According to a USPS Inspector General website the U.S. Postal Service spent $1.4 Billion in 2008 on sick leave. The Postal Service identified 35,000 employees with 20 or more unscheduled absences.

      I think it’s hard to schedule when you are going to be sick or can’t make it to work and that’s why we call an employee service line which is an automated leave request system for unscheduled regular leave, family medical leave, sick leave, emergency leave, or work related illness/injury. After you answer a few basic questions from the computerized voiceover then you’re assigned a confirmation number and shizam, you’re in the unscheduled absence system. If the system is down you can log onto LiteBlue.com, or speak to a supervisor who will record your absence following an algorithm of questions. With that said put this transparent thermometer under your tongue and let’s see if you have a fever by the time you are done reading this opinion.

      I suspect we need overall improvement in the value of the system to significantly lower the financial figure stated in the opening fact. Plainly stated, without our health it is hard to give and feel 100%. In the processing and distribution center where I work we are told by managers that the average age of our employees is fifty years old. In this age group I expect many workers talk to each other about a variety of medical and dental conditions that affect themselves, family, and friends. An aging workforce is going to take advantage of any earned benefit to the maximum extent possible and this might result in more health care visits for general consultations, surgical procedures, therapeutic evaluations and many other conditions substantiated through medical diagnosis.

      Many postal assignments are physically and mentally demanding! Most bids require heavy lifting, stooping, bending, repetitive motion maneuvers because mail is received, processed, and delivered in equipment and packaged in all shapes, sizes, and weights. Sometimes unscheduled days off may not provide enough rest for general aches and pains. Time wears on the body especially with repetitive motion jobs. Over the years, regardless of our wellness situation our body parts begin to degenerate and get in the way of working. Life has a funny way of reminding our body of our seniority. Our shoulders ache, we develop back pain, our knees begin to deteriorate, and many other internal and external medical conditions that the violinist doesn’t have time to play a tune too.

      Employees draw on sick leave before retirement seeking medical care and attention for a variety of work and non-job related reasons, conditions and injuries. Perceived or real hostile work conditions can mutate the number of unscheduled absences. For stress some employees dip into their sick bank to circumvent workplace climate indicators such as; favoritism, verbal abuse, and intimidation. The easier outlet for many is to call in sick to avoid interaction or altercation with an aggressive coworker or someone they directly report to.

      Fortunately everyone cannot live out of the same autobiography. Employees who are rarely or never sick are referred to as superman or superwoman. Quite possibly they live a healthy lifestyle and love their working conditions. Some may be concerned about a penalty, or feel guilty about missing a day of work based on stories and confrontations they hear from their coworkers. Then there is the associate who will tell you that they can’t afford to lose any pay and they have to make it to work regardless of their health situation. I think the term for that is called presenteeism, meaning showing up for work and spreading their illness around the workplace.

      I once asked a manager if he ever listened to the recording on the unscheduled phone line and he said no he is a good employee and he doesn’t call in. I’m thinking, Wow! I guess those that do use the system are bad employees. Leaders who have employees who report directly to them should take the time to listen to the recorded call-in system to fully understand the options offered to employees, including the phrase “For all other requests call your supervisor.” They quickly eliminate this option by telling us not to call them, but to “Call the system” Sometimes that computer system can make a person more irritated when it can’t understand what you are saying and it repeats itself over and over, then you find yourself screaming at the phone. Supervisors and managers can be very strict on unscheduled regular time off although you have enough hours. We are told to bring in tickets to prove commitments, or are turned down to attend important personal and family events for the catch all excuse “Needs of service,” and this mindset forces employees to mumble the question, why bother asking? Many other situations can cause an employee to miss work such as; a death in family, longer than expected sickness, malingering, or just needing time off for whatever reason. Based on the way the Federal Employee Retirement System is designed it is seen as a use it, or lose it system and from the workroom floor it looks like in the year before retirement loads of employees catch the S.W.I.N.E (System Won’t Implement No Empathy) flu because it’s the only way to liquefy a surplus of days.

      An employee who might feel like returning to work sooner from an illness might reconsider coming back foreseeing that if they just stay home they won’t have to deal with any verbal harassment or the hostilities of the working environment while fully recovering from their health condition. Some employees say the system forces them to burn sick leave because there is no light duty accommodations available for a specific injury. It might be better to pay an employee and get a little use than pay an employee to stay at home and get no use.

      When returning from sick leave you better be ready with your A.I.R. (Argument Infection Rx) tight alibi because you can count on a supervisor coming at you like the paparazzi to document the pieces into the magic attendance formula to see if you will be branded guilty until proven innocent. Their best tactic is to sit down under the heat lamp with every employee who misses a day, and scare up some answers. It seems like you just can’t use the sick time until someone justifies your use of it. If we disengage the autocratic style and engage all employees we will identify the root cause of the $1.4 billion dollars depleted in the system and stop the internal bleeding. Is it the physical demands? Is it the management style? Is it the employee? Is it the workplace demographics? Or, is it a combination of factors?

