But evidence suggests that eating at work stations is only a short-term productivity booster and can do more harm than good if it’s a regular habit.

One report found that people who routinely eat meals at their desks at work are twice as likely to be exposed to germs that can cause serious illnesses. Long-term result: Higher absenteeism costs.

Roughly 70% of Americans with desk jobs say they take working lunches at least three days a week. Most employees – and their supervisors – mistakenly believe that eating at their desks makes people more productive during the work day. In the short term, it may. But it the long run, the behavior often leads to higher absenteeism and lower productivity via preventable illnesses.

Unappetizing facts

A study conducted in 2006 found that the typical office workspace contains 400 times more germs than a toilet seat. The biggest bacteria colonies are usually found on telephones, computer keyboards and desktop surfaces.

In the real-life workplace, it’s a losing battle to try to convince most supervisors and employees not to eat at their desks. But the study says employers have seen lower absenteeism/presenteeism by taking three simple steps:

1. Give employees mini-bottles of instant hand sanitizer to keep at their desks.
2. Provide people sanitizing wipes for their work spaces (damp napkins and cloths just spread the germs around the surface).
3. Educate employees about the need for frequent hand washing with warm water – not hot or cold. Even in healthcare settings, this message often takes awhile to set in anding and requires frequent repetition. But the end results are worth it.

Increased obesity risk

There’s a second hidden danger that can affect your company’s costs: higher risks of overweight and obese employees.

People who frequently eat at their desks are less likely to be careful about the portions they consume, less likely to choose healthy foods and somewhat less likely to exercise during the day.

Wellness programs can help employers cut these risks, but it all starts with workplace culture and employee education.

It also presents an opportunity to educate employees.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggest employers
take these four preventive steps:

1. Establish a pandemic coordinator and/or team with specific roles for preparing for and responding to an emergency.
2. Pinpoint essential employees and tasks that must be maintained.
3. Gather (and distribute) up-to-date info from local and state health and emergency-management resources.
4. Remind employees to wash hands often and cover their mouths and noses when they cough or sneeze.

You may want to distribute handouts explaining to employees how their departments would operate if a large number of people got sick.  If your firm has a telecommuting policy, include this information.

But evidence suggests that eating at work stations is only a short-term productivity booster and can do more harm than good if it’s a regular habit.

One report found that people who routinely eat meals at their desks at work are twice as likely to be exposed to germs that can cause serious illnesses. Long-term result: Higher absenteeism costs.

Roughly 70% of Americans with desk jobs say they take working lunches at least three days a week. Most employees – and their supervisors – mistakenly believe that eating at their desks makes people more productive during the work day. In the short term, it may. But it the long run, the behavior often leads to higher absenteeism and lower productivity via preventable illnesses.

Unappetizing facts

A study conducted in 2006 found that the typical office workspace contains 400 times more germs than a toilet seat. The biggest bacteria colonies are usually found on telephones, computer keyboards and desktop surfaces.

In the real-life workplace, it’s a losing battle to try to convince most supervisors and employees not to eat at their desks. But the study says employers have seen lower absenteeism/presenteeism by taking three simple steps:

1. Give employees mini-bottles of instant hand sanitizer to keep at their desks.
2. Provide people sanitizing wipes for their work spaces (damp napkins and cloths just spread the germs around the surface).
3. Educate employees about the need for frequent hand washing with warm water – not hot or cold. Even in healthcare settings, this message often takes awhile to set in anding and requires frequent repetition. But the end results are worth it.

Increased obesity risk

There’s a second hidden danger that can affect your company’s costs: higher risks of overweight and obese employees.

People who frequently eat at their desks are less likely to be careful about the portions they consume, less likely to choose healthy foods and somewhat less likely to exercise during the day.

Wellness programs can help employers cut these risks, but it all starts with workplace culture and employee education.

In fact,  according to an Institute of Medicine study, there’s an average of one medication error per hospitalized patient per day and an estimated 7,000 medication-errror related deaths each year. 

