Corrections Community

I recently posted a plea for some assistance on reducing overtime costs for my facility. I received some great feedback, but I think I need to be more specific. The majority of our costs come from staff sick leave usage or abuse of sick leave. The majority of our staff are excellent workers and love their job, but as we all know, we all have that 10% that have to buck the system and it seems to effect everyone else. When we are already running short staffed, how do you motivate your staff to WANT to come to work....incentive programs?......earned time off for perfect attendance? I'm in need of some ideas??? I would much appreciate any input to reduce this ongoing problem.

We offer an incentive for perfect attendance as well as incentives for fitness.

An employee can earn one paid vacation day per quarter for perfect attendance. Perfect attendance includes no unscheduled vacation days (all vacation must be scheduled at least 7 days in advance) and no lates or early departures that result in loss time. The caveat is that when people use FMLA, their absence cannot be counted against them when determining perfect attendance (that's the law). So, in effect, those who miss 2-3 days per month using FMLA can still earn perfect attendance. What used to be an effective program is now getting muddied up by intermittent FMLA. Currently about 30% of our staff have approved intermittent FMLA. As a side note, any incentive, reward or bonuses that you give for perfect attendence cannot penalize someone for using FMLA-related leave. If you have a lot of staff who have qualified for FMLA, particularly the intermittent variety, it won't help improve their attendance at all.      

Under the physical fitness award program, staff can participate in an annual timed arobics run or timed bycycling event along with some pushups and sit-ups etc. and dependent on their score can earn up to 3 paid vacation days. Our staff earn 8 hours per month in sick leave. In order to participate in the annual arobics or bycycle event, they must have a minimum of 40 hours of accumulated sick leave on the books. We are considering adding that standard to the perfect attendance rules as well.  We have also considered changing the standard to read that employees must have accumulated 60% of their sick leave (about 40 hours per year of employment) to be eligible to participate in either program.

    

We have had the same issue before at our facility but if they abuse the sick leave with in their probation period they can get terminated for it if it continues to be a problem.  We do use what's called our wellness program which is:  they get to leave for 3 hours a week (2 days leaving 1.5 hours early or during shift) to go to the gym and work out. Of course we have to make sure that we check up on them to make sure they go and when we do our physical fitness testing every 6 months you earn anywhere from 3 hours (just participating) to 8 hours for maxing out for comp time. This seems to work well for us. Hope this helps.

Can you send me copies of these policies. Our agency is looking at adopting similar programs. Thanks.

In the late 80's and early 90's, New York City's sick rate was very high when our system was in turmoil. We had those officers who as you say bucked the system or tried to use it for their advantage. In order to control the sick rate and reduce it, our department did several things. First was to begin investigating those staff members who have been out sick for momore than 30 days. If they were legitimely injured or sick then it was never an issue, but what we found was that those staff members were feigning illness and our investigation ce was enough to suspend and eventually terminate the those staff members. We also enhanced the rules regarding calling in sick, documentation and provided assistance to those who were really sick or injured. As for incentive programs, Perfect Attendance and other programs are effective if they truly give the staff member time off. Administrations should also look at the morale of the facility, if the system is in turmoil, high inmate on inmate violence, staff on inmate use of force on the rise, then those issues also need to be controlled. Reduction in injuries to both staff and inmates reduce overtime costs. The transportation costs alone are very high, including providing escort officers for the staff or inmate. Finally, the use of overtime, its causes, must be reviewed on a daily basis and facility commanders must look at these statistics to provide solutions as to how to reduce overtime. Looking at overtime reports at the end of the month just doesnt work and its basically too late. There is alot that can be done in these areas to reduce overtime. There are many factors that contribute to increased overtime and if monitored properly, the cost savings could be used to hire additional staff , improve training and improve the security equipment the Department presently uses. I hope this helps. Frank

State of Maine Dept of Corrections, offers a paid incentive for missing one day or less each quarter of the calendar year. We pay $100.00 for each quarter and it is paid in December, just before Christmas.