Don't give a damn about procedure

My state has a program called ESST (Employee Safe and Sick Time) where a worker earns one hour of sick time for every thirty hours worked, earning a maximum of forty-eight hours in a year. This program only applies to workers who do not otherwise get any kind of PTO or sick time from their employer.  Such a program typically covers contractors or maybe people on a probationary period after they start a job and their benefits have not yet kicked in.

[Sidebar: The employer is responsible for paying the ESST, so that comes out of a company's bottom line since it's not like it's funded by, you know, the government that is requiring it. I find myself conflicted on this particular issue. On the one hand: I sure as heck don’t want to fund someone else’s sick time with my taxes. On the other hand, I’d be grumpy if someone else told me I needed to fund some program I didn’t vote for. Oh. Wait. That’s, like, the same as taxes. Hmm.]

Thankfully, the worker isn't able to use this sick time for just anything. This is, of course, to ensure these employees don’t willy-nilly take a vacation and be like, 'I'm using my ESST for the days I was gone.' No, sir. They are required to follow a company's specific call-off procedure in order to be eligible to use their ESST for missing work for whatever eligible reason. For context, eligible reasons include being legitimately sick or having a medical appointment of some sort. The company-specific call off procedure can vary but generally includes something along the lines of calling off at least two hours before the shift. Assuming proper protocol is followed, the employee is eligible for a payout to cover whatever hours they missed provided they have earned ESST hours. If they don't follow proper call-off procedure—and it is documented that the call-off procedure isn't followed—the employee isn't eligible for ESST coverage. A commonly documented example would be when a supervisor notifies HR that the employee isn't at work but nobody actually hears from the employee that they didn't show.

As an agency, we are very particular about ensuring our contractors have access to all of our policies and procedures. In fact, they can go online and review all policies and procedures in a PDF-viewable/downloadable employee handbook. Given the point of this blog post, rest assured this would include both general ESST information as well as our particular call-off procedure.

Contractors, however, are notorious for not bothering to read the aforementioned information (or any information, in most cases) and just assume that they'll get their ESST money. When this does not happen, they get rather miffed. As you may imagine.

An example, you ask? Certainly. I have a recent one ready for you:

A contractor included a note on his online timecard that stated he "missed 3 days because he was sick and will be using his ESST for the hours he missed." Shockingly, this was accompanied by, well, nothing. As in: the contractor did not follow proper call-off procedure—or any call-off procedure to notify his employer (us) that he was out ill those days. Turns out that proper call-off procedure does not include a notation on a timecard a week later. Ergo, he's not eligible to use his ESST hours for that time missed.

I know, cruel world, right? He’s lucky he didn’t get fired for blowing off three days of work without telling anyone.

This dude calls in to bitch when his paycheck is deposited with a mere 16 hours for that week and got all kinds of mad that we told him he's not eligible to use his ESST.

His response? "I don't give a damn about procedure. You need to pay me my ESST, or I'm calling the Department of Labor."

Well, dude, you go right ahead. Let me know what they say. Oh, in case you didn’t bother to read that particular website, be advised the Department of Labor specifically notes that a worker must follow a company's specific call-off procedure to be eligible for ESST payout.

We have it documented that he did not follow any kind of proper call-off procedure, therefore making him ineligible for payout of those hours. It ain’t sexy or fun, but he should probably start giving a damn about procedure, or he's not gonna be getting any of his accrued ESST when he misses work.