Physicians Practice - June 2008 - (Page 72) ADMINISTRATOR’S DESK bank that must be used for illness, so they can’t use it all up,” says Zuhlke. “There has to be some education there.” When employees start viewing all of their PTO as vacation days and then come into the office sick to avoid taking a day off, employers call the phenomenon “presenteeism.” CCH found that more than half (56 percent) of the employers it surveyed reported that presenteeism is a problem in their organizations, up from 48 percent in 2005 and 39 percent the year before. “The cost of ROLL IT OVER OR NOT? HOW MUCH TO GIVE? As an administrator, you’ll also have to determine whether you’ll allow employees to roll over their unused PTO days into the next calendar year. The alternative is to require your staff to “use it or lose it,” but Zuhlke favors flexibility. “I like PTO programs that allow for maximum flexibility for the employee, but you have to be careful because some programs are designed so employees can accrue fairly large banks of time off,” he says. That can create a staffing shortfall and deal a blow to your bottom line. “We have three generations of people in the workforce right now, people who may be caring for young children and elderly parents, and they need to be given the option to use their days off as they need.” LIFE HAPPENS Dan Zuhlke, vice president of human resources Deciding how many PTO days to grant your employees is more complex. It depends upon your office culture, how long different employees have been with you, and employees’ respective levels within your organization. According to the Society for Human Resource Management, the total number of paid days off among all types of businesses averages roughly 14 days for less than one year of service up to 27 days for individuals who have been with their employers for more than 15 years. You can decide on a case-by-case basis how much paid leave to grant your employees, but keep in mind that employers who utilize a PTO plan often give up a few more days off than they would under the traditional system of allotting separate sick, vacation, and personal leave. As you structure your PTO policy, remember that it must meet the dual goals of both acting as a competitive recruiting tool and offering employees more flexible choices. “We have three generations of people in the workforce right now, people who may be caring for young children and elderly parents, and they need to be given the option to use their days off as they need,” says Zuhlke. • Shelly K. Schwartz, a freelance writer in presenteeism may be hidden, but it is extremely high,” said CCH employment law analyst Brett Gorovsky. “The upward spiral begins with lost productivity and climbs from there — with increased safety and quality risks, and of course the risk of infecting others.” To combat the problem, Gorovsky suggests that office managers adopt a strict policy of sending sick workers home and encourage employees to take personal responsibility for allotting their PTO. When possible, offering telecommuting can also help deter presenteeism. 72 | PHYSICIANS PRACTICE | JUNE 2008 Under most state laws, PTO is treated as an earned benefit, meaning that you have to pay your workers for any unused days when they leave their jobs. (Employers who provide separate baskets for vacation, sick, and personal days off are generally only required to pay terminated employees for unused vacation and personal days — not sick days.) “They may have several hundred hours of PTO and decide to terminate employment, which can create a financial liability,” says Zuhlke. So it’s wise to encourage your employees to take time off regularly rather than squirreling their days away. Maplewood, N.J., has covered personal finance, technology, and healthcare for 12 years. Her work has appeared on CNNMoney.com, Bankrate.com, and Healthy Family magazine. She can be reached via editor@physicianspractice.com. WWW.PHYSICIANSPRACTICE.COM http://CNNMoney.com http://CNNMoney.com http://Bankrate.com http://WWW.PHYSICIANSPRACTICE.COM
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.