the cost of dissatisfied employees, evidenced by such things as error rates, poor productivity and poor customer service. The metrics are, however, not quite so clear, and thus perhaps not given quite so much attention. For both, however, the sustained long term solution has got to be better communication, better employee engagement and better people management.



Published by: Lisette on 08/04/2009 - Add a comment

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