Even non-fatal drug errors in an outpatient or hospital setting can add as much as $5,800 to the bill. Who foots a big chunk of the estimated $3.5 billion in preventable costs: employers and patients.

While bad handwriting may be the most basic cause of these problems – only six percent of hospital prescriptions are written electronically and only three percent of hospitals maintain electronic patient records – the sheer volume and complexity of today’s medications compound the problem.

In the long term, hospitals hope to reduce the problem through the uniform use of electronic devices that check the medication against information contained on a patient’s I.D. bracelet. While the use of such systems has become more common since the mid-1990s, it’s still far from universal.

But technology is only part of the solution, anyway. Employee education, knowledge and activism in their own care is the still the frontline defense against medication errors. Remember: It’s not just hospitalized employees who are at risk:

• Four out of five American adults take at least one daily medication or dietary supplement and about 33% take five meds or more each day. Herbal remedies count, too, and can interact with other medications in unintended ways.
• Not even the savviest medical pros can track every possible med. Today, there more than 10,000 distinct prescription drugs and 300,000 over-the-counter meds on the market
• Usage and dosage instructions vary with each person’s age, medical history, weight, allergies and other risk factors.
• Numerous drugs intended for different purposes have similar-sounding names, spellings or come in similar-looking containers. Here’s a list of some of the most commonly confused medications in the U.S.

What can employers and workers do? Employers often make a point of teaching employees about generic drugs and encouraging them to ask their doctors if a generic is available. That’s fine, but relatively few companies take the even more important (and potentially cost-saving and even life-saving) step of teaching employees about the need for taking an active role in their own prescription and over-the-counter medication safety.

Experts say that by taking three relatively simple steps, an employee can cut his or her risk (and their dependents’ risks) by as much as 75%:

1. Keep a current list of the medications and supplements taken
2. Take the list along when going to the doctor and share the information any time a prescription is written
3. Ask questions about the prescription, find out what written prescriptions say and then check it for accuracy after it is filled by the pharmacy.

A large percentage of employees remain reluctant to take an active role in their own health care, and many do little or no research on the meds they take. Unfortunately, the expression “to err is human” very much applies to the prescription and dispensing of drugs — and both patients and health plan sponsors alike serve an important role in helping to cut the inherent risk.

Many organizations have made the switch from separate vacation and sick-time leave to single paid time off (PTO) banks. If you take the plunge, beware hidden traps.

In the last few years, there’s been a fast-rising trend for employees to claim they’re owed money for unused time when their employment ends. The scariest part: Employers haven’t been faring too well in court.

Vested benefit

While paid vacations and PTO aren’t legally required benefits, it’s a different ballgame once you offer such benefits. There are a host of laws – mostly at the state level – that address what happens with unused time.

In many cases, courts are ruling it’s a vested benefit and must be paid.

The most publicized recent case – a class action suit against Target by 270,000 California employees – cost the company $10 million to settle. But employees in several other states have also cashed in, with major cases pending in Illinois and Washington.

In the majority of cases, the dispute centers around an employer’s use-it-or-lose-it policy. Under these policies, employees typically can’t cash in unused vacation or PTO when they leave the company.

In some states, most notably California and Illinois, there are laws severely limiting employer rights.

Meanwhile, the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled that even if an employee handbook clearly says vacations are use-it-or-lose-it, employers have to pay upon termination (Roselund v. Strategic Management, Inc.).

Other states such as Florida and Texas currently favor employers, but that could change as the trend grows.

Employers have won some battles. The Minnesota Supreme Court decided vacation policies are a contract between employers and workers (Lee v. Fresnius Medical Care). In plain English, that means if you got sued in Minnesota, the wording of your policy and the clarity of your employee handbooks would be the deciding factors in the case.

PTO could present problems

Here’s the biggest problem with PTO: Even though termination pay for unused sick days and other non-vacation leave are rarely covered by state vacation-pay rules, they may be protected when the days count as all-purpose PTO.

