I was reading recently that the British Post Office was offering its employees

"The chance to win a new holiday or car is being offered to postal workers who attend work every day for six months, under a new Royal Mail scheme to tackle absenteeism."

Does your company have any rewards schemes?
Do you issue child care vouchers?
Do you reward attendance?
Absenteeism is a perennial problem in call centres - do you think its correct to incentivise it?

Generally I dont believe in incentivising coming to work - isn't that what your salary is, or have I got it totally wrong am I due a salary just for being me?

I think the Post Office is a special case, it has had to completely restructure and face up to a new set of business drivers. Incentivisation during change is not uncommon so it fits here.

In a private company then salary is incentive enough to turn up - but the trouble with Royal Mail was that you didn't need to turn up to get your salary. The organisation was so scared of the unions that it didn't dare discipline any staff, so some were getting away with murder.

I understand that might be changing a bit now - and they're going to have to change further if they're going to survive POSTCOM opening the market. That's if we get any takers, of course. The whole thing might turn out like the BT local-loop fiasco.

Regards,
DB

There will be a few challenges to the operations of the Royal Mail. Using BT as an analogy is very good.

The first areas to be targetted will be the cities by companies such as TNT/UPS/Fedex etc. The cities offer lots of opportunities with centralised depots etc that already exist for their parcel services. Similar to the initial roll-out of ADSL services. Private comapnies will only target £££.

If you happen to live anywhere else - then the likelyhood of you ever seeing another 'postie' other than from the Royal Mail - will possibly never happen. I mean which company with shareholders wants to deliver individual letters to places like Cumbria/Shetland/Dartmoor? The cost of entry into the market is massive (from a labour point of view) and the poor Post Office will be left with the rump of the unprofitable elements of the service.

Roll-on Progress??

IMHO these schemes suck!!!

Why reward people for turning up to do their job? That is what you pay them for, surely. It suggests that employees are entitled to take 'sickies' as a norm, and that not doing so is worthy of extra merit! And then what about genuine sickness? Not enough that you get ill / injured / insane / etc but it also means you cannot win a prize... fair?!?

In our new "where there is hint of a blame, there is an ambulance-chaser claim" society, could I sue my colleague for coming in sick and giving me a cold, as this will have deprived me of the chance to win car/holiday/etc.

Fancy absentee management schemes are syptomatic of weak/easy option management. Manage the issue where it is an issue, be supportive where it is genuine, and remove the culture that suggests 'sickies' are ok.

I would agree to all the above veiws on "STRICT NO" on any incentive for turning up to work; however let us also agree that it is a problem in this industry.

What i do i have clear R&R (reward and recongnition) which happens every month, and to win any of the title like "Quality Guru", "Fast One" etc etc the qualify factors has attendance included in it. So in other words i push the R&R which inturn pushes my work force to come to work. This is hitting the issue from the top.

Now for hitting the issue from the bottom, create a advisor forum, handpick advisor who are tenured, focussed and are aligned to business needs across the floor. They would be a single point of contact for any work force feedback, they also drive the rest of the gang toa chive the basics, I have seen good results using this approach. For months together i had no unschelduled leave unless and until i started hiring again for the christmas period :(