Published November 2000

Absentee ills have cure,
even in tight market

The Federal Reserve sees a “noticeable slowing in the expansion of demand and economic activity,” but there are no signs of it yet in the labor market. The latest job numbers released by the U.S. Department of Labor show unemployment at 2.9 percent, the lowest it has been since the early years of the Nixon Administration.

We are all happy about this, of course, but managers and business owners probably wouldn’t mind if the labor supply situation loosened up just a little. Right now, the job market is tighter than the child-proof cap on Grandpa’s arthritis prescription.

Just how this affects your business can vary quite a bit. Sometimes, it means you cannot find people to fill the open positions. In other cases, it means the people you are able to hire arrive with underdeveloped or nonexistent work habits.

Recently, the manager of a high-volume, “big oil” gasoline station in south Snohomish County told me the station was attracting people because its wage scale was a bit higher than the fast-food shops and other job opportunities in the area for entry-level workers. His biggest problem was getting them to show up when they were supposed to.

It is not an unusual problem for today’s managers, who often have to figure out ways to plug unscheduled, unexpected holes in the work schedule when Jason or Mike or Candice doesn’t call and doesn’t show up. More times than not, managers have to fill in themselves.

From a proactive perspective, it helps to remember that the tight job market contributes to the no-show problem, but it is not the direct cause of it. Your workers might feel less tied to a job if they believe they can get another one any time they want to, but that only aggravates the problem that was already there. Poor work habits and attitudes transcend economic cycles.

A good manager quickly sees there are two basic sources of poor work habits that produce attendance problems. The first is the underlying psychology.

We live in a society that is self-centered and getting more so every day. At the middle- and upper-income levels this shows up as an inability to relate well to others or to mutual goals. At the entry-level and lower-paid income level, though, it frequently turns up as a worker’s inability to understand how his action, or inaction, affects anything. The idea that others are dependent on a worker’s showing up on time doesn’t register because there is no frame of reference to capture and hold it.

The other basic source of attendance problems at the entry-level is that stuff happens, and it happens more often, and more calamitously, at lower-income levels.

Your car is far more likely to break down if it is a “high-miler” whose upkeep and repair you can’t afford; your living arrangements, medical care and telephone service are more likely to be, well, subject to change and unplanned interruptions.

Overcoming the double whammy of psychology and “stuff happening” isn’t easy, but it can be done.

Managers should approach the psychological side of the attendance issue as a marketing problem, as if the concepts of personal responsibility and interdependent goals were a new and unknown product. That means, just as in a marketing campaign, you can’t rely on a single mention of the subject when the new worker signs on. The message must be repeated often — explained and emphasized at every opportunity and certainly not relegated to discipline proceedings. It is especially important to express appreciation to workers for their effort in getting there on time.

On the “stuff happening” side, you can boost attendance if you make a distinction between the excused and unexcused absence, and between calling in about a problem ahead of time and simply not showing up.

Many companies have had success with a combined “carrot and stick” program in which attendance problems produce gradations of disciplinary events and perfect attendance is rewarded by a bonus payment. Fifty cents an hour might not seem like much, but as an extra $20 in your pocket at the end of a week for showing up on time, it can be an effective incentive.

Whatever works for you and your company, the important thing is to approach worker attendance as a management problem rather than a social or political one. All management problems have solutions. Social and political ones do, too, but not always in our lifetime, or to our liking.

James McCusker, a Bothell economist, educator and small-business consultant, writes “Your Business” in The Herald each Sunday. He can be reached by e-mail on the Internet at otisrep@aol.com.

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