"It has to be obvious they're cheating."

[Son-of-a-Weizen]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123145414405365887.html

Belgians Take Lots of Sick Leave, And Why Not, They're Depressed

Dirk Cuypers, the top official at Belgium's health ministry, is sick of sick leave.

Belgians, like many Europeans, are entitled to extensive or even unlimited sick leave -- and they tend to stretch the definition of the word. One study showed government employees in droves were calling in sick to pack before vacations and to sleep off holiday hangovers. Some government departments were averaging 35 days of paid sick leave per employee each year, more than twice the national rate and seven times the U.S. average.

"It was perverse," says the 55-year-old former medical director for two big private-sector pharmaceutical companies, Eli Lilly & Co. and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. He decided to do something about it.

Dr. Cuypers and the minister for civil service set up a network of doctor-inspectors around the nation to smoke out malingerers. Each day since January last year, a dozen inspectors such as Vincent Quoidbach have been touring Belgium, knocking on the doors of 150 randomly selected sick and not-so-sick civil servants.

Once, says Dr. Quoidbach, he discovered that a man taking time off was really working a black-market job, given away by the paint on his hands. Another man answered his door with an undone belt as a woman hurried out the door. Others, faking bad backs, got to the door too fast.

Europe has long suffered from sick-day disease, and many European governments are trying to fix the problem. The average European worker took off 11.3 days in 2005, compared with 4.5 days for the average American, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, in Paris. The cost of those lost workdays to Europe's economy is sometimes as much as 1.3% of gross domestic product annually, says OECD senior economist Christopher Prinz.

Discuss

But changing Europe's sick-day culture isn't easy. Half of all Belgians on medical leave say they suffer from depression -- the country has Western Europe's highest suicide rate. "You can't contradict the opinion of a psychiatrist," says Dr. Quoidbach. "It has to be obvious they're cheating."

Francois Lombard, 48, is one of three full-time sick-leave experts at SD Worx, a Brussels consulting firm and payroll processor. His message, delivered in a slick PowerPoint presentation: Coddle, don't punish. Sixty-five percent of people on sick leave could be working, he says, but only 5% are proven cheaters. Sending doctors to inspect, as the government is doing, is "useless and expensive," he says. "It's more efficient to motivate people to return to work."

Mr. Lombard's method found a recent subject in Fabrice Vandervelpen, a 36-year-old manager at a frozen-vegetable packing plant in southern Belgium. In September, he called in sick. His girlfriend of six months had just left him, he says. A psychiatrist diagnosed him with depression and certified him for medical leave.

"I stopped by his house that evening," says Jean Dubuission, human-resources director at Hesbaye Frost SA, Mr. Vanderpleven's employer. Mr. Dubuission had recently listened to Mr. Lombard's presentation. He advised the younger man to "get out, play sports, meet other people."

Mr. Vandervelpen says he spent his first two weeks off writing poetry at his parents' home, where he lives. His mother, Marie-Jane, often took him shopping for new clothes, she says. He played soccer again with his local club, FC Burdinne, and volunteered as club treasurer. He visited a Catholic shrine in Banneux, Belgium, where the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared in 1933.

In November, Mr. Vandervelpen bought a bright red Alfa Romeo MiTo for $30,000. Zipping through the hills and sugar-beet fields in his new car made him feel better, he says. He visited his ex-girlfriend and went to parties. Mr. Dubuission visited a dozen times.

If the law didn't mandate paid sick leave, he would have gone back to work sooner, says Mr. Vandervelpen. Hesbaye Frost paid his full salary for the first month he was off. After that, a government-backed insurance company picked up 80% of his salary, which the law guarantees indefinitely. "The government keeps €1,000 [about $1,357] a month in taxes off me, so why shouldn't I get help when I don't feel well?" he asks. He makes €2,500 before taxes.

On Dec. 22, Mr. Vandervelpen did return to work. The visits of Mr. Dubuission and other bosses had impressed him. "They've showed they care," he says. He asked for a new, higher-ranking job -- and less interaction with workers -- at the same pay, in order to cut down on the stress. The company says it is considering the request.

Companies that take a tougher approach usually lose in court, say employers and labor unions. In 2007, Eric De Raeve hired Bertrand Uylenbroeck on a four-month contract as a worker on a cargo barge. For five weeks, Mr. Uylenbroeck took frequent naps on the job, both men say. Then, he took paid sick leave for depression for the rest of his contract. Mr. De Raeve fired him. "What's the point of hiring two people to do the same job?" he says.

Mr. Uylenbroeck, however, filed a complaint with the national Catholic workers union. "I took breaks because [Mr. De Raeve] didn't give me enough to do," says Mr. Uylenbroeck. Mr. De Raeve says Mr. Uylenbroeck is lazy and shouldn't get a settlement.

The union took up his complaint, and expects to win about $10,000 in unpaid wages when a judge issues a final ruling in March. "We win 70% of these kinds of cases," says Alain Vermotte, the union official handling the matter.

House Calls

One morning recently, Dr. Quoidbach downloaded a list of a dozen employees from a government Web site set up by Dr. Cuypers. He made 14 stops of five minutes each and certified all 14 employees as sick. He enjoys his job, he says. The government pays him $46 a visit, and in between stops, he listens to his favorite CDs. "My wife won't let me listen to Bartok at home," he says.

