Regardless of the reason for time away from work, the bottom line is that – well – it hurts your bottom line. 

The best way to prevent employee absences from becoming a problem in your workplace is with the help of Absence Management Services. With the help of a good absence management program, you can actually improve employee morale. Although it may seem difficult at first to convince the employees to buy in, when they experience the benefits that lower absenteeism has on their own productivity and as they develop a sense of trust in the workplace they will get on board. The fact is that when one person doesn’t show up, whatever the reason, that has a negative impact on those left behind. The less often that happens, the better it is for everyone.

There are three crucial steps to achieving absence management:

1) Reporting on absences

An absence management program has to start somewhere. If you do not already have one in place, or this is completely new to your business then the first crucial step in developing a plan is to start tracking absences. Keep a log for each and every employee to report every absence and the reason for it. As a matter of fact, merely introducing procedures for reporting on absences can lower absence rates. 

There are several ways you can do this including using a timecard to have employees clock in and out or scheduling hours and then comparing them to the actual hours worked. There are also several software systems that can be used by both employee and employers to keep track of hours together. That can be both scheduled in advance and adjusted as needed.

2) Intervention/Accommodation

Identifying trends can allow you to isolate and identify employees who have higher than average rates of absences. There can be many reasons that an employee is missing more work than usual. Identifying that there is an issue is the first step towards solving it. When you begin to notice that an employee is missing more work than usual, staging an early intervention to discuss what is going on can often be enough to bring about the change. For example: perhaps an employee has recently separated and is missing work due to poor childcare arrangements. A conversation with that employee may find a solution such as switching hours with someone, or working some hours from home. Oftentimes, an employee is missing work when an accommodation would eliminate the need for missing an entire day. 

3) Optimize reports for success 

Once you have started tracking, you can use the data from your employee attendance reporting systems to help you make sure that you are using your time and labour resources as efficiently as possible. Making sure that you are using your employees’ hours as efficiently as possible will save time and money in the long run. You may notice that scheduling more employees, for example, during busy times helps reduce burnout resulting in less sick time being used following the rush.

Having employees that show up to work keeps your business profitable. It keeps costs low and employee morale high. Having a plan in place to ensure that happens keeps everyone accountable.