– PLACE ON YOUR DEPARTMENTAL LETTERHEAD –
DATE: Today’s Date
TO: Employee, Classification
FROM: Supervisor, Title
SUBJECT: Letter of Warning and Leave Restriction
This is a letter of warning regarding your excessive absenteeism. You currently have no sick leave and only 8 hours of vacation in your leave balance. So far this year, you have used 56 hours of sick leave and 24 hours of vacation for unscheduled absences due to illness. You have also used 28 hours of leave without pay for unscheduled absences after exhausting your sick leave. During the first 7 months of this year, you have been absent 12 full days and parts of 3 other days. This is an unacceptable rate of absenteeism that must be improved immediately.
I recognize that you have had some personal difficulties during this time, including family illnesses, and I also realize that events occur that result in absences of an unexpected nature, but at the time these events occurred you had already used up almost all your available sick leave. During your six years of County employment, you have consistently used all or almost all accrued leave. Your absences have occurred with such frequency that they have impacted our ability to accomplish our work. When you are not here, your caseload ages and other employees must pick up some of your cases to ensure timely processing. This is not acceptable.
I have verbally counseled you about your excessive absenteeism on several occasions, and have informed you of the provisions of being placed on leave restriction, but have seen no improvement from you. Since my efforts to counsel you informally have not worked, I am issuing this warning letter and placing you on leave restriction in an effort to communicate to you the seriousness of this situation.
Effective immediately:
- I am rescinding your 9/80 schedule and returning you to a schedule of 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday with a one-hour lunch period.
- I am rescinding your telecommuting privileges.
- You need to schedule medical appointments for both yourself and your family on your off days or after working hours. Any request for sick leave must be made to me at least 48 hours in advance. I will consider these requests for approval based on workload and available coverage.
- Should you or a family member become unexpectedly ill and render you unable to report to work, you must call me no later than (time) to request leave. If I am not available, then you must contact (name) at (extension). Should you reach my voice mail and be unable to reach me directly, you must leave a phone number at which I can reach you during the day.
- Immediately upon your return to work from any illness, and without needing to be asked, you must present a doctor’s from a licensed health care professional. This statement must indicate that you were seen by the health care professional on the day(s) you were absent, and that your illness was of such severity that it precluded you from reporting to work for any part of the day(s), or certifying that a family member’s illness required your attention. Providing such statements does not absolve you of the responsibility to improve your attendance. An employer may reasonably expect an employee to be available for work on a regular basis and may also reasonably expect unscheduled absences be kept to a minimum.
- You cannot use accrued vacation, holiday or compensatory time to cover an unplanned absence from work. Rather, these absences will be charged to Leave without Pay (LWOP) or Absent without Leave (AWOL), as circumstances warrant, rounded upward to the nearest six-minute increment.
(Employee), I need to stress that providing a physician’s statement does not resolve this problem. Continued excessive absenteeism, even if supported by a doctor’s statement, will not be tolerated and will lead to disciplinary action.
Minimum improvement will be considered to be no more than two unscheduled absences over the next three months. You must meet this expectation for four consecutive quarters in order to be removed from leave restriction.
I am making a job performance referral to the Employee Assistance Program (EAP) for you. The EAP phone number is (800) 8264690 and you may use the visits on County time. These services could assist you in resolving any personal difficulties you may be experiencing.
cc: Supervisory File