Courts have mixed views on whether employees are entitled to reimbursement for all unused PTO or
merely the “vacation portion” of it. With the rise of PTO policies, a host of states are considering whether to amend vacation-pay laws or to leave interpretations up to the court system.

Meanwhile, some labor attorneys recommend organizations with PTO go back to separate vacation and sick banks for their own protection.

Beware buy-backs

It’s perfectly legal to offer buy-backs for unused vacation or PTO days. Just keep in mind that FLSA requires you to count this money toward total compensation when calculating overtime pay. Otherwise, you could be sued for OT violations.

You can save your company a lot of future headaches – both in terms of lost time and money – by taking a hard look at your vacation pay policies now. Experts recommend bringing the issue to the attention of senior management and huddling with your organization’s legal counsel.

Three questions to discuss:

1. Where does your state stand?
2. Do you need to revise your employee handbooks?
3. Could PTO cost more money in the long run than it saves now?

A recent survey found the average employee has three unused vacation days at the end of the year. But 33% admit that they sometimes take “unofficial” vacation days of a half-day or more. Not surprisingly, the day after Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve day and December 26 rank among the highest “presentee” days among companies (especially in the white-collar realm) that remain open on those days.

In terms of the broader question of presenteeism, what’s keeping people from using their vacation time as it’s intended?  Top answers:

• supervisors frown on employees taking vacation time
• there’s too much work to make up after using vacation time, and
• people want to “reserve” time in case of an emergency.

On the flip side, many folks who take vacation time have trouble leaving work behind. One employee in four admits to checking work e-mail and/or voicemail while on vacation.

And 29% say they have trouble forgetting about work-related stress, even when they’re using paid time off.
Among all industrialized nations, U.S. employees receive the fewest yearly vacation days – 14 on average.

Here are the top excuses, according to a survey conducted several years ago:

• “Every time I get a flu shot I get sick.”
• “It’s inconvenient to go to the doctor’s office to get one.”
• “The shots don’t work anyway.”

None of these reasons are legitimate.  The injection is not of a live virus, so it’s impossible to get the flu from the shot. Secondly, there are any number of resources available where vaccines can be given onsite at work. Lastly, while the vaccine can’t protect against all strains of the flu, it does help greatly reduce the risk of the most common strains.

Meanwhile, a recent study revealed that nearly 60% of health care workers fail to get a flu shot. It’s the ultimate case of “do as I say, not as I do.” 

Some estimates place the potential cost as high as $35,000 a year per case. What’ your company’s risk?

Many wellness programs are geared toward managing employees’ health risks associated with diseases like diabetes or asthma. But unless the wellness program is integrated with an employee assistance program (EAP), chances are alcohol abuse-related risks go undetected. Here are two strategies that’re getting good results.

1. Include alcohol in health screenings
If you already sponsor confidential employee health-risk assessments, it’s easy to screen for alcohol risks, too. This can be as simple as making sure three questions are added to the current appraisal:

• How often do you have a drink containing alcohol?
• How many alcoholic drinks do you have on a typical day? And
• How often in the last month have you had six or more drinks?

For male employees, more than 14 drinks per week, or one or more episodes of heavy drinking suggests a possible problem. For women, more than seven drinks in a week, or one or more episodes of drinking four or more drinks, is a red flag.

Alternative: If you don’t offer appraisals, you can refer employees to a free, confidential online screening.

Benchmarking tools
Many experts say drug-free workplace policies and employee assistance programs (EAPs) are the two most proven solutions within companies’ grasp for minimizing the risks and costs of alcohol abuse by health plan enrollees.

To see if sponsoring an EAP makes financial sense, you can calculate your own firm’s current cost risk for free here. Plug in your business type, locale and number of employees. You’ll get a customized estimate of yearly direct (absenteeism, disability, ER visits) and indirect (presenteeism, turnover) costs from alcohol misuse by a covered employee or family member.

