Ethics, Costs of Absenteeism & Impact of Policies in the Workplace

Company policies are intended to be a benefit to the employee, actually give a means for the employee to use it unethically and hurt the financial security of the business. For example, at Wisconsin Physicians Service, there is an employee benefit of short-term disability that is also incorporated into an occurrences program. The number of occurrences that an employee has indicates how well the employee meets company standards. An occurrence is given for any time away from the job if an employee does not use vacation or employee time.

When an employee is gone over two days, a doctor’s note is required.

For this reason, many employees choose to take the full two days since an occurrence will be given. Current company standards allow for ten occurrences in a rolling year. A rolling year means that an occurrence will stay on the employee’s record until the same date the following year. A great benefit is overused and unethically many take two days, even if a day or even as few as a couple hours are really needed.

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This policy allows people to be away from work for more hours than needed, and can financially hurt the business if done too often, by too many employees.

Does the fact that the company allows something also mean that they allow employees to act unethically? Is this great benefit financially hurting the company to a point the business should reconsider its methods? Do great financial gains allow a company to act unethically? Issues/Problems There are multiple issues when considering the problems, impact and ethical issues regarding employees taking more time than necessary from work.

In addition, multiple concerns also become important as companies allow policies to be misused and abused. This is true whether it is increasing sales, following processes or absence policies.

Employees missing from their jobs disrupt workflow; cost the company in the form of lower productivity, and depending on industry, actual money if sales or customer service is affected. In addition, lower moral in the business also causes people to think less of the company and do what they want—most likely against what the company would prefer. In the case of WPS Insurance, their attendance policy that allows ten occurrences in a rolling year is not a significant deterrent for employees to take only the time they need instead of the two days allowable before medical documentation per occurrence.

Employees missing from their jobs disrupt workflow and lower productivity. This is especially true when tasks are completed as a group. Employees that are there, sometimes have to ‘make up the slack’ of the missing employee. This adds stress to the workforce and disrupts the workflow. Missing employees also means that less work will be accomplished. In some workforces, actual work will not be able to be completed. For instance, at WPS Insurance, actual claims that will be entered into the system will be lowered because of missing employees.

Employees missing from their jobs also cost the company actual money based on lower sales or an impact on less customer service. Consider a salesperson that will actually lose money because the sales cannot be made while absent. In addition, there are industries that will not make a sale because someone called into a call center with questions, possibly had to wait too long for an answer and then did not purchase a product. In 2005 a national survey showed that absent workers cost a company up to $660 per employee every year, (Ericksen, B & Twigg, T. 2007). Costs also rise as employees use more than the allowed absences and are disciplined. Training expenses and amounts for rehiring can accumulate to large amounts in a company’s budget when the turnover is already high. Lower morale within a business also causes people to ‘take what they can’ from the company and do things that they may not if the company moral was higher. For instance, if an employee believes that they can take two days off and have the same disciplinary policies used as just one day off, they will.

My position/Point-of-View. As a business professional, I believe that it does a large disservice for the business to continue to allow employees to have two days off before documentation is necessary, even though the employee will receive an occurrence. I believe that workflow is most commonly a problem when an employee is missing from work. For instance, if a supervisor is absent, the employees under that supervisor will have to look to another for attendance issues, disciplinary problems, problems with other co-workers, and general guidance to complete their tasks throughout the day.

For employees in a team-based setting, a missing employee may be responsible for a project not being completed on time, proper authorizations for work done in a timely manner or, in general, less work done as a member is missing. An opposing idea to the change in workflow is what some employees may think. The use of the two days is especially common in Wisconsin Physicians Service, Inc. (WPS) because employees pay a small fee from each paycheck for the short-term disability that funds the absence. Many feel that the paid benefit is something that costs them, so they want to utilize it.

Some believe that it would be wasting their money on a paid-benefit if they never used it. Analysis 1 My personal experiences with low morale in a business and its effects on my ethical decisions are varied from my previous employer. WPS Insurance allows for up to two days for an absence before a doctor’s note is needed. Regardless, an employee will receive an occurrence—unless the absence is covered under FMLA. When morale was low, I know that I thought differently about the company, and did things that I would not usually do.

I took more time off than needed because a single occurrence would be given; I may have only needed one day, but took two because the discipline for taking the time would be the same. I did not consider what would happen if I were absent. Who would enter the claims that I would have entered? I did not really care. I consider myself a conscientious worker, but when I did not think that the company cared, or when their policies did not fit my needs, I looked aside and did as I wanted.

I knew that the company policy would not change because of what I was doing, even if my absence really did lower quantities of claims entered. Research “Unplanned absences like casual sick days result in the highest per-day productivity loss, 21% versus just 15% for planned absences like vacation days. On average, employees have 5. 3 unplanned absence days per year,” (Wolfe, 2008). Since the average is slightly over 5 days per year, the WPS policy makes it possible to double the days absent for the same number of occurrences. Initially, the missing employee will disrupt the flow of work.

