Innovative Ways to Keep Workers at Work
H A R T F O R D, Conn., Dec. 21 -- At the Electric Boat shipyard in Groton,salaried workers who don’t use their sick days are entered into alottery and could win $2,500 cash prizes, gift certificates or afree parking space.
Other companies have also begun to look at ways to minimize theuse of sick time — from giving workers the option of working athome, to eliminating all sick days in favor of more flexible “paidtime off.”
The lottery program at General Dynamics’ Electric Boat divisionwas started about six years ago when the shipyard, facing a drop indefense-related contracts, began looking at ways to cut costs.
Officials realized they had a generous sick-time benefit, saidRobert Nardone, EB’s vice president of human resources andadministration. Workers with two years experience were allowed 20sick days per year, and 10-year veterans got 130 sick days.
“The benefit was designed with a serious illness in mind,”Nardone said. “We wanted to keep the benefit, but we wanted tochange the attitude from the sick time being an entitlement to sicktime is a benefit that you should use if you need it.”
The PayoffOn Tuesday, the company handed out $150,000 in prizes to a luckyfew of the 1,540 workers who have not used their sick days thisyear. Twenty top prizes of $2,500 were given to workers drawn froma pool of 955 who have not called in sick for at least two years.
One worker, the chief of safety at the company’s plant inQuonset Point, R.I., took home $3,500 after he was awarded one ofthe $2,500 prizes and one of the 75 checks for $1,000.
Other workers won free parking spaces. And everyone with perfectattendance received a $25 gift certificate to the company store.
“I think the program does make a difference, because it’s a bigincentive for people to be in work,” Gregory Angelini, a softwareengineer manager who took home $1,000 and hasn’t taken a sick dayin four years.
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