Hargrave said the policy has also resulted in increased productivity at the dealership, which has annual sales of about 650 new and used vehicles.
He said employees who come into work are now less likely to be ill, meaning they are able to work at a higher level than they would be if they were battling a cold or another sickness. And the policy can help to break a potential chain of infection, keeping other employees’ productivity high.
Instead of coming in sick, “Fred doesn’t come in, and only Fred gets sick,” he said. “It’s not like Susan and John are sick the next week or whatever. That’s the nice thing. It’s isolated.”
Hargrave said the ultimate measure of whether any policy works is how it impacts the dealership’s profitability. In this case, Riverside’s profits are as high as they would have been otherwise, he said.
If an employee who works eight hours per day at $20 per hour calls in sick one day, “we can afford $160 to make sure three people don’t get sick instead of just one,” Hargrave said.
Hargrave said there were initial concerns that making unlimited sick days permanent might result in employees abusing the system. But those concerns were quickly dispelled, he said. Hargrave said having a “strong, trusting culture” in the workplace is critical to implementing such a policy
“If somebody’s abusing that system, that’s a management issue,” Hargrave said. “Absenteeism is always a management issue anyway. So what if we just managed it?”
