When a practice employee falsely calls in sick – or, worse yet, just doesn’t show up when they’re scheduled to work it affects everyone – your patients, staff, and your bottom line. In fact, excessive employee absences can cost your practice nearly $2,000 per employee, per year.

Making sure people show up when they’re supposed to starts with a rock-solid employee attendance policy. This document stops excessive employee absences before they start, keeping you from scrambling to fill a shift at the last minute.

Your employee attendance policy must be carefully crafted to show compassion for those with medical or family conditions, but also draw a line in the sand for those who call in just because they don’t want to work. Utilize the 5 steps below to develop an effective attendance policy for your practice (or update the one you already have) that will head off employee absenteeism before it becomes a problem:

1. Include Practice Culture

Every practice is different, and your attendance policy should reflect your specific office culture.

For example, if your company currently has a relaxed response to employees calling in at the last minute to take time off, and it isn’t causing you any problems, you should probably maintain that easy-going culture in your policy.

On the other hand, if your laid-back culture IS causing your practice staffing difficulties due to employee absences, you may decide that it is time to change.  Keep in mind that a new, more stringent policy may create pushback from your staff, but if you are having attendance problems, that might not be a bad thing.

Some questions to ask yourself as you draft your attendance policy include:

• Do your current guidelines create any problems for your practice?
• If yes, what specific attendance issues are you experiencing (lateness, late notice, etc.)?
• Do you require that your staff show up a few minutes early so they hit their start time on the dot?
• Are you okay if your team trickles in a bit after the start of the workday?

2. Remember the Golden Rule

As you write your absenteeism policy for your practice, keep in mind the Golden Rule you learned in kindergarten – to treat others as you want to be treated. If you set an attendance policy for employees that’s so strict you wouldn’t want to follow it yourself, don’t make your team follow it.

Sometimes, giving employees a bit more latitude means the difference between keeping good employees and dealing with frequent turnover.

3. Define Your Terms

Clearly communicating the key terms used in your attendance policy is extremely important. If you don’t, your employees will have their own interpretation of your policy, and most likely it will not be the same as yours.  Your staff can’t be expected to comply with a policy if they don’t completely understand every aspect of it.

Even simple terms like “absence” can be misunderstood if not defined.  Is an “absence” different from a “no-show?” And what about someone who’s “tardy?” Is an employee who gets to work five minutes late treated the same in your policy as someone who shows up an hour late? Etc.

Consider some of the terms and definitions below when you start writing your absenteeism policy.

Note: Wherever you see an “X” in the definition, you’ll need to set clear parameters so there are no misunderstandings with your staff.

• Absence is a pre-scheduled time away from work. Employee is responsible for notifying their supervisor of any scheduled time off they need. Approved time off will only be considered if employee notifies their supervisor at least “X” days ahead.

Examples of when an absence might apply are doctor appointments, planned vacations, funerals, etc.

• Unscheduled Absence is an employee who doesn’t give adequate notification to meet the criteria of an absence. Employees are expected to have no more than “X” unscheduled absences within “X” timeframe.

Examples of when an unscheduled absence might apply are weather conditions, car trouble, family emergencies, etc.

• Tardiness is showing up to work after at least “X” number of minutes after their scheduled start time. It is expected that employees will show up to work on time each day. Management realizes that occasionally situations may arise that cause an employee to be late to work; however, this should not be a regular occurrence.
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  Note: As you define “tardiness,” consider how much latitude you’re willing to give your employees before their lateness counts as a tardy and results in negative consequences.
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• No-Show is failure to show up to work without providing notification to the appropriate person at your practice. Or showing up to work more than “X” minutes/hours late without notifying your supervisor.
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• Sick Day is calling into work and notifying a supervisor that employee is too ill to come to the office. Employee is expected to show up to work each day that they are scheduled; however, practice realizes that everyone gets sick sometimes. Accordingly, if employee is ever too sick to come into office, they are required to call their supervisor as soon as possible to notify them. If employee ends up being out sick more than “X” days over an “X” day period, they are required to get a doctor’s note acknowledging the employee’s illness.

Notes:

(1) How you track sick days is up to you. Some practices choose to have a big pot of time off regardless of the reason, while others have a certain number of sick days that, once used up, the employee will not be paid for any additional sick time off for that year.

(2) If your practice added a COVID policy during the pandemic, be sure that those time off policies coincide with our new attendance policy.

4. Realistic Discipline

Now that you’ve identified the different types of employee absences, you must define the consequences that will be applied if an employee fails to live up to your new rules.

The consequences you choose should correspond with the specific parameters you’ve outlined in your attendance policy. With that number in mind, determine how many infractions of employee absences you are willing to allow before employees receive disciplinary action.

Remember, the purpose of adding consequences to your attendance policy is to help employees make good decisions. An employee should NEVER be surprised by the results of failing to meet attendance rules.

In addition to the language above, consider this sample consequences language as you draft your policy:

• Tardiness: Over the course of a year, employee is allowed 3 tardy days. On the 4^th time employee is tardy they will receive a written warning. If they are tardy a 5^th time within the same year, there is a possibility of termination.
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  Definition: A year is calculated from Jan-Dec regardless of employee’s start date.
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• No-Shows: It is considered more serious when an employee fails to show up to work without communication or comes in more than 45 minutes after their scheduled start time without notification. Accordingly, on the 1st no-show, the employee will receive a written warning. Should another no-show occur within the same period, employee may be terminated.
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• Unscheduled Absences: Unfortunately, unexpected circumstances occur in life that can lead to an unscheduled absence an employee may have no control over (i.e., sick children, car accident on the way to work, sudden illness, etc.). Accordingly, our practice wants to be as lenient as possible when unscheduled absences occur, as long as they are not habitual or cause problems within the practice.
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  • Active Warning in Place: Should an employee have an active written warning in place, they will be allowed 1 unscheduled absence during that time.
    Definition: A warning becomes inactive if the employee has abided by its terms for 3 months after the date it was issued.
  • Employee in Good Standing: Allowed 4 unscheduled employee absences between January and December each year. The 5^th unscheduled absence during this time will result in the employee receiving written warning.

Definition: Staff member must have no active written warning in place to qualify as an employee in good standing.

Note: The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that the annual absence rate for full-time healthcare workers was 3.8 in 2021. That shakes out to around 4 absences per employee, per year. You may want to keep this number of employee absences in mind as you draft your policy.

5. Inform Your Team

Your employee attendance policy is meant to keep your practice running smoothly day to day, not create anger and stress among your team. Show your staff you respect their needs by sitting down with them, going over the policy, and explaining its importance. You should also do this with ALL employees as well.

While you may experience some blowback from your team, especially if you’ve never truly had any sort of attendance policy before, giving them the opportunity to ask questions and voice their concerns is important.

Not only is this meeting a chance for you to explain the reasons behind the policy to your team, it’s also a crucial step in making sure everyone is given the correct information. If you do your duty and inform everyone of the new policy, they cannot claim ignorance down the road if they’re met with disciplinary action.

Dismissing an employee for excessive absences is never easy, and you’ve got to make sure you’ve got all your ducks in a row to avoid a wrongful termination lawsuit. Get proven employee discharge strategies (for employee absences and otherwise) that protect your practice while ensuring you’re avoiding legal action in Healthcare Training Leader’s online training session, Protect Your Practice from Costly Employee Termination Lawsuit. In this immediately available session, Amanda Waesch, Esq., and Bryan Meek, Esq., give you their expert guidance through the firing process so you don’t get on the wrong side of the law. Access this training today!

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