COLLEGES & UNIVERSITIES
D ear Advice Guy, small kitchen and it’s not fair to the other cooks who are either called in on their day off or covering her station. Executive Chef Especially as we hit COVID, flu, and other communicable disease season, callouts are an unfortunate reality of the business. Large operations know this and typically plan for it by scheduling folks on-call (which comes with its own sets of problems, frustrations, and costs) or putting extra hands on the schedule as a cross-trained tournant who can jump in where needed. It all looks nice on paper but the unpredictability is frustrating. Smaller operations struggle even more with callouts. An absent employee may mean divvying up the workload, making everyone even busier, more tired, and more vulnerable to illness. Or it may mean a chef or manager with systemic and structural things to do needs to jump in and spend time they don’t have to pick up the slack. Either way it’s rough. Employees who call out are always frustrating but it’s especially painful How do I deal with an employee who frequently calls in sick? I don’t think she’s lying, but we are a legitimately ill and calling in sick frequently, how can you treat everyone fairly and keep your team healthy? Dear Advice Guy, how can a caring manager survive flu season call- outs? Advice Guy consults with experts in workplace law: When a valued employee is BY JONATHAN DEUTSCH, PHD
when you really like that employee and they are legitimately sick. Depending on your sick leave policy and pay structure, the employee may be equally or more frustrated, in dire need of those hours to support their livelihood and family and wishing they could work. While a shirker may be easily taken off the schedule, a truly sick and valued employee is tougher. Nan Sato, partner and co-chair of the international practice group at employment law firm Fisher Phillips and her colleague, Leanne Coyle, an associate and expert in leave law, also at Fisher Phillips, say, “That’s certainly a tough situation for many foodservice employers. The first step is to make sure you’re complying with [any applicable] paid sick leave requirements and appropriately documenting any absences that qualify under the law. You should also follow your internal policy for call-out procedures – if you don’t have a policy, it’s a good idea to establish one, to clarify expectations. If the employee exhausts all available sick leave or personal/PTO time, it’s
appropriate to speak with the employee about attendance concerns and explore whether there may be a need for a reasonable accommodation.” Sato and Coyle recommend trying to get to the root of the problem. For example, in my experience, sometimes call-outs are symptoms of a bigger problem such as an employee trying to avoid a toxic colleague or family problems at home. Sato and Coyle say, “If attendance issues continue despite these efforts, you may ultimately need to consider disciplinary action, up to and including termination.” As usual in this column, so many problems in our industry are caused by a discrepancy in expectations: you expect employees to show up consistently on time and ready to work and this employee—for reasons legitimate or not—does not meet that expectation. I agree with Sato and Coyle that clear and open communication is the place to start, and ideally to fully resolve, this problem. More on policies regarding sick employees here.
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PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK
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