National Post (National Edition)
System is ill, not the civil servants
Clement right to tackle outdated sick day thinking
Tony Clement wants to help civil servants. He’s very concerned about their health, and the fact so many of them are sick so often. More than twice as sick as ordinary Canadians, i.e. those who don’t work for the federal government.
On average, federal employees book off 12.5 days a year, rising to more than 18 days if you include workers’ compensation and disability leave. The government says that compares with 6.7 days in the private sector. On any given day, up to 19,000 civil servants are off the job. Almost half of those complain of depression, anxiety or stress in the workplace.
That’s what has Mr. Clement , the Treasur y Board president, concerned. On Monday he announced a plan to combat the high rate of absenteeism.
According to one cynical headline writer, the government’s intention was to “crack down” on civil serva nt s. That would suggest Mr. Clement doesn’t believe the high absenteeism rate is justified, and that lazy bureaucrats are using their generous sick day benefits to loaf around the house when they should be sending out threatening letters to taxpayers, demanding payment for fees and licences, and other civil service functions.
The government insists this isn’t true. What worries Mr. Clement is that Ottawa’s handling of workplace health is outdated, having changed little in more than 40 years. “If we want a healthy, productive, 21st-century public service we need to address the shortcomings of the current system,” Mr. Clement told a recent meeting of managerial staff. “We need to find a better way to support our employees and help them get back to work as quickly as possible.” Too many workers “get lost in the system,” forgotten by supervisors who have moved on, he says. Too little tracking is done to ensure employees get help, and return to work as quickly as possible.
To that end, he’s introducing some ideas that wouldn’t be revolutionary outside the halls of bureaucrati c practice, where a benefit once introduced becomes carved in stone, never to be fiddled with. In place of the current system, in which workers are awarded 15 sick days a year, with the ability to bank the remainder if they’re not sick enough in any given year, he’s proposing a combination of two programs: one short term, the other for longer-term disabilities. The two will be designed to provide “seamles s integration” in place of the current practice, which requires employees to save up 13 weeks of banked sick days before long-term disability kicks in.
According to the Treasury Board, “approximately 87% of Canadian employers provide short-term disability insurance, making the federal government one of the few large employers that does not offer coverage for short-term illness.”
Mr. Clement also wants more “active case management” to follow up reported illnesses, and “comprehensive support for the ill and injured.”
Ottawa is just the latest level of government to target the outdated notion of sick days — and they’re a bit late to the game. Toronto’s municipal government took on city workers in 2009 over their annual claim to 18 bankable sick days. The dispute produced a strike, in which the public sided against the union, which was forced to make concessions. Ontario’s former premier, Dalton McGuinty, simply imposed a contract on teachers last year, reducing the number of sick days, and closing the accumulation bank.
Mr. Clement must figure if they can get away with it, he can.
When public servants were underpaid, sick days were among the bene- fits they received to make up for the pay gap. But the gap has long since been closed. Now, the automatic right to 15 sick days a year, a number that appears to be based more on successful collective bargaining techniques than on any medical need, is one of those holdover perks that makes other Canadians grumble about the fat and happy life of the public employee.
Absenteeism should be based on actual need, not on some arbitrary quota pulled out of the air. Outside government, when an employee is ill, they take off a day or two. If the illness proves more serious, disability programs kick in. Managers are expected to keep track, with follow-up procedures to keep “sick” employees off the golf course.
Ottawa’s unions may squawk at Mr. Clement’s plans, but they’re hobbled by the evidence. The rich supply of sick days has clearly failed to reduce absenteeism. Instead, illness expands to meet the quota of sick days available. If the intention is to help people get well and back to the
We can introduce active-case management so employees do not have to feel alone in their illness
job, the status quo is plainly not the solution. And if civil servants find the stress and anxiety of public employment too much to handle, perhaps they’d be better off in the private sector anyway, if only for the good of their health.
“It doesn’t have to be this way. We can introduce active-case management so that employees do not have to feel alone in their illness,” Mr. Clement said recently. The new approach “will emphasize prevention and rehabilitation and will also include enhanced support for current and emerging health issues like mental illness.”
A system in which workers claim illness at three times the usual rate can hardly be called healthy. And surely good health is what it’s all about.