To design a drug-free workplace policy – or check if your existing one is up to par and compliant with the law – more guidance is available here.

Are your policy and procedure manuals a lawsuit waiting to happen?

There’s no law that require you provide employees a benefits handbook or manual. But best practice is to have one, so long as you follow some basic rules for what needs to be in there, and what should never be in there. Three sections to review immediately:

• pay policies (especially overtime)
• FMLA, and
• paid leave.

Your choice of wording in these sections could make or break your company’s case if an employee sues. Following are three of the biggest red flags that many firms ignore.

Handbook Taboo #1: Overtime policy violates FLSA

Many handbooks contain the following dangerous statement: “Authorized overtime is paid at 1.5 times the hourly rate.”

From a legal standpoint, that’s the same as saying “Our organization is non-compliant with FLSA’s wage and hour laws.” Under FLSA, if a non-exempt employee works overtime – whether it’s authorized or not – you must pay the overtime rate. No exceptions.

What’s legal is to create policies designed to prevent unwanted OT before employees work it. For example, it’s fine for a hanbook to say, “All overtime must be authorized by your supervisor.”

For such a policy to be effective, however, it’s necessary to have formal procedures for OT-authorization. Your handbook must describe these steps (e.g., written permission from a supervisor), as well as any disciplinary procedures for breaking the rules.

But once the hours are worked, it’s too late not to pay for it. Even if you pay for OT (whether authorized or unauthorized), the mere suggestion in the handbook that you may be withholding pay for unapproved OT could get you sued under FLSA.

Taboo #2 : Vague language on FMLA coordination

Writing FMLA policies in your manuals is one the toughest challenges in creating a compliant handbook.
Federal law says that if you have a benefits manual, you must describe how FMLA overlaps with other company benefits.

Example: Do you require people to use available paid leave and FMLA concurrently? If so, you must include this info in the FMLA section of the handbook.

Otherwise, the employee is entitled to “save up” their 12 weeks of FMLA until after paid time is used up. The result is your organization’s benefits manual accidentally gives away extra family or medical leave that is now protected by the law.

What happens under these circumstances if you terminate an employee for attendance policy violations? Assuming that the excessive leave was the reason for termination, the chances are that court will look at what’s written in your manual and rule in the worker’s favor. 

Taboo #3: Unclear paid time-off policies

Whether you have separate sick time and vacation policies or a single paid time off bank, your manual should be crystal clear on how leave is accumulated, and when and how it may be taken. 

Example: If you expect employees to file written vacation requests signed by a supervisor, but your manual only says “written request” and neglects the need for supervisor approval, a request denied for lack of a supervisor signature may not hold up if the employee challenges it.

When reviewing your paid leave policies, make sure the manual is clear on its descriptions of:

• Eligibility. Do part-timers and/or temps qualify? If so, when?
• Accrual. How do you calculate the banks (e.g., one year of service = 18 PTO days per year)?
• Use. How soon can an employee take leave? Do unused days roll over to the next year or are they calculated on a use-it-or-lose-it basis?

Policies versus procedures

In re-reading any section of your manual, ask yourself, “Is this a policy or is it a procedure?”

Here’s the difference: A policy is where your company stands on a certain issue, such as a policy banning employees from smoking. A procedure is how you get things done. Example: Employees who participate in a smoking cessation program must submit for reimbursement through your Payroll department.

The sections in your manual that describe policies must contain:

• specific descriptions, such as, “Employees may not wear shorts to work,” and
• enforcement details, such as what will happen if an employee violates the dress code?

Meanwhile, sections describing procedures should also be as specific as possible.

For example, compare these two handbook statements for requesting family leave:

1. “If an employee is aware of a need for family leave 15 days or more before it is to begin, the worker must file a request for leave within 15 days of the start date.”
2. “If there’s a foreseeable need for leave, the leave request must be filed ahead of leave within a reasonable time. ”

The first statement is clear and protects your firm if the manual is challenged in court. The latter is open to debate – and possibly lawsuits.

