The Sick-Day Bounty Hunters

[marmar]

Bloomberg Biz Wk, via Yahoo:



The Sick-Day Bounty Hunters
by Eric Spitznagel

Wednesday, December 8, 2010


As an alarming number of workers play hooky, corporations are clamping down -- and calling in the detectives.

Rick Raymond parked his black Kia SUV behind a row of trees and peered out at his target. It was 4 a.m. on a recent morning, and Raymond -- a seasoned private detective who has worked roughly 300 cases, from thieves to philandering spouses -- was closing in on a different sort of prey. Recently, Raymond has come to occupy a new and expanding niche in the surveillance universe. Corporations pay him to spy on workers who take "sick days" when they may not, in fact, be sick. Such suspicion has led Raymond to bowling alleys, pro football games, weddings, and even funerals. On this morning it has taken him to a field outside the home of an Orlando repairman whose employer is doubtful about his slow recovery from a car accident. Although Raymond tries to be impartial about his subjects, "80 to 85 percent of the time," he says, "there's definitely fraud happening."

Playing hooky without getting caught -- as immortalized in the cat-and-mouse skirmish between Ferris Bueller and Principal Rooney in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" -- used to be an adolescent rite of passage. Now it has given rise to a thriving industry, with stern legal precedent to back it up. In 2008, Raybestos Products, a car parts manufacturer in Crawfordsville, Ind., hired an off-duty police officer to track an employee suspected of abusing her paid medical leave. When the employee, Diana Vail, was fired after the cop produced substantial evidence that she was exploiting her benefits, she sued Raybestos. In what became the landmark case for corporate snooping, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed her lawsuit. A panel of judges declared that while surveillance "may not be preferred employer behavior," it wasn't unlawful. According to Susan W. Kline, a partner at the Baker & Daniels law firm in Indianapolis, the case "encouraged to consider hiring their own private detectives." It also set a precedent, she says, that "reasonable suspicion" is sufficient justification for employer spying.

Such techniques have become permissible at a time when workers are more likely to play hooky. Kronos, a workforce productivity firm in Chelmsford, Mass., recently found that 57 percent of U.S. salaried employees take sick days when they're not really sick -- a nearly 20 percent increase from statistics gathered between 2006 and 2008. Taking such risks amid an economic meltdown, suggests Kronos Senior Director Joyce Maroney, has less to do with foolish confidence than a general lack of enthusiasm for work. "People are staying in jobs they don't like because of a fear that there won't be another job out there," she says. "With less job satisfaction, there's a greater propensity for sick-time abuse." ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://finance.yahoo.com/career-work/article/111529/sick-day-bounty-hunters?mod=career-worklife_balance

[Hello_Kitty]

1. The big company I worked for didn't bother with the sick day nonsense.

You got a set number of personal absence days, which you could use for anything. If you'd exhausted them and were legitimately ill you got a waiver for exceeding with a doctor's note. It worked out great. Absenteeism was very low. I sometimes went an entire year without using mine.

They had floating holidays too. Another good idea.

[SoCalNative]

2. Just more corporate assholery

If the employers actually took the money they spent on hiring private detectives and "productivity" consulting firms, and put it towards better worker pay and increased benefits, perhaps people wouldn't be inclined to take sick days as a substitute for other paid leave.

[customerserviceguy]

3. My company pays us for unused sick days

It keeps down the "use it or lose it" absenteeism problem my lady's company is now having in December. I look forward to getting a check in April for my four unused days from this year.

[Foo Fighter]

4. Aside from the job satisfaction issue stated in the OP, my guess that some

of the absenteeism is due to bad policy. For example, "use it or lose it" sick time is just bad business practice. It should roll over so that "good" employees that never call in sick won't be penalized and also to let people accrue sick time in order to cover a health issue they might have down the road as one never knows what could happen. While paying out unused sick days can be a good policy, it can also encourage sick people to come in to work regardless of how sick they are, thereby getting other people sick and possibly causing them to have to use their sick days.

Another issue that wasn't brought up in the article is that sometimes people take sick days instead of vacation because vacation requests often have to be pre-approved well in advance and might even be turned down. For example, if you have tickets for a game or concert and you know your boss is a dickhead and will look for any reason to not let you have the day off, you might not bother to ask for it and just call in sick instead. I know I've seen that happen at places I've worked before. if the boss had it in for them, it was the only way some people could get a day off and I didn't blame them for taking a (bogus) sick day as it was really their only choice.

[HEyHEY]

5. this article seems to be more about medical fraud than being hungover.