Complaints to the Fraud and Waste Hotline Program have highlighted issues with attendance management and specifically the potential for employees to misuse sick leave banks, particularly prior to retirement. In view of this, we included a limited review of these issues in our 2008 Work Plan.
The overall objective of this review was to assess whether management was monitoring employee attendance, specifically the potential misuse of sick leave, a form of culpable absenteeism.
As part of our review, we also considered the City’s Attendance Management Program policy which deals with non-culpable or innocent absenteeism for all employees. Our review included an examination of employee attendance records and related practices and procedures in place across City divisions. We focused on those employees who had significant sick leave above the divisional average.
Effective management of non-culpable or innocent employee absences is important to identifying potential incidents that may not be legitimate and are actually culpable or blameworthy.
During the course of the review, we identified opportunities for improvement relating to the management of employee attendance. In this context, our report contains five recommendations.