Solutions

      In order to come up with good solutions we need to understand the impacts of sickness on the organization including but not limited to; decreased productivity, low morale, unhappy workforce, increased wage costs in overtime, increased workloads, and increased injuries.

   A. We should survey the Population with choices, options, and seek fill-in the blank page solutions. Call it a “Voice of sickness” survey. Make other business model adjustments, mission statement updates, strategic plan changes, and refine the current management style to a people-oriented approach in the way leaders engage employees. Monitor sick leave trends and tailor leadership style with a different approach if there is a suspicion of abuse. Focus on processes rather than targeting individuals.

   B. Offer incentives to beneficiaries of the Federal Employee Retirement System (FERS) to get credit at retirement similar to what Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) employees get. A new idea might include letting employees cash out at retirement: 1000 hours X $20/Hr = $20,000. Give 100% compensation, or 75% compensation, or 50% compensation. Offer some kind of tangible incentive package for accumulated sick leave which might entice more senior employees to voluntarily retire sooner from postal service and drastically reduce future S.W.I.N.E flu outbreaks.

   C. Create a system of Personal Paid Time Off: Lumping all sick leave and annual leave into one category and when employees call in or use earned hours they know they are reducing the amount of time off available to them from their personal paid time off account. Offer additional vacation days for unused sick leave. Cash in 1000 hours and get 40 hours of annual. Cash in 1500 hours and get 60 hours of annual or something along those lines. But, you only get credit for reaching the milestone the first time.

   D. Based on the average age of the workforce it may be time to counter balance the upper age by closing the generational gap with an influx of younger employees into the workforce to bring down the baby-boomer average potentially lowering the amount of employees using sick leave time.

   E. Offer flexible scheduling in the form of Ten hours days and four day work weeks which would give employees three days off to rest, recuperate, and take care of personal affairs.

   F. Offer a federal tax deduction for accumulated sick leave. Maybe 1500 hours can be converted to an equivalent of a charitable deduction. Possibly there could be 10% charity deduction starting at 700 hours for every 200 hours over 700. Perhaps the leftover hours could be could be donated to a nonprofit agency from a list similar to the one used in the Combined Federal Campaign and converted to some kind of individual tax donation.  

   G. Continue with perfect attendance awards in various forms and presenting the 250 hour increment pin and certificate.

   H. Create a sick leave challenge for those who use less than a set amount of hours or days to have their names placed in a drawing for a prize. A fraction of employees who use less than 32 hours in a year will have their names placed in a prize pool to win a grab bag of items which might include; trinkets, memorabilia, collectibles, front door parking, or something really creative like; a roll of first class postage stamps with the employees photo. The list is endless. Think, move, and communicate people! We have to remember that one size does not fit all. Try this! At the end of the year hold a drawing for everyone who has used less than 24 hours of sick leave to get a ticket and their name goes into a drawing to win a 65” High Definition TV with Blue-ray player or a tax free cash alternative of $4000, now you got my attention! I bet the cost savings in sick leave used would easily pay for the prize and the turnout to watch the drawing would be incredible, and at the same time as the drawing bosses could give a thirty second sick leave motivation pitch.

   I. Develop working, focus, process action teams, quality circles, or project teams comprised of management, craft, and labor union representation to brainstorm ideas through consensus, and tap into the workforce for feedback at the meetings. Put up story boards in high traffic areas that illustrate transparent thought patterns to the masses so they don’t think teams are having a get out of work meeting.

   J. Overbook the number of required employees in operations to cover emergencies and absent personnel. If the operation requires ten people calculate the fact that two personnel may be on scheduled vacation, one may be out sick, and one may have an unscheduled emergency, and acknowledge that you actually need fourteen people to always do the job efficiently. This would cut down on overtime and put less stress on those left to carry the load in the pay location

   K. Continue to use testimonials to show how proper management of hours can help avoid further crisis in event of an individual or family emergency. (Save home, pay mortgage, bills etc.)

   There are always unanswered questions that employees want to know about their earned benefit such as; where do the hours go if employees retire and they have 2000 hours if there is no pay incentive? Many say that they have heard the hours go to a bonus pool for managers. Can families cash out unused sick hours in event of our untimely demise? No pay or incentive at the end of the line appears to be a punishment for accumulating so many unused hours. We all should have a healthy fear of the day we might not have enough hours to cover infirmity.

   I believe that the idea behind a sick leave incentive program is to promote wellness from the start of employment which will contribute to a healthy career and if all goes well we will have a hefty sick bank for that rainy day. In between time incentivizing may cost money but it will probably result in a greater return on investment over the long haul. Everyone will not be eligible to participate in an incentive based program based upon their own health situation, but we all do start out on a level playing field with the same benefit. We should trademark incentives for better health as pay-for-wellness. Let’s start brainstorming together! Solving the sick leave problem can be equivalent to solving the parking problem in many places. Nothing worth doing is ever going to be easy. We need sick call reform in a big way. Employers can’t run a business by paying employees who have to be at home or hospitalized for illness. Also, at the end of the day the current system can make an employee feel like we are being ex-sick-cuted.  
 

Ronald Williams, Jr.