We wanted to keep the benefit, but we wanted to change the attitude from the sick time being an entitlement to sick time is a benefit that you should use if you need it. Other workers won free parking spaces. Since implementing the lottery, the average number of sick days taken by EB workers has dropped from 7.2 to 3.5 days per year, Nardone said. Forty-one percent of eligible workers did not use a single sick day during 2000, he said. At some companies, like Aetna in Hartford, workers no longer get sick days.
Workers have the option of using the days in any way they see fit.
If you have a sick child and you need to stay home, you are able to do that. A certain number of days can be carried over from year to year if they're not used, Laberge said. Stamford-based Xerox offers workers a standard sick day package, but has come up with programs that have kept people working, when they might otherwise have called in sick. Many workers are allowed to work from home if they are unable to come into the office on a particular day, said Christa Carone, a Xerox spokeswoman. The company also subsidizes a nanny service that can be called to watch a sick child, if a parent chooses to go to work, Carone said.