When a worker is gone, if the setting is usually team-based, the whole atmosphere of the group changes and, in general, less work will be accomplished. The fact that less work is done most times cannot be converted to a dollar amount, so it is often overlooked. Nevertheless, lowered productivity can be the ‘make-or-break’ when deadlines are tight and work needs to be completed. Additionally, it costs the company money. “Unexpectedly absent workers account for around 9% of all absenteeism costs, with planned absences such as vacation accounting for the rest.

Although this might not seem like such a huge number, it actually adds up to billions of dollars per year. The impact on company productivity can sometimes be hard to quantify, but the disruption to the work flow cannot be underestimated,” (Witcher, 2008). Each employee’s personality affects those he/she work with, as well as the working environment. “In personality research it is a well-established fact that understanding behaviour requires consideration of both individuals' perceptions of the situation and their personality characteristics (Mischel, 2004),” (Wegge, Schmidt, Parkes, & van Dick, 2007).

If an employee believes their behavior does not have a significant impact on the money they may receive as a raise or bonus, they may not see the significance of their actions of taking more days off than necessary. Many people are influenced by the monetary gains of a job, and the possibility of limiting the gains. Information has provided ample evidence that employee’s perception, morals and money have a large impact on an employee’s view of what is considered as being absent too much. In addition, the concept of presenteeism shows that being at work too often is also a cause for concern.

Presenteeism is the concept of people reporting to work, even if they should not. The employee would most likely be performing at lower levels of production because they are sick. “Even beyond the fact of physical presence at work, these employees are not functioning at their peak capacity. This puts them, their coworkers, patients, and families at risk not only for contagion of their illness, but for effects of their reduced attention span and increased potential for errors,”(Middaugh, 2007). Not all problems relating to employees are to the financial detriment of the ompany. MetLife was a similar company that allowed policies to remain in place when it did not foresee a problem in its dealings. MetLife allowed monetary gain become more important than the company’s real goals and intentions. MetLife’s “pledge to deliver value and world class service to all who do business with us, always keeping in mind what is best for our customers, (MetLife, 2010), has changed since its scandal or ethics violations in the early 1990’s. During the previous years, MetLife had extraordinary sales and commissions paid to their salespeople.

During the unethical years, management did not ensure their policies were changed to meet the company’s needs, because in effect, the company was gaining a huge profit, but it was at the expense of the values and mission they intended to follow. MetLife allowed deceptive practices in their sales Analysis 2 MetLife’s example shows that companies mostly do what is in the best interest of the company. While management within MetLife may have allowed deceptive sales practices to happen because of short-term financial successes, it shows a general lack of leadership.

MetLife management allowed policies to be misused and disregarded. A business allowing these behaviors to happen, allowed the employees to believe that personal gain was more important than following the mission and vision of the company. When MetLife allowed the policies about their main duties of work be ‘set aside’ it allowed employees to question what other policies could be disregarded for what may be considered a ‘valid enough’ reason. It allowed employees to use their own moral compass to decide what was right.

MetLife should have remained true to their vision and mission to help those needing their help, and provide it accurately. Sales would have still been great, and in hindsight, remained great instead of the large decline as the deception became public. It is true that the unethical behaviors of few can easily affect many. Ineffective and misuse of policies can also be seen at WPS Insurance. They allow employees to overuse and misuse the short-term disability policy to allow for more time from work that is necessary.

Although many may find the policy great when needed, it is detrimental to the business for those that overuse and abuse the policy to take more time than needed. A policy needs to be reexamined to ensure that it still meets the needs of the employee needing time away from work, but also is in the best interest of the company while ensuring that it cannot so easily be abused. Allowing unethical behaviors allows other unethical behaviors to be tolerated. Summary So, what can an employer do to reduce absenteeism? The first step to reduce absenteeism is to analyze the company to ensure proper controls are in place.

Are the people that are misusing the policies a specific set of people/department? It is necessary to understand where the problems originate so management can ensure that steps are taken in the correct areas for improvement. Are the expectations of the company well known? It is necessary that employees know what they can do, and what is against what the company expects. This is especially true for companies with turnover in their staff. Sometimes businesses run well because employees have been there long enough to have the company’s norms help them to know what is expected.

For new employees, it is necessary for a written explanation to ensure everyone ‘is on the same page’. Do the employees having problems feel valued? It also may be necessary to ensure proper reward systems, flexible work schedules, improved safety measures, and progressive discipline plans that are reevaluated or explained to the workforce. In addition, company’s need to ensure that the systems they devise work for the entire workforce so that all are treated equally. Another aspect to consider is the concept of presenteeism.

Presenteeism may help getting some work done, but if it affects others by getting them sick, inflicting an unprofessional attitude because the person wishes they could be at home, or affects the work balance since others will notice the behavior, it is better for those that are truly ready and healthy to be the ones at work on a day. Finding a healthy balance between working and absences is important. Ethically, it is important for an employee to use company policies as needed, not pushing to the limits to what can be tolerated.