Thank you for not being sick

Remember me?  It's the not-posting-lately-HR-Wench here.  I've got another reader question (I still have readers?!).  Here we go:

I read your blog daily after I discovered it through Alltop a few months ago. I was hoping you might have some input on this issue or maybe reach out to your readers to see what other companies do.

The corporation I work for has several somewhat segregated divisions. The division that I manage HR for is primarily administrative, management and executive staff. The other divisions are manufacturing based. We offer accrued paid vacation time, front loaded floating holidays and front loaded sick days.

I have recently received feedback from management that they would like to see some sort of un-used sick time incentive plan. Because sick time is front loaded at the beginning of every year, employees cannot hold anymore than the 56 hours allocate to them annually. Obviously, we have some employees who have absued this benefit and we handle these circumstances with corrective action plans for poor performance/attendance.

For the employees who are not abusing the benefit they feel they should be incentivised or awarded in some way. I don't want to encourage employees not to use sick time because people should use it when they are genuinely sick (that's what it's for). But I also want to offer a small "thank you" for being healthy and coming to work. We were thinking an incremented gift certificate based on the number of hours they still have left, a small cash award, or something that would encourage good health.

Any suggestions or ideas to implement this program in a fair balanced way?

Honestly?  Vacation divided from sick time annoys me.  I'm all about Paid Time Off (PTO) systems where sick and vacation is combined into one big, hairy mass.  Less administration that way.

It kind of makes me nervous that you want to "offer a small 'thank you' for being healthy and coming to work."  I think I know what you mean - that use it or lose it benefits such as this one don't seem valuable to those who don't use it, and you want to create more value for them.  After all, they're at work & working, right? 

But people shouldn't be rewarded for not being sick or even rewarded for coming to work even though they are sick.

Compensation & reward professionals would tell you to focus on what type of behavior you are trying to motivate prior to creating a reward.  So, maybe that is the best way to look at this.  While I don't think providing a benefit and then taking it away, or lessening it, is EVER a good idea, maybe instead of offering so much sick time you should offer bigger raises or bonuses based on performance.

After all, isn't performance what it's all about?  At the end of the day, who cares who was at work, if they didn't perform work?  Governer Blagovich probably came to work most days & didn't use all of his sick time, and look at the mess he made.

If you want a straight answer, without all of the commentary, I say if you MUST, just pay out the unused sick time at the end of the year.  Don't make a big hoopla about it, but DO run an analysis prior to making this decision.  How much money are we talking about and can each department's budget take the hit?  What will you gain from doing this?  What are you paying cash money for?  You best have those ducks in a row prior to meeting with the CFO, yo.