Monday, June 23, 2008

What is abuse of leave?

What if d staff abuses his leave benefits, whether knowingly or unknowingly?
How do we treat such abuse?

D principle dat most companies adopt is dat a staff should not b taking more than his annual leave entitlement. These companies practice:
1. “earned leave” or
2. “pro-rated leave”,
meaning u can only apply 4 d annual leave dat has been earned or pro-rated. Anything above dis earned entitlement is then treated as unpaid leave. Most abuses of annual leave usually occur when a staff applies often 4 emergency leave.

Technically, as long as leave is not approved, it is considered as unlawful absence where action can be taken such as a warning and leading 2 dismissal if he is a deliberate offender.
If it happens too often, hr will have 2 study d trend and then counsel d staff accordingly. More importantly, perhaps it is an opportunity 2 review & tighten d internal leave policies & procedures.

For example,
1. Should emergency leave be treated like any annual leave application that requires the staff’s immediate supervisor to approve?
2. Should you disallow the staff from just calling up the department or worse still, sending a text message to a colleague? Dats wat most of us usually did???For medical leave, the principle is that the leave applicant is suffering from an illness that a registered medical practitioner had deemed serious enough to warrant recuperation. Unlike annual leave, however, medical leave is different as it cannot be pro-rated.
3. Irrespective of the date that the staff joined the company, he is entitled to the full entitlement at any time during a calendar year, subject to the issuance of the medical certificate by the medical practitioner. Generally, medical leave is prone to suspected abuse. If this is suspected of a particular staff, you have to study the medical leave trend.

For example,
1. How many times in a month is medical leave taken?
2. What day? Which clinic? What sickness?
3. All these will lead you to a trend and once determined, do call up the staff for a discussion about his health status or counselling.

To summarize
Any abuse can often be checked at this point without going further. On the other hand, a confirmed health problem should be given full assistance. Just remember 2 get yrselves a good insurans coverage especially dat xtra hospital benefits.

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