Each June, I ask the teachers in our family — our two daughters and son-in-law - how the school year went. Usually, they talk about students and parents — the good and the bad — but I was surprised at what I heard this time.
This year, they were steaming because one of their colleagues, “did it again,” as they put it. He saved up all his paid leave and then began calling in sick during June because he had started his annual summer job as a park ranger — an abuse the school district apparently has chosen to ignore.

Our trio believes the most critical time of the school year, especially in high school, is the last few weeks of school. That’s final exam time, when teachers make their final determinations as to whether students are ready to advance or graduate.

What really gets them — and me — is that this teacher is abusing a policy that was established for workers who really are sick and need time away from the job.

I mentioned to them that a few years ago we were forced to change the sick leave policy at our office because a few people abused it. A couple employees felt the 12 days of accumulated leave for illness were days they had coming to them in addition to their vacation and holidays, and they would use every single one of them during the year. They’d call in sick on a sunny day - a dozen days is our usual annual allocation of sunshine in Olympia — or on a Friday or Monday with some of the most creative maladies I’d ever heard. I doubt that any of them considered their behavior to be theft — but that’s exactly what it was.

So, rather than forcing those few to fess up and produce doctor’s slips, we changed our policy and gave everyone six paid leave days a year — no questions asked. No longer would they have “to use them by the end of the year or lose them forever.” Instead, our employees could bank them for the future. They have the option of getting paid for them when they leave the job or use them when there is a life-threatening illness.

Those who abuse well-intentioned policies will find novel ways to circumvent them. Only a resurgence of commitment to common sense and honesty will solve the problem. Unfortunately, employers are restricted by so many government rules and regulations that it’s nearly impossible for them to apply common sense to anything.

(Editor’s Note: Don Brunell is president of the Association of Washington Business, Washington state’s chamber of commerce. Visit AWB on the Web at www.awb.org.)

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