Fixing Absenteeism and Tardiness

1) For success to occur, it is important for the entire team to know how we're doing in attendance at work (our absence problem). This must be known on an ongoing basis and specifically customized to information breakouts to certain units, departments, shifts, etc.

2) To be successful, particularly with the people who are working today, you need to consider innovative methods of scheduling. If you have a situation where you can't get people to show up for work, or on time, gripe about having to float or work extra, you spend time dealing with call-off issues and there seems to be a lot of "hair pulling" by the person in charge of scheduling, then you must consider something different.

3) We consider something different to be that of developing a team based scheduling model. This model includes having the team involved in filling in the assignment process, working with each other to determine the best way to get the number of people required to work at the same time, and getting the days off that are most preferred for each individual. This sets up an adult like process versus a parent/child model for scheduling. If people have to call in, they would call a replacement person that they've teamed with to replace them on the schedule vs. calling the facility and expecting them to find the replacement. This adult approached team based scheduling allows the organization to be worried about "days on" while the individuals are worried about their "days off". This has a great advantage to creating the necessary involvement people need in their schedules for employment in today's health care organizations.

4) It is important to reemphasize that finding your own replacement or forming a team for replacement strategy is a critical part of absence management. This puts the responsibility involved on the co-worker and not just on the organization to fix the absence problems.

5) Your facility should be involved in immediate intervention in absence problems. It is not healthy to let someone go on creating bad habits calling in (absence) and then trying to fix the problem after they've created these bad habits. Each occurrence of absence or tardiness should be dealt with preferably by the team and the supervisor at the time it occurs. It's certainly not necessary to be negative when the first occurrence of absence or tardiness happens. It is important however to let the individual know that the team and the supervisor know they were absent, that we're genuinely sorry, "if we are", that they had the problem associated with being absent and we're glad that they're back at work. Each successive absence or tardiness must also be dealt with specifically upon their return to work. Intervention strategies including disciplinary actions should be team based peer conversations with the individual to take place to let that individual know we are not satisfied with their continuing absence or tardiness problem.

6) A responsible individual must continue to deal in an adult like fashion with their problems associated with absence or tardiness. They have a responsibility to fix the problem or ask for a change in schedules. Again, we're setting up a concept that if you're a team player, you can't have what you want and let everyone else down. You have to take care of the team first. In doing this you're also setting up a model that makes it well known in the world that when you become hired in this organization, it's an expectation that you show up for work. If you can't show up for work you must make the adjustment necessary to ensure the facility is covered in that event. This sets up an appropriate effort for positive recruitment of the right type of individuals to your organization.