HR applications are often portrayed as solutions to employee absenteeism, but as Delia Goldring, FSN writer and Visiting Professor in HRM at Middlesex University discovers, there is more to managing the problem than historic reports of time off work or even systems that predict absence.
Employee absences from work contribute significant costs to businesses in terms of sickness payments, temporary staff costs or overtime payments for other staff, lost revenue as well as ‘opportunity costs’ of lost potential revenue. In a small organisation, the absence of just one employee can have far reaching effects whilst reducing absenteeism in a large organisation, by as little as 1% can impact positively on efficiency and improved profitability. Absence management is therefore a key issue for all organisations regardless of their size.
For most organisations frequent short-term absence is a problem resulting in more ‘lost days’ than longer term sickness. The effective management of absence involves finding a balance between providing support to help those employees with genuine health issues to stay in and return to work, whilst at the same time taking consistent and assertive action against those employees who may not be absent for genuine reasons and in many cases are taking advantage of full pay when absent due to sickness.
Many employers do believe that a large proportion of employee sickness absence is not genuine. In 2007 Mercer Human Resources Consulting surveyed 380 European companies and found that a significant number of employers assume that in most cases, members of staff are just taking illicit time off when they call in sick. This is supported by a recent CBI report in the UK which found that two thirds of the employers they surveyed believe a large percentage of employee sickness absences are not valid.
It is surprising therefore, that despite this widespread belief that employees do often lie about their reasons for absence, the latest CIPD absence survey discovered that fewer than half of employers monitor the cost of absence, less than a half of employers have set a target for reducing absence and just over one third of employers benchmark themselves against other employers to see how they match up.
In order to reduce sickness absence it is important for employers to find out why those employees who are not genuinely ill do declare their absence as sickness related. Managers should examine the potential reasons why employees lack the motivation to attend for work when they are not genuinely ill and then implement a proactive management strategy in efforts to reduce sickness absence.
When it comes to controlling absence managers need excellent communication skills to encourage employees to discuss any problems and identify underlying causes of absence they may have at an early stage thereby enabling the manager to give support or advice before the situation escalates. This also encourages their motivation and commitment which should then result in a reduction in absence.
Effective absence management also requires managers to ensure employees are clear about what is expected of them, have well defined job roles with challenging but realistic targets and have access to support and training to help them achieve their targets.
Monitoring Absence
Accurate and up to date measurement and monitoring of absence data is a key element in the effective management of absence. Measures can be used as trigger points, indicating to the manager when absence needs to be investigated and allowing the manager to identify trends, pre-empt situations where employees may be tempted to fake illness and to explore underlying causes. It must be said however, that there is no point in collecting data for the sake of it since the aim of collecting absence data is to correctly interpret the data and act on it.
A wide range of absence monitoring software is available. Having the most suitable software for the specific organisation in place to monitor and record individual employee attendance and absence trends enables identification of typical situations, including absence coinciding with the employee’s birthday, major games during the World Cup, regular absenteeism on a Monday or Friday, the same day of the week repeatedly being taken off work, or high absence amongst a number of employees from a particular department or team etc.
Without doubt, this data is a vital but as the old saying goes, ‘there are lies, damned lies and statistics’ and it is the interpretation that is important. The vast range of absence monitoring software available to businesses historically recorded just the incidents of absence but systems are now being developed to not only record absence data but to also attempt to predict when employees, or types or groups of employees will next be absent.
It seems unlikely however, that this predictive software will replace the intervention of HR professionals. As Roger Moore, of Bond TeamSpirit says; ‘Predictive software is about assembling the business data and declaring that a certain pattern of data means a certain outcome. The fact of the matter is that HR professionals deal with human beings. He or she almost needs to take on the role of a psychologist to read and understand what is influencing an individual's behaviour. Software systems can give indicators that there is a problem but not the reasons why. This is best tackled with the experience and skills that an HR professional has acquired because the true answer may not be the problem that the predictive software suggested.’
Managing and reducing absence
Effective absence management needs to be underpinned by a clear absence policy and management system that sets out the organisation’s expectations in terms of attendance and absenteeism, explains the rights and obligations of employees when absent due to sickness and highlights the procedures that will be applied in dealing with absence.
Where an individual’s absence pattern or regularity of absence has been flagged as an issue, for example, if they have had more than three absence periods in six months, managers should conduct a return to work meeting. This is to ascertain whether there is an underlying reason for the absences. The manager and the employee should then work together to develop an action plan that addresses the root cause of the absences.
As well as providing an opportunity to brief employees on what has happened in their absence, the meeting allows for a discussion about any personal problems or underlying issues that may have led to the absences. Where the manager suspects the absence may not have been genuine sickness this is an opportunity to formally indicate to the employee that their pattern of absence has been noted and to make the employee aware of the implications of their continuing regular short term absences.
Of course, much absence is genuine, and employees often need support in their recovery employers need to include this as part of their absence management strategy in order to facilitate their effective return to work and take account of relevant legislation regarding disability discrimination, particularly for those returning after long term absence.
Where there is evidence that an individual's absence is not genuine and for those employees who have habitual absence issues then the use of the relevant disciplinary procedures for unacceptable absence should be instigated. The procedures will make it clear to employees that unjustified absence will not be tolerated and that continued absences will continue to be dealt with under these disciplinary procedures.
As highlighted in the recent CIPD survey the most successful tools in reducing employee absence are an early intervention by line managers and good monitoring and communication to identify underlying causes of absence.
