| Case
Study: Increase
Attendance
 Scott
owned a company with 15 employees, the majority of which were computer
consultants. When one consultant was out of the office due to an
illness, it wasn't easy to pick up the slack when everyone was already
meeting with customers and answering to their client's crises.
It also seemed
to Scott that many of his consultants were out of the office "due
to illness" several times a year, sometimes near 10 times a year.
For each of those days someone was out, he estimated that the annual
cost of absenteeism of one employee was approximately $500. That
added up!
Scott decided
that something had to be done. Were these true illnesses or excuses
for other underlying problems in his business? Were his employees
bored? Overstressed? Low on morale? He decided to achieve two goals
at once: decrease absenteeism and improve his company culture and
morale. Scott created an incentive program for the year to decrease
the costs of absent employees. He wanted to cut it down by half.
Scott kicked
off the event with a company breakfast catered with "health food"
like bagels, fruit, orange juice, coffee, etc. If each employee
would take only 1 sick day per quarter of the year, they would receive
a prize for dinner for two at a nice restaurant.
At the end of
each quarter, he held a company awards ceremony and recognized those
employees who had no sick days or only one sick day per quarter.
By the end
of the year, he had lowered his employees' sick days by half and
some even had perfect attendance!
His "Show up
and Dine" program was such a success, he runs the incentive program
every year, year round.
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