Saskatoon Transit workers averaged 17 sick days, absences in 2016

Saskatoon Mayor Charlie Clark says he "wasn't overwhelmed" when he saw the initial results of a program meant to curb the high amount of sick days taken by Saskatoon Transit employees.

"We didn't see the progress as we had expected. It fell short of our expectations," echoes Jeff Jorgenson, the acting general manager of the city's corporate performance department.

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In 2015, transit workers were sick or absent an average of 19.6days a year. Some of those absences were related to Workers' Compensation Board claims.

Last year, that figure went down, but not by much: workers still took an average of 17.2 days off due to sickness or injury more than twice the provincial average of 8.4 days, according to Statistics Canada.

That's despite a pilot project, launched in March 2016, in which an outside agency, Saskatoon-based Bridges Health, worked with transit employees taking 10 or more days off a year to address their illnesses and get them back to work under appropriate circumstances.

"Obviously we want to continually improve on that," said Marno McInnes, the city's director of strategic negotiations, total rewards and workforce analytics, of the still-overall-high rates of missed days.

That's why the city asked councillors earlier this week for approval to extend the pilot project by another year. The extra year would also allow for a wider sampling of cases, said McInnes.

But Clark says the continued cost both financial and interpersonal of hiring an outside agency to do work that could be done in-house worries him.

"This is all about relationship building and supporting our employees and figuring out what their needs are to go back to work, and I don't know that we need to contract this out, especially given that there's an increase in some cases of some people's use [of sick days]," he said.

Some in pilot project took more sick says

Bridges Health worked with 65 people only about 16 per cent of Saskatoon Transit's total workforce during the initial March-December 2016 pilot phase.

Out of those, 50 took fewer sick days than they had before the equivalent period in 2015 before the pilot program. The remaining 15 were absent even more times than before the pilot project.

Bridges Health's report to the city stresses that those 15 people have "significant and objective health concerns" that Bridges is trying to help them with. The vast majority of them have received a "significant medical diagnosis."

In its own summary of the results, the city points out that Saskatoon Transit employees of more than 10 years receive 18 sick days a year, as spelled out in their collective agreement.

Taking advantage of contract?

When asked if he thought transit employees were taking advantage of that provision, McInnes said, "People accrue these entitlements for times when they are sick, so they don't get to use them just because they're in a bank. They get to use them because they have legitimate illnesses.

"Part of confirming that... is ensuing that... we have the medical [note]that supports that."

Among the 65 people helped by Bridges Health, the number of sick days taken without a doctor's note or other objective medical substantiation increased to 209 days from 51.5 the year before.

But because the city can refuse sick day pay for employees with unverified absences, those absences "should be considered an additional savings," according to Bridges Health.

Jim Yakubowski, the president of Local 615 of the Amalgamated Transit Union, which represents Saskatoon Transit workers, could not be reached for comment.

Decision on pilot extenstion delayed

Continuing the pilot project to serve another 50 people will cost $75,000, said McInnes.

"If it's costing $75,000 for 50 employees, we should be able to do this internally," said Clark.

Clark suggested the additional year be axed, and that internal staff at the city work with Saskatoon Transit employees instead.

At the suggestion of Ward 2 councillor Hilary Gough, however, councillors decided to hold off on that decision for a month.

In the meantime, the city will prepare a report on what it would look like to deal with absenteeism at Saskatoon Transit internally.