You won't often hear FatCratz wax nostalgic about the good old days of government efficiency, but in the mid-80's, the government changed they way they credited employees for unused sick leave, with some unfortunate consequences. For roughly twenty years prior to 1986, employees received credit at retirement for unused sick leave. Since then, employees receive no bonus for accrued sick leave. Now the only reward for reporting to work through the sniffles is, well, nothing.
Since the old system was grandfathered, the two systems exist side by side and it's easy to compare outcomes. One manager at Homeland Security has two employees on the old system with over 1,000 hours of sick leave each, and twelve on the new system average about 120. Another manager notes that he doesn't go a week without at least one of his employees reporting sick, requiring special training on covering for missing colleagues. And because the makeup of the federal workforce is shifting toward the latter, the problem is getting worse.
One study pegs this at a $60 million a year problem--a drop in the federal bucket--but I have a hunch that it is far worse. In some offices, it seems like the rolling blackouts in the California power grid... "Who's out today?"
You don't have to assume the worst about government employees to recognize that incentives matter. When I wake up feeling crappy, I'm less likely to make an extra effort to roll out and get to work if there is no monetary reward whatsoever. This loss of incentive is one of the dehumanizing aspects of toiling in a bureaucratic system.
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