The manual to absence management: what it entails and how to control it
What does the term absence management mean?
Managing a business is a lot more than looking after your products or services and generating profits. The most crucial part of handling a business is managing your employees and making sure they are satisfied working with you. An extremely vital aspect of this process is to handle absences. We all understand the need for a break from work to re energize yourself, to give time to other activities and just to take a step back to give yourself some breathing space. Although the problem arises when we, being human, start to take advantage of our workplace’s attitude towards taking days off. This is where absence management comes in; the process of having measures, tactics and guidelines set up in order to decrease the level of employee absenteeism without valid reason. This is an arrangement developed to justify the pay given to the employees and helps base the monetary compensation on actual work contribution.
The significance of absence management
The importance of managing absenteeism is evident all through the operation of a company. Primarily it is vital to reduce the absence percentage of employees in a company in order to improve efficiency. Taking too many days off in one go can make an individual lose motivation in their work and disrupt their productive attitude towards work. Furthermore a business suffers a lot in terms of smooth processes and output due to a disruptive workforce. The entire dynamic of a company in terms of the environment and culture is also tainted with a feeling of an unmotivated workforce. In the fast paced and brutal economy that businesses operate in today, it is a constant game of survival and having an undisciplined workforce affects how structured the day to day operations are. Ultimately affecting how well a business performs in this competitive marketplace.
What are the reasons for employee absenteeism?
As an employer or job creator you have to be extremely cognizant of your employees’ satisfaction. Before delving straight into creating strict strategies and policies to control their behavior, it is important to be empathetic to their reasoning. Some of the causes of employee absenteeism can be accounted to:
The status of their mental health
One of the core reasons that tend to be overlooked when finding a valid reason for a day off are the internal struggles of an individual. Every individual faces mental breakdown at a moment in life. As an employer, take note of this aspect every time an employee’s absenteeism rate is unprecedented.
Tensions or exhaustion
A burnout is a naturally occurring situation for any person even if they are living and working in the most suitable environment. This is a crucial factor to keep a track of as it could lead to long-term issues.
Any illnesses or infections
Being sick is a right of passage for all human beings and for some more than others. This should be an obvious predictable situation and should be handled with due sensitivity.
Extended family commitments
Your employees have people who they are responsible for outside the realm of the workplace. The care and well-being may cause an employee to require some days off.
Policy design for absence management
One of the hardest tasks is trying to find the perfect balance between being too overbearing as a manager of too lenient. Which is why the basic to managing absenteeism is to have a clearly defined and curated policy which defines the criteria with respect to taking leaves. The policy should make matters clear on both ends; the employee should know under which circumstances their absences are valid and approved along with how and when to apply for them. While on the business end it should be understood how days off effect the payroll of an employee.
Tactics for handling absence management
With the implementation and execution of explicit absence policies, there are a million to one ways you can go about to manage absenteeism. Here are a few experimented strategies:
Provide the option of telecommuting and flexible work schedule
With the global pandemic we have become highly aware of the possibility of working from home with a good level of productivity. Allowing your employees to work a few flexible hours and a change of scenery can make a significant change in their enthusiasm to come to work.
Turn good attendance into motivation
If you want someone to do what you want willingly, the best way to motivate them is to give them an incentive. When your employees feel their needs are being met and acknowledged they will happily comply with company policies. Simple awards of recognition or a small gift card go a long way to increase employee motivation to come to work.
Invest in an absence management software
In this age and time, we have human resource software dedicated to tracking employee performance. An absence management software will be a tool that will assist in detecting unplanned, constant and frequent absence to check where the issue arises. These technical software will eliminate the aspect of human error and biased judgment completely while providing authentic data to base company decision’s on.
