Federal public servants who plan to leave their jobs are racking up nearly seven weeks of sickies and other unplanned leave in their final year, according to leaked landmark internal research.
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And poor performers fail to show up more than 20 times each year on average, twice the rate of colleagues who do their jobs well, according to an analysis of the hundreds of thousands of sickies and other "unscheduled absences" at the Commonwealth's two largest departments.
With more than 900,000 no-shows in the 2012-2013 financial year, the Australian Taxation Office and the Department of Humans Services are the two worst performers on sickies among the big APS outfits.
The analysis, ordered by alarmed departmental chiefs, busts some of the myths about sickies in the bureaucracy, such as the fabled spike in carer's leave around school holiday time and the "post-public holiday sickie".
But many of the key findings from the research reveal the extent of the problem faced by the Australian Public Service if it is to bring its levels of unscheduled absence into line with that of the private sector.
The ATO research found the public servants least likely to show up to work were those whose time in the bureaucracy was coming to an end.
"On average employees separating from the ATO use around 34 days or over double the ATO rate in the 12 months prior to leaving," the report states.
The research also shows that women in the Taxation Office are more likely to use unscheduled leave than men.
"Female employees use more UPL… than males," the authors wrote.
"This is a long term trend consistent with external research.
"Within the ATO context the gap has narrowed from almost four days in 2003 to just under three days for the workforce employed at 31 January 2014."
Both the DHS and the ATO researchers discovered that the more leave the departments' public servants were entitled to, the more they took.
"Increases in annual leave credit entitlements, or changes to make access to leave easier, have been in each instance since 2002 followed by an increase of leave use," the ATO authors wrote.
"The one example of a decrease in annual leave credit entitlements has been followed by a decrease of use."
Workers stuck in the same job for many years were found to be taking nearly twice the amount of unscheduled absence than colleagues who were new to their roles.
"The longer employee cohorts are in one position the higher the average unscheduled absence rates," the ATO researchers wrote.
But in the ATO at least, the researchers found that bureaucrats were less likely to show up on an average Monday than the day after a public holiday and there was no spike in carers' leave during school holidays in either Taxation or Human Services.
Efforts to control unscheduled absence across the service are being stepped up although the Public Service Commission says all the research says there is no "sickie culture" in the federal bureaucracy.
The Canberra Times revealed last month that the Agriculture Department, the third worst performer among large APS outfits on sickies, says it has formed teams to target areas of its operations around the country where the levels of absenteeism are above average.