Points the Way

If your business has never experienced the tug-of-war between absenteeism and attrition because of your attendance policy, you can probably just stop reading now.  For the rest of us, it’s a conundrum that keeps us up nights.  Where is that fair line that balances all the following questions:

1.    What’s fair to my employees?

      2.    When is it cheaper just to hire somebody who may show up to work?

      3.     How much absenteeism can the business afford? 

      4.  What am I willing to enforce?

Attendance policies are a topic that cut straight to the heart of microeconomics from both points of view: business and employee.  It all comes down to the rational behavior of the users.  If your attendance policy is far too strict and doesn’t allow for life to happen, you’re probably finding yourself with high attrition.  It’s rational, at some point, for your employees to find a job that allows them to schedule dentist appointments, stay home with sick kids and any other miscellany that life may dispense.

If, on the other hand, your policy is too liberal or is not strictly enforced, you are probably finding yourself pulling out your hair trying to figure out why certain employees aren’t showing up to work.  This is also a rational behavior as human beings will quickly figure out the balance between how much money they need to live and how much they feel like working.  Not enforcing your policy is also a fairly rational behavior for any organization that puts a high value on reducing attrition.  Turnover can be extremely expensive for any business with high cost of training and/or a high time-to-productivity rate.

There’s always going to be a complicated mathematical answer to all of these questions but, this time at least, I advocate a different strategy: eliminate your old “points” attendance policy and focus on your behaviors and your culture; put simply, terminate for attendance issues only when you, the company, are presented with no other option.  Focus on the behaviors that really hurt a business such as unapproved leaves (i.e. extended, undocumented absences) and “No Call No Shows” (which in my opinion show a lack of respect for managers).  As long as you’re consistent and address the unacceptable behaviors each time they arise, I see no reason you should ever find yourself in legal hot water.  You won’t be separating anybody for absenteeism.

Perhaps the more vital piece of this theory is your culture.  To trust that, in the absence of a policy, your employees will make the choice to come to work every day, you’ve got to make coming to work every day the rational decision.  How you do that is up to you.  Individual incentives I’ve already touched upon.  Job enrichment is a possibility (more on that topic on a later date).  My personal favorite is relationship building.  If you give your employees someone to trust in a manager that cares about them and their development, they’re going to start making the conscious, and sometimes unconscious, decision to come to work more often.

I guess this is where I add the disclaimer that I’ve never actually been able to test this theory.  I have, however, watched all the components work in little pockets.  What do you think?  Can we build workplaces that depend on such high levels of trust given in exchange for a more caring work environment?