Human Resource Blog

Employee Absence during probation period

I have a new staff member who has not completed her 90 day probationary period, but has already displayed an issue with regards to attendance. she has requested 1 day off for child junior high graduation, which is understandably a necessity. She has taken an additional day off due to child illness, and a late arrival for child illness. She has sent me a text requesting the day off today for her personal illness. What is the appropriate response to that?

Our suggestion is that you terminate this employee for excessive absenteeism on her next regularly scheduled work day. She is on track to be absent 12 to 18 times per year, and usually attendance does not improve after the first 3 months — it may deteriorate.

It appears that this employee either does not understand what is expected of her in the business world, or she has childcare problems. In either case, it should be fairly easy to find a better employee.

Every working parent has to figure out an alternate childcare solution for days when the child has a minor illness. Obviously, this employee does not have one.

It is particularly disturbing that this employee is sending you a text asking permission to take the day off for her personal illness. It sounds like she is the one in high school! An employee who is physically able to come to work should do so. If she is not physically able to come to work, then she should not be asking for the day off — she should simply be reporting her absence. We are not impressed by this manipulative behavior. (If you were not a professional, you might be tempted to respond, *Sure, take the day off. Take the rest of your life off, because you do not work here any more!*)

If this employees performance is spectacular, you may want to sit her down and inform her that you expect an employee to have no more than 6 absences per year. She has already had 3 in less than 3 months. Let her know that if she has another absence in the next 3 months (no matter how good the reason) she will be terminated. Document this discussion and follow through. But frankly, this would just be a delaying tactic. There is only about a 10% chance that this employee would be able to improve her attendance to meet your standards.

One of the major purposes of a probationary period is to weed out employees with attendance problems like this one.

(Note: some states have family leave laws that might require time off, but you do not mention your state, and usually those laws do not apply for the first 90 days.)