Will the incentive plan to reduce absenteeism succeed?
The incentive plan to reduce absenteeism will probably be successful because it takes from what employees look to the most, their vacation time. The employees had found a way to be compensated for being absent which is not what was intended 10 years ago between the union and USA Motors. That being said it seems that the new incentive plan will be met with great resistance from the emloyees and they will need to roll it out and give employees time to accept the new plan. After all, employees will see this as a “free” week of compensation being taken away. This is a large organization with over 8,000 employees and there will most likely be initial problems with the plan but if you follow the steps of designing a total rewards plan then the program should not go astray. But, it’s a well-known fact that, in any large organization, change takes time. ( Bridgewater Today., 2002). Although it has been labeled high-priority for fall negotiations, it will not happen overnight, organizational culture, changes very slowly. (Schauber, A.C., 2001).

How much absenteeism is really under the employee’s control?
Unfortunately, there are times when an illness or accident occurs and that is not within the employees control. There could be an on the job accident, and that would fall under worker’s compensation. Workers' compensation laws are designed to ensure that employees who are injured or disabled on the job are provided with fixed monetary awards, eliminating the need for litigation. (Cornell University Law School, 2011) If an employee has a serious illness or a family member has a serious illness that causes chronic absenteeism that would fall under the category of FMLA. The Family Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA), there are 12 weeks of unpaid leave
Where an employee can use continuously to work on a part time schedule (World at Work, 2007). FMLA can be used for the care of a newborn after birth, adoption and the placement of a foster child in your home (World at Work, 2007). Those would be examples of absenteeism beyond control. Generally speaking, absenteeism is most definitely under the employee’s control. Speaking from my own experience with my last corporation I was so dissatisfied that I did not even want to get up and come to work and would get there and just sit at my desk thinking what else I could be doing. It became easy just not to go and that is when you start calling in for the slightest reason. That is a great example of absenteeism within your control.

Why didn’t the “paid absence” plan work?
The corporation put the program in place and never had real focus on this issue and was totally unaware of the amount it was actually costing the company with its lack of standardization. The “paid absence” plan did not work because the employees discovered that by not charging off any “paid absences”, they could receive a full week’s pay in June when the company paid off the balance of unused paid absences for the previous year. Employees found a loop hole in the plan which allowed them to charge off absences using the regular categories such as sick days, excused and unexcused absences. The plan has been in place for 10 years; someone should have been monitoring or auditing the program. The program did not work because no one monitored it and held the employees accountable.

What plan would you suggest to USA Motors?
What incentive plans are the competitive companies using to reduce absenteeism? Jack Park’s plan in my opinion is too confusing. When dealing with this type of situation I think it would be much easier to gather ideas from other companies through market research, interview or surveys. Give employees an incentive to come to work. Alpha Natural Resources actually held a contest and each employee that went to a wellness screening was entered. A random draw netted two lucky employees $15,000.00 (Business Management Daily, 2011). That is a simple idea, go for the screening, you stay healthy, you do not call in sick, production is up, moral is high. That is the type of employee that you want to have, one that is happy. Talk to the employees, get a representative from different areas and see what their ideas for solving the absentee problems are. Give employees more recognition all employees do not need to be rewarded the same way. It only takes a moment to print out a certificate of perfect attendance. That was one of the incentives we used at my former company, it worked extremely well it was a great sources of motivation. The perfect attendance program was a quarterly program and if you maintained your attendance you got an extra paid day off in the next quarter. There are so many ideas to be explored I just think if you only bring one to the table you are closing the door on something that could be much simpler and work just as well.

REFERENCES
Bridgewater Today. (2002). “President reflects during her last ‘Conversations with the College”. BSC News from the Office of Public Affairs, Bridgewater State College. http://www.bridgew.edu/NewsEvnt/BridToday/02may29/presreflect.cfm Business Management Daily, (2011). “Employees win $15,000 for wellness screening”. HR Specialist: Compensation & Benefits.. http://www.businessmanagementdaily.com/articles/25395/1/Employees-win-15000-for-wellness-screening/Page1.html# Cornell University Law School. (2011 ). “Workers Compensation”. Workers’ Compensation: An Overview. http://topics.law.cornell.edu/wex/Workers_compensation) Schauber, A.C. (2001). “Effecting Extension Organizational Change Toward Cultural Diversity: A Conceptual Framework”. Journal of Extension, Vol.39, No:3. http://www.joe.org/joe/2001june/a1.html WorldatWork.(2007). The WorldatWork handbook of compensation, benefits, & total rewards. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
http://www.worldatwork.org/waw/aboutus/html/aboutus-whatis.html.