AWOL to remember

By Ian Clover

Playing hooky from work is as old as business itself, but the increasingly sophisticated techniques employers use to snare their absent workers are enough to deter such behavior. But do companies have a duty to get to the root cause of employee disengagement, asks Ian Clover.

“Companies need to be able to audit and report on their behavior in support these kinds of regulations and, if they can't, it can cost them big money if they are found out.”

Winter's hard. It's long. It's dark. It's cold, windy, rainy, snowy and miserable. Yes, for you guys who live in the southern States it's an almost insouciant nuisance that consists of a few 'chillier' months before the heat and endless sunshine returns some time around mid-March. But for the rest of us, it is a time to be endured, not enjoyed, especially once the festive decking has been packed away, the champagne flutes of New Year are safely back in their box and the first week back at work has been faced down.

There's no spring in your step. You feel lethargic and depressed. Being rudely jolted into semi-consciousness by your alarm clock at 6.00am on a cold February morning to be faced with dark streets and an even darker mood does nothing to alleviate the grimness of the season. There's Valentine's Day to look forward to (or not, if you're a singleton/recently singled denier), but other than that, it's a long, hard slog towards the light and warmth of spring, and having to get up and go to work only makes the days seem longer. And longer.

It's little wonder, then, that so many of us are tempted to play hooky from work at this time of year. The comforter confines of your cosy bed are, after all, immeasurably more appealing than a cold bathroom floor, and hitting the snooze button requires much less effort than brushing your teeth, tying your tie or topping your toast. And anyway, we're all deserving of a few duvet days in this current economic climate, right? Where we're all working extra hard to keep the wolf from the door? Surely any employer would understand that, right?

Wrong. In today's recessionary environment, employers are keener than ever to clamp down on employees who are seen to be taking advantage of a company's sick leave policy. And with jobs currently so hard to come by, you could be forgiven for thinking that employees would be doing all they can to attend work every day, irrespective of a few minor ailments. The truth is something altogether different.

"We have seen in research conducted by firms like Watch and Wyatt that employees' engagement has actually been declining during the recession," says Joyce Maroney, Director of the Workforce Institute at Kronos. Between 2008 and 2009, Watch and Wyatt measured a nine percent decline in employee engagement across all employees, and a 23 percent decline in top performers based on a study of 235 US-based companies with 1000 employees or more.

"At Kronos, we conducted a survey in 2010 on the back of these findings," reveals Maroney. "What we discovered was that 57 percent of people surveyed indicated that they would be likely to take a sick day when they weren't sick. So we have connected these two observations and concluded that, as people, if we are less engaged in our jobs, there is an increased likelihood we will call in sick even if we are not sick."

The obvious correlation here is that employee engagement is falling because people feel trapped by the economic environment, and are staying in jobs they find unfulfilling rather than taking the plunge, and the risk, that lurks in the murky waters of the job market.

"There are fewer and fewer alternative job opportunities out there," says Maroney. "As we begin to see signs that the economy is slowly beginning to improve - there has been a tangible uptick in hiring throughout many corners of the States - I believe that the industry will still see people abusing sick time, although perhaps they will be using their ill-gotten time off to conduct job searches and attend interviews rather than stay at home in bed bemoaning their fate."

Ethical work practise

It is no doubt unethical for employees to lie to their companies, and pulling a sick day - no matter how entrenched it is in everyday corporate life - is a practise that falls firmly in the unethical camp. But what can companies do to not only monitor such behavior, but actively tackle it? The answer is equally unethical, if not illegal.

Tackling absenteeism is now being taken extremely seriously by many corporations in the US, with a growing proportion of companies even going as far as to employ the services of private detectives in order to spy on those they suspect are playing hooky. Such ostensibly underhand tactics can be traced to a breakthrough court ruling in 2008.

When Diana Vail, an employee tracked by an off-duty police officer hired by her employers Raybestos Products, was fired for abusing her paid medical leave, she took her former company to court. However, her lawsuit was promptly dismissed by the 7^th US Circuit Court of Appeals, where a panel of judges roundly declared that, while surveillance 'may not be preferred employer behavior', it was not illegal. Such a landmark case has since encouraged companies to follow suit and hire their own private investigators to track absent staff.

"I think it's both legal and ethical," says Maroney. "Trust between employer and employee is a two-way street, and while I think that most employees show up for work and try to do a good job every day, there are employees who will take advantage of paid time off policies. And as a result, I think that if a company had objective evidence that an employee was abusing that benefit, then it only makes sense for the company to examine that behavior. If an employee is, if you will, stealing time from the company, then I think it's only appropriate for companies to follow up on that suspicion."

Encouraging engagement

Hiring detectives tackles the symptoms of employee disengagement, but has the recession placed greater emphasis on employers to get to the root cause of disengagement? Do HR departments and other management figures not have an even greater duty in these tough times to create a working environment that is conducive to togetherness?

"Recession or not, the basics of creating an environment in which employees feel engaged and loyal and more likely to be productive really do not change too much over time," believes Maroney.

"Employees are going to feel that their contributions are valued both economically and from a perspective of people saying: 'Thank you. I notice what you are doing; it makes a difference. Good job.'

"Being able to have open conversations with their manager about when they do need time off work is important," continues Maroney. "Companies should make it clear that when you are legitimately sick, you should stay home because, frankly, when people come in while they're sick, they run the risk of making other employees sick. And that, ultimately, is to the economic detriment of any company."

Such decisive thinking is no doubt a defining factor behind the increase in corporations investing in wellness programs and flu shot clinics: there is a greater understanding of the responsibility a company has to ensure that not only is its working environment safe, secure and engaging, but is also supportive in both preventing illness and affording its employees adequate time to rest and recuperate.

Although trust is the two-way street that Maroney mentioned, it is still a delicately balanced and intangible notion; a kind of implicit relationship where many rules are written but an equal number remain unwritten. "When you look across the variety of employee engagement studies that have been conducted, a lot of them get at issues asking whether people feel they have had to take on more work in the wake of layoffs," says Maroney. "Usually people do have to shoulder a heftier workload, but is that extra contribution valued by the company? Do they end up putting in a lot of overtime? And is it even eligible overtime, or simply working longer hours for the same pay?

"So I think that the kind of implicit contract that existed between employees and employers for many decades around the world has changed significantly in the last few years. With companies competing globally, they are stripping their expenses to the bone and, sometimes, employees are part of the collateral damage of that phenomenon."

Taming with technology

If detectives are draconian, then data monitoring can at least be deemed both modern and ethical. "It is a very old cliché, but it's a cliché because it's true - you can't manage what you can't measure," says Maroney. "And so technology can help companies employ and support time off policies in a way that is consistent and fair. And that, therefore, also gives companies the data to help them understand when there are seasonal or other fluctuations in time off.

"Technology can help companies detect unusual behavior in groups or individual employees. Very importantly, it helps employees comply with things like the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). There are companies that are legally bound to provide employees with certain types of unpaid time off under certain circumstances.

"Companies need to be able to audit and report on their behavior in supporting these kinds of regulations and, if they can't, it can cost them big money if they are found out."