For your veterinary practice to provide excellent client service and patient care, you must adequately staff it, which means team members are in attendance when scheduled to work. Although your practice can’t avoid absences when employee emergencies arise, significant absenteeism costs money, lowers productivity, damages the quality of services, and poses safety issues when not enough people are present.
A well-defined attendance policy can help by clarifying what you require of employees and giving them flexibility when unexpected situations occur.
What goes into a solid attendance policy are equitable rules that state when employees should arrive at work and when they can leave, and how they should register their presence. The policy should define terms, as needed, and give examples, such as the difference between excused and unexcused absences.
In your case, an excused absence might require approval from the practice manager, two days’ notice and sufficient accrued paid time off. An unexcused absence, meanwhile, might involve one or more unfulfilled conditions. Also, list what employees should do when a 48-hour notice isn’t possible, such as with a sudden illness or a car accident on the way to work.
What stays out of an attendance policy is anything you aren’t willing to enforce equitably. I use “equitably” instead of “equally” because, although impartiality and fairness are vital, not all job situations are alike. For example, you could have different policies for people depending on whether you pay them a salary or hourly or if they sometimes work remotely.
In: Consequences for Absenteeism
Besides clearly stating the rules and allowing flexibility, your attendance policy should address what happens when someone violates it. Two of the most common consequences involve warnings and points.
Your policy might describe the warning system as one in which team members receive a series of verbal notices, followed by written notices, as they violate the rules. On the other hand, some practices assess points — certain numbers for infractions and a one-year limit before other consequences kick in. For example, employees might receive a small number of points for tardiness or leaving work early and more for an unexcused absence or a no-show.
Consequences can include a pay reduction. If employees accumulate a set number of warnings or points, for instance, you can explain that their earnings will be reduced by $1 an hour in the following pay period the next time a tardy or absence occurs.
Assessing financial penalties comes with a couple of cautions:
- You can’t reduce pay below the minimum wage.
- You can’t enforce the reduction in the current payroll period, only the next one.
Additional steps could escalate to termination if early-stage consequences don’t remedy unacceptable behavior.
Here’s something else to consider: The approaches outlined so far are punitive, meaning negative things occur when a team member doesn’t follow the rules. That’s why you might want an incentive program to reward employees who have good attendance. Again, remember to lay out the terms in the policy manual.
In: Rewards
Attendance bonuses can serve as excellent incentives. Just like nobody wants to work for less money, everyone likes to work for more. For example, you could offer small monthly or quarterly bonuses and perhaps an extra payment at the end of the year for excellent attendance. The rewards don’t have to be especially large to have an impact.
In addition, consider listing the people with outstanding attendance in your team emails and surveying employees about the rewards that would most satisfy them. For example, extra hours of paid time off might be as enticing as extra cash in a paycheck.
In: Exemptions
Your employee manual and attendance policy should include exemptions. For example, you could state that jury duty, military duty and bereavement days do not count toward recorded absences and don’t affect bonus calculations. Also, list the required documentation, such as a doctor’s note, when an absence counts as excused rather than unexcused.
Also, ensure that your attendance policy does not conflict with disability accommodations. According to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, employers might need to modify their attendance policies to include reasonable accommodations, such as adjusting arrival and departure times, providing breaks and allowing an employee to use accrued paid leave or unpaid leave.
According to the Americans with Disabilities Act, employers might need to alter time and attendance requirements but don’t need to grant open-ended schedules. As with all ADA situations, consult an attorney when creating and enforcing related policies.
In: Processes and Procedures
Your written attendance policy should clearly explain how an employee should request time off, including in an emergency. List the requirements and how and when the employee should submit a request.
Also, detail how an employee should clock in and out each workday, including for lunch and breaks. Include what someone may not do, such as having a coworker handle the clocking in or out.
Finally, consider having an attorney review your entire attendance policy before you share it with employees.
Get the Word Out
When you create an attendance policy, schedule a team meeting where you share the specifics, get feedback and answer questions. A key goal is to obtain employee buy-in so that compliance increases. Have each team member sign an acknowledgment of receiving a copy of the policy.
Each year, determine whether anything in the policy needs updating, review the changes at an annual meeting and answer questions.
FINAL TIP
You don’t want an attendance policy so rigid that you lose valuable team members who can’t abide by the terms during a personal crisis. Absent employees faced with especially challenging circumstances might be permitted to borrow against future paid time off.