Absenteeism

Employee absence cost in Transportation is very high for the agency – about $1.5 million for every percent absent each year. The impact for absences is dramatic:

• Customers do not get their regular operator each day – the regular operator knows the characteristics of the route and often watches out for the regular riders.

• The extra-board operators who are available to cover open shifts are overextended and sometimes cannot cover all the work that is available – the result is that we call in operators who are on their regular day off at overtime to fill the work.

• If this fails, the assignment has to be canceled which means customers miss their scheduled bus altogether.

• When there is an excessive amount of work to cover due to high absenteeism our overtime costs also exceed their budget limits.