Innovative Ways to Keep Workers at Work

H A R T F O R D, Conn., Dec. 21, 2000 -- 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.

Since implementing the lottery, the average number of sick daystaken by EB workers has dropped from 7.2 to 3.5 days per year,Nardone said. Forty-one percent of eligible workers did not use asingle sick day during 2000, he said.

Sick Days ScratchedAt some companies, like Aetna in Hartford, workers no longer getsick days. Instead, the employer groups vacation time and sick timeinto one big “paid time off” pool. Workers have the option ofusing the days in any way they see fit.

“It gives people flexibility,” said Fred Laberge, an Aetnaspokesman. “If you have a sick child and you need to stay home,you are able to do that.”

The number of days in an employee’s “PTO pool” varies with length of service and position in the company. A certain number ofdays can be carried over from year to year if they’re not used,Laberge said.

Fringe BenefitsStamford-based Xerox offers workers a standard sick day package,but has come up with programs that have kept people working, whenthey might otherwise have called in sick.

Many workers are allowed to work from home if they are unable tocome into the office on a particular day, said Christa Carone, aXerox spokeswoman.

“You can be just as productive at home, as fretting in theoffice about how your sick child is doing,” she said.

The company also subsidizes a nanny service that can be calledto watch a sick child, if a parent chooses to go to work, Caronesaid.

Xerox offers free flu shots and health screenings in an effortto keep workers from getting sick. There are fitness centers inmany of the company’s buildings, and they make sure that the menuin cafeterias contains no-fat, low-cholesterol or otherwise healthyfoods, Carone said.

Such programs are catching on with businesses across the state,said Jan Spegele, a spokeswoman for the Connecticut Business andIndustry Association.

They are designed not only to save companies money and losttime, but are also viewed as valuable recruiting tools, she said.

“It’s another perk in a tight labor market, just like flextime, or business casual,” Spegele said.