Nathalie Deroissart, a 34-year-old accounting assistant in the 30-story national pension office, is a regular for Dr. Cuypers's inspectors. She regularly takes off sick 20 times a year, usually for stress and high blood pressure. She welcomed medical inspectors six times in 2008. "They've always been nice and certified me as sick," she says. Her comfort on those days, she says, is the 1:45 p.m. broadcast of "Les Feux de l'Amour" ("The Young and the Restless").

In the pension data-entry department where she works, "when you need a day off to see your kids or something, you call in sick," says Alessandro Scalzo, a colleague. "When I wake up tired, I usually take a sick day," says Evelyne Boux, another co-worker.

Edited January 9, 2009 by Son-of-a-Weizen

[porcy62]

So what?

[Dave James]

I think this is why so many U.S. companies are moving to P.T.O. (Paid Time Off) instead of separating sick leave from vacation. Under a P.T.O. arrangement, you have X amount of days usually determined by your years of service or standing within the company. Then, you use them as you choose. Once they're gone, they're gone. This eliminates the problems inherent in a sick leave program by putting the onus on the employee and not on the business. I just retired after 36 years with the same company and during that time, I made every effort to keep my sick leave utilization to an absolute minimum. I'm guessing I probably averaged maybe 2-3 days a year all things considered. I never saw sick leave as an entitlement, something to be used up every year regardless of whether I was sick or not. Unfortunately, a lot of people don't see it that way. Don't get me wrong, I have lots of issues with white collar corporate culture in general, but the idea of taking unfair advantage of a benefit like a sick leave program is just wrong.

Up over and out.

[BeBop]

In two weeks, my most recent sick day will have been 20 years ago, when I was hit by a car and unconscious. Even my recent broken elbow, wrists (plural), coccyx and dislocated shoulder didn't get me any time off. Okay, I'm stupid; remarkably healthy too. And my most-of-the-time-employer (I do mainly contract work) is aggressive in enforcing work ethic. I don't work, I don't get paid. How's that for incentive?

Unfortunately, I work with a lot of people who seem to get Monday and Friday illnesses, And they make no apologies or excuses. Nor do they disguise their activities. They're (in a neutral way) shameless.

So what does that do to my efficiency?

[rockefeller center]

In two weeks, my most recent sick day will have been 20 years ago, when I was hit by a car and unconscious. Even my recent broken elbow, wrists (plural), coccyx and dislocated shoulder didn't get me any time off. Okay, I'm stupid; remarkably healthy too. And my most-of-the-time-employer (I do mainly contract work) is aggressive in enforcing work ethic. I don't work, I don't get paid. How's that for incentive?

Unfortunately, I work with a lot of people who seem to get Monday and Friday illnesses, And they make no apologies or excuses. Nor do they disguise their activities. They're (in a neutral way) shameless.

I knew it, you are James Bond. You're my hero.

[Tom Storer]

Whenever and wherever there's leeway for people to take advantage of a system, they will. In Europe, this means that people who really are sick can take sick leave for it not based on how many days they are arbitrarily allowed, but on whether or not they're sick. It also means slackers and malingerers will game the system.

In a tougher system, slackers and malingerers won't be able to get away with it, but people who are sick will be more likely to go to work anyway for fear of being thought a slacker or malingerer, or because they've used up their "sick days" already.

Personally, I prefer to let honest people get proper allowance for sickness, even though others will cheat, rather than make it really hard to cheat even though that will end up screwing the honest sick.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Whenever and wherever there's leeway for people to take advantage of a system, they will. In Europe, this means that people who really are sick can take sick leave for it not based on how many days they are arbitrarily allowed, but on whether or not they're sick. It also means slackers and malingerers will game the system.

In a tougher system, slackers and malingerers won't be able to get away with it, but people who are sick will be more likely to go to work anyway for fear of being thought a slacker or malingerer, or because they've used up their "sick days" already.

Personally, I prefer to let honest people get proper allowance for sickness, even though others will cheat, rather than make it really hard to cheat even though that will end up screwing the honest sick.

I don't know, Tom. Sick claimants are rising fast throughout Europe, while objective measures of people's health are improving.

What has happened - and Merthyr Tydfil just up the road from here is the UK's sick benefits capital, and I KNOW what happened there - is that the business has become institutionalised; it has become accepted in the community that:

a) sick benefit is better money than dole;

b) sick benefit does not require the recipients to prove that they are looking for work (as dole does);

c) so long as no one snitches (and in a place like this, there is sufficient community solidarity that no one does) it is possible to take informal (undeclared) employment - known as being "on the hobble" - while claiming sick benefit.

This is primarily a feature of areas of declining heavy industry. It's not, of course, quite the same as taking sick leave from your job but I rather suspect that the unemployment culture of an area rubs off onto the working people of the area.

And yet I feel you're right - it's better to let cheats succeed than screw the genuinely ill. But suppose there are more cheats than honest people?

MG

[Jazzmoose]

I think this is why so many U.S. companies are moving to P.T.O. (Paid Time Off) instead of separating sick leave from vacation.

Yeah, I was surprised to find that my current job has the old seperate vacation/sick leave set up. I personally much prefer the PTO system. Nothing cuts down on fake sick days like the knowledge that you're burning your own vacation!