Business owners, if half your workforce fails to show up on Tuesday, July 5, there’s a good chance that there really was something funky in the potato salad. But if the same thing happens right after Labor Day, it may be time to drop the hammer.

New data from Replicon, a provider of time-and-expense software for businesses, reveals some interesting findings about employee productivity, such as the fact that the Tuesdays after Memorial Day and Labor Day and the Wednesday before Thanksgiving rank among the most popular sick days.

Based on the data from approximately 100,000 users in more than 1,000 participating companies around the world, the Replicon Productivity Index tracks trends and presents insights about employee productivity throughout the year. For example, the study shows that employees are 31 percent more likely to use vacation time in June through August than any other time of the year.

Additional findings from the Replicon Productivity Index include:

• Summer Slump: Companies feel the summer productivity slump with employees 52 percent more likely to use paid time off to soak up the summer sun (June through August) than during the spring (March through April).
• Sick as a Top-Dog: While it seems likely that employees would take off more sick days than managers due to fewer vacation days, the Productivity Index found that managers actually take more sick days than non-managers per year.
• Weekend Hangover: Though many may assume people kick off the weekend early by calling in sick on Friday, the Index found that Monday actually leads the five-day work week pack as the most popular sick day among employees. Friday and Thursday, respectively, rank as the least common sick days.
• Jack Frost Takes a Toll: Cold and flu season is to blame for absences in the winter months (December through February). On average, 10 percent of employees call in sick during these months. This is 78 percent more than in summer months.
• Holiday Blues: According to the Index, many people kick off annual holiday vacations a day early or need an extra day to recover. The top three U.S. holidays that most often require an extra day of celebration or recovery include Memorial Day, Labor Day and Thanksgiving.

Replicon offers companies a way to track time and attendance policies within one end-to-end solution. In advance of the “Summer Slump” in productivity, Replicon offers several tools that allow managers and employees to track and maintain productivity to ensure that companies do not feel the slump in the summer and rest of the year, such as the following:

• An interactive calendar that allows employees and managers to book, view and approve time off. The calendar also allows managers to see which employees are scheduled to work on any given day to avoid scheduling conflicts to ensure proper team coverage.
• The ability to view schedules for a single department or across multiple departments within the organization and make adjustments to account for vacation, sick leave, etc.
• Self-service for accrued time-off and vacation requests. Employees can view accrued time off and make vacation requests accordingly. Managers are able to approve time off based on how much is entitled and how much has been requested.

Replicon's portfolio of SaaS applications includes Web TimeSheet Project & Billing, Web TimeSheet Time & Attendance, Web Expense, Web Schedule and Web Resource. Clients include Ernst & Young, Cornell University, Health Canada, Shell, Verizon, Ferrari and Amazon.