New Ways To Curb Employee Tardiness, Absenteeism and Turnover

For companies with employee tardiness, absenteeism and turnover challenges, help is now available in the form of online, 15-30 second games of chance.  It is now possible to quickly reward good behaviors with the right to play a quick game, win points and accumulate or redeem them instantly.  On-line game programs can be easily administered for thousands of people in different job categories at multiple locations.  This creates exciting and promising new concepts to consider in the area of personnel management and sales.

A slippery slope you’ve seen much too often

Employee tardiness, absenteeism and turnover appear to be a perpetual problem that doesn’t seem to be getting any better (in spite of the state of the economy).  Many companies report annual turnover above 300% while costs to hire and train a replacement range from $5,000 to $15,000.  It usually starts with a relatively new employee and being tardy is the first sign of trouble, then an unexcused absence or two, then a write-up and shortly thereafter a termination or the employee just doesn’t show up.  Almost every conceivable approach has been tried to solve these nagging problems; many have failed or have been abandoned because of turnover by the very people who are managing the program to lower turnover.  Inevitably, a point of acceptance becomes the norm and managers can be heard to make statements such as “It’s just the nature of the business and we have to learn to live with it.”  This attitude only perpetuates the problem and the cycle continues.

Before discussing on-line games as a tool for improvements in these areas, there are a few basic principles that must be dealt with.  The biggest problem is that many companies have given up and decided to live with the problem.  In that case, they are lost and there is no help for them.  For those organizations who have not surrendered to the problems there is hope and I am convinced much can be done to significantly improve the situation.

The wrong question to ask: “why do people leave?”

The first thing that can be done is for an organization to stop focusing on why people are leaving and concentrate on why people are staying.  The first premise, why people are leaving, assumes that there is something wrong with you and your organization and that people are quitting to avoid an inherently noxious work environment.  If you assume this to be the case, you blame turnover on low pay, apathetic supervisors, working conditions, and the basic nature of the job itself.  All these reasons imply a major organizational change is necessary to make people like you and therefore not leave you.  While some improvements can be made in these areas, I suggest you can reap a better return on your energy and investment by considering the second premise/question, why are people staying with you?

To focus on those who don’t quit and stay with you is to take an approach that perhaps there is very little wrong with your organization.  Otherwise, how do account for the fact that many employees stay with you and don’t become a turnover casualty in spite of all the things that are allegedly wrong with your organization?

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about.  When I talk to managers who bemoan their high turnover problems, I always ask them if there are any job incumbents who have adequately performed their jobs for a reasonable period of time in spite of the deplorable work environment.  I usually get a reply of “Sure, there are.”  Then I ask what differentiates them from their co-workers who quit?  This usually elicits a puzzled expression and a question, “What do you mean?”

I am saying that if you can understand the characteristics and nature of those who successfully remain on your “miserable” jobs, you could hire more people like them.  Birth is easier than resurrection.  I respectfully suggest that it is far easier to change who you hire than it is to change your organization.

This concept of matching people to jobs was thoroughly researched in the 1950s by a little-known but brilliant social scientist, Patricia Cain Smith.  The basic conclusion of her work was there is no such thing as an inherently bad job; rather there are people who don’t adapt well to certain types of tasks.  In other words, the key to a mutually beneficial work relationship is to understand the basic nature of the job, incumbents who are successful at it, and to hire people with characteristics similar to the successful job holders.

This begs the question, how do you discover, define and measure the profile of a person who stays with you?  The answer is thorough a criterion validity study which statistically compares the biographical (not personality) characteristics of satisfactory job incumbents versus those similar employees who abandon their jobs.

Sometimes this process is referred to as the weighted application blank or WAB.  This procedure and its effectiveness are the subject of a book I wrote, “Bet on Cowboys, not Horses” which can be purchased at the Amazon and Barnes and Noble websites.  The process will yield a series of organizational specific empirical weights which can be aggregated to form a scale to predict the probability of a person being a long tenure hire.

Before we examine the role of incentive rewards as a tool for controlling employee turnover, tardiness and absenteeism, there is a new concept to consider, online games. Games are now being played as a method of enhancing training, social relationships and productivity.  The early measurable results have almost all been positive and now there is even an academic society, DIGRA (Digital Games Research Academy), devoted to the study of understanding workplace game-playing.  A pioneer in the research of workplace games is Dr. Jeffrey Goldstein.  He reports that “workers who played online games were more likely to be better performers and have a more positive job attitude.”

The preceding was an excerpt from a paper written by Snowfly entitled “New Ways to Curb Employee Tardiness, Absenteeism and Turnover by Using Employee Selection and Online Games.” To view the full paper, please click here: New-Ways-to-Curb-Employee-Turnover-Tardiness-and-Absenteeism (PDF – 423 KB).

Snowfly is the leading provider of Internet based employee incentives, recognition and loyalty programs.  Snowfly’s incentive system allows clients to harness the enormous motivational power of immediate positive reinforcement to focus employee behavior on company objectives.  Compared with home-grown programs, Snowfly significantly improves KPI’s almost immediately, reduces a huge administrative burden and reduces costs.  The results are easily seen within weeks and there is no long term contractual obligation.  Customers include multiple Blue Cross/Blue Shield providers, Hyatt Hotels, Time Warner Cable, financial institutions, utility companies, cable/satellite providers, various BPO companies (business process outsourcers), and collection departments/agencies.  Snowfly’s web site: www.Snowfly.com.  For more information, contact Snowfly at 1-877-SNOWFLY (766-9359).  Or email Bob Cowen at rcowen@snowfly.com