Which costs your organization more: employees who miss work or ones who show up physically but take a mental PTO day?

For most employers, it’s the latter. So why do even savvy senior managers and finance directors (we’re not just talking about the bean-counters) worry about absenteeism while downplaying so-called presenteeism as a drain on company productivity, not to mention the compensation and benefits budget?

In some cases, C-levels and supervisors seem to think that admitting that presenteeism even exists at the firm is akin to saying, “We’re a poorly run organization.” In reality, presenteeism exists in every workplace.

Virtually every employee, manager, supervisor and executive who has ever tried to “tough it out” at work when he or she has been sick has been a presentee on those days. So has anyone who’s ever been distracted at work by non-work issues – whether it’s spending the day trying to resolve a personal financial matter, checking on a sick child at home or constantly checking for scoring updates from a sporting event.

In short, unless we’re to believe that every employee is productive every single day, no employer in the world is immune from presenteeism.

Some organizations that don’t bury their heads in the sand about presenteeism still don’t track it. Why? Usually, there’s a belief that chronic presentees eventually get rooted out of the company. And short of watching over every other employee’s shoulder throughout the workday, it’s too difficult (and even counterproductive) to try to estimate the cost to the organization.

Here are some strategies that firms have used to not only measure the cost but also reduce the problem.

Creating a cost estimate

If your organization is like most, upper management worries endlessly about health benefit costs without realizing undetected presenteeism is just as costly, but easier to control.

Consider these facts from a recent CSG study: Nearly 10% of the average yearly pay and benefits
budget is spent on non-productive (but treatable) employees.

Add in employees who call out at the last second and the percentage rises to 17%, according to SHRM.

But how do you estimate the actual dollars-and-cents cost to your firm?

Let’s assume you have 50 employees, who make an average $40,000 a year. Over the course of the year, the average employee is non-productive 2.5 % of the time, due to assorted personal issues or minor illnesses that serve as distractions.

In this instance, presenteeism costs your organization $50,000 a year. If you have a 5% presenteeism rate, the figure shoots up to $100,000.

While it’s impossible to entirely stamp out presenteeism, even small reductions in presenteeism add up to big bucks in controlling compensation and benefit costs.

The next step, of course, is doing something about the issue. Broadly speaking, the process usually works in three phases:

• review current policies and procedures for things that accidentally increase presenteeism
• get supervisors and employees involved on the front end, and
• stress the importance of work-life programs to senior management and supervisors.

Let’s look at each area to see how they work in real-life practice.

Unintentional effects

Three common ways many firms try to cut absenteeism often increase presenteeism:

1. Over-stressing attendance in employee’s annual reviews
2. Having supervisors check up on employees who take sick days to verify they are really ill, and/or
3. Disciplining employees for last-moment sick callouts.

From a practical and cost standpoint, the best solution may be to switch from separate vacation and sick-day benefits to a single paid time off (PTO) bank. When folks have no-questions-asked control over their off days, they’re sometimes more likely to use a PTO day if they’re sick.  Of course, you know that PTO carries some risks of its own.

Early detection

Fewer than one organization in 10 gets both managers and employees involved in the process of spotting and eliminating presenteeism.

That’s too bad, says consultant Mary Beth Chalk, because it can been done pretty easily.

Ask a sampling of employees to rate how energetic and productive they typically feel at work, on a percentage scale. Have supervisors estimate their staff as well. Then split the difference.

The result is a pretty good barometer of your organization’s current and future presenteeism risk.

Work-life balance

Anything you can do to promote work-life programs at your firm can have a positive effect on the bottom line. Proven ideas include:

• rewarding supervisors who support flexible work arrangements
• sending sick employees home
• cover on-site flu shots, and
• actively promote your existing Employee Assistance Program.

Is presenteeism an issue at your company? How have you addressed it? Let us know.