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Ethics, Costs of Absenteeism & Impact of Policies in the Workplace

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Ethics, Costs of Absenteeism & Impact of Policies in the Workplace
Ethics, Costs of Absenteeism & Impact of Policies in the Workplace
Tracie V. Johnson
Globe University

Ethics, Costs of Absenteeism & Impact of Policies in the Workplace
Overview
Company policies are intended to be a benefit to the employee, actually give a means for the employee to use it unethically and hurt the financial security of the business. For example, at Wisconsin Physicians Service, there is an employee benefit of short-term disability that is also incorporated into an occurrences program. The number of occurrences that an employee has indicates how well the employee meets company standards. An occurrence is given for any time away from the job if an employee does not use vacation or employee time. When an employee is gone over two days, a doctor’s note is required. For this reason, many employees choose to take the full two days since an occurrence will be given. Current company standards allow for ten occurrences in a rolling year. A rolling year means that an occurrence will stay on the employee’s record until the same date the following year. A great benefit is overused and unethically many take two days, even if a day or even as few as a couple hours are really needed. This policy allows people to be away from work for more hours than needed, and can financially hurt the business if done too often, by too many employees. Does the fact that the company allows something also mean that they allow employees to act unethically? Is this great benefit financially hurting the company to a point the business should reconsider its methods? Do great financial gains allow a company to act unethically?
Issues/Problems
There are multiple issues when considering the problems, impact and ethical issues regarding employees taking more time than necessary from work. In addition, multiple concerns also become important as companies allow policies to be misused and abused. This is true whether it is increasing sales, following processes or



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