Achieve Together

What is the Time Off/Call Off Policy?

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1. Attendance Raise Qualification and Attendance Requirements

   • ATBS honors the monumental impact of consistent attendance while also striving to honor staff need for personal time and emergencies. Attendance is rated on Pass/Fail. Passing qualifies staff for raises for the following year. Failing disqualifies staff from raises. 

     • Pass = 92% attendance over the course a year with call offs not exceeding 3%. 4% and termination will be considered.

       • Reasons for absences are NOT tracked. There are no excused or unexcused absences. ATBS does not monitor reasons for absence, only the impact. 

         • Time Off = absences scheduled more than 15 business days out

         • Call Off = absences schedule less than 15 business days or less out 

2. Attendance Limits

   • Because poor attendance is so detrimental to client well being, staff morale and clinic functioning, ATBS requires a minimum of 92% overall attendance and no more than 4% call off rate. Exceeding these limits will result in disciplinary action up to termination. 

3. Reciprocal Hours Prioritization

   • For staff who demonstrate consistency with ATBS, ATBS prioritizes consistent hours for them. Staff receive 4 call offs per year before they lose prioritization for receiving hours when their client cancels. There are no “excused” call offs. On their 4th call offs, staff will no longer be prioritized for hours during client cancellations. 1 sickness counts as one call off, even if it spans multiple days. 

4. No Show Allowance

   • When staff must call-off, they must do so before 7:30 am. Failure to do so before 7:30 am is considered a no show. Staff receive 3 no shows a year. Termination happens on the 4th no show. No shows are different from No-Call-No-Shows, in which a staff member neither calls ahead nor shows up for their session. No call no shows will result in immediate termination. 

     • Official documentation of a bona fide emergency (hospital discharge papers, a receipt for vehicle towing etc…) will excuse the no show and result in it being reclassified as a call off.

5. A Note on Call Offs Versus Time offs

   • ATBS builds the schedule 2 weeks out (end of the current week plus 2 weeks will be published every Friday). Leave that is scheduled and taken after the schedule has been built and published causes a lot of upheaval for staff, reduces BCBA ability to support, which reduces quality of care for the clients. Furthermore, call offs are extremely costly for the company. It takes the entire leadership team 1-2 hours to rearrange the schedule after call offs in the morning and forces their day to start at 7:30am. 

   • ATBS encourages staff to use their time off allowances every year. We believe in a healthy work life balance as well as healthy and proper self care. We want staff to take time off guilt free. And we want staff to be able to call off for genuine uncontrollable emergencies guilt free. But we cannot avoid the need for reliability, consistency and stability in our field. So we ask that call offs be limited to genuine emergencies and sickness.