How to prevent employee sick leave abuse

The Family and Medical Leave Act requires that employers allow workers to take unpaid sick leave. Certain medical situations can even warrant up to 12 weeks of leave. Giving employees a break on time and attendance when they have an illness is understandable, but what if they start to abuse the privilege? Here are a few ways to help prevent sick leave abuse:

  1. Set a distinct policy
    It is important to determine a clear employee sick leave policy right away. Make sure all workers are aware of it, so if any questions of abuse arise later, you can both refer to the rules that were set at the start. This also means that the policy should be in writing.
  2. Ask for advance notice
    Requiring reasonable notice for a sickness, or more for an anticipated leave, will help keep employees responsible with their leave hours. Also, when you know about a leave ahead of time, you can be sure to record it and count it towards the worker's FMLA leave allotment.
  3. Reward attendance
    A positive way of discouraging leave abuse is by offering incentives to come to work. For instance, you could institute a system where employees are rewarded for zero absenteeism in some way.

Each instance of sick leave will be unique, so no matter what, solutions will have to be flexible.


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