Flexible Sick-Leave Policies Can Benefit Companies : Labor: Liberal rules may save money but can be unfair. Some firms give workers a set number of days off for all purposes.

Companies that adopt a liberal sick-leave policy, one that allows employees to take an extra day or two off now and then, may find they have reduced their turnover and saved themselves a bundle.

But they may also find they have created a two-tier policy that satisfies some workers while rubbing others the wrong way.

“Some people may need to be absent more often than others in order to keep their job,” says Prof. William Todor of Ohio State University, Columbus. “A liberal absenteeism policy can allow them some flexibility.”

Working mothers, employees with a sick relative or those experiencing a personal crisis, for example, all may need more time off than their colleagues. And a flexible sick-leave policy could allow those who need extra time to take it.

“The key for a company is to determine if it can help employees cope with the problems that cause them to be absent without hurting productivity,” Todor says.

But employees who do not benefit from the expanded policy may resent the practice.

“I would be opposed to giving any employees more benefits than others, because it creates the underpinnings of personnel problems that don’t exist,” says Bob Luddy, president of Captive-Aire Systems Inc., a Youngsville, N.C.-based manufacturer of restaurant ventilation systems.

Luddy’s firm, which has more than 200 employees, avoids the issue by giving workers 24 days off a year after two years for whatever purposes they wish. The practice eliminates special paid days off for sick leave, which he says causes some workers to take days off for “nefarious” reasons. Levi Strauss & Co., based in San Francisco, is among the larger companies that have adopted similar policies.

At Cleveland Electric Co., a manufacturer of industrial machinery, the notion of a liberal sick-leave policy is unthinkable.

“The belief we have here,” says spokeswoman Jenny Ogborn, “is that we have no need to pay somebody for work they are not doing.”

Noting that Cleveland Electric is a non-union firm at which most of the 2,700 employees are piecework hires, Ogborn says, “They could get a leave of absence, but they would not get paid for it.”

But Todor believes too many companies design strict sick-leave and transfer policies without thinking through the implications for turnover or the cost to business.

A strict policy that causes employees to quit--when all they need is more time off but can’t get it--can run up a hefty bill for replacements.

“If you have to invest two years training a worker to reach maximum productivity, that’s a very costly person to lose,” Todor says.

A company needs to determine “if employees are abusing the sick-leave policy or truly have reasons to be absent from the job,” he says.

Currently, Americans call in sick about 25 million days a year.

Their tendency, says one authority, is to take all the sick days they have coming and then some.

“People are generally absent for the number of sick days they are allowed, plus 10%,” Dennis Murphy, publisher of Practical Supervision, a Round Rock, Tex.-based training newsletter, recently told Entrepreneur magazine.

Murphy says managers should stop employees from giving phony reasons for being absent, such as the worker who called in sick practically every Friday during hunting season.

“Ask them what’s wrong and how long they expect to be away from work. Then simply tell them they will be missed and you hope they get better soon,” he says.