How to cut down on employee absenteeism

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 28/10/2017 (2873 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

What could your leadership do with an unexpected boost of income and profitability? A great deal, probably. And, where could this unexpected income boost come from? The answer is that it can come from the reduction of absenteeism rates in your organization.

If you can believe it, absenteeism trends in Canada show that the direct cost to the Canadian economy is approximately $16 billion. That’s right, $16 billion! That includes approximately $2,500 per-day per-employee for direct and indirect costs, including the loss in productivity and increased administrative costs.

These costs are all because full-time private sector employees are averaging 9.9 days of absence per year while unionized and public sector organizations are averaging 12.7 to 13.1 days absence per employee. Multiply that figure by the number of employees in your organization and you can quickly visualize the costs.

As well, employers are now reporting that much of the absenteeism is tied to mental-health-related reasons. This includes depression, anxiety and drug/alcohol addiction.

At the same time, studies are also showing that almost two-out-of-three employees who are absent are not really physically ill but simply felt they needed a day off. Unfortunately, today, calling in sick is easier than ever. Instead of a phone call and conversation with a supervisor, employees can simply send an email or text stating they won’t be in that day; no explanation, no nothing.

As a result of these growing statistics, the old adage, “absence makes the heart grow fonder” just isn’t valid anymore. In fact, in many cases, employee absence makes the heart flutter with concern. After all, absence means re-assigning work that overloads colleagues and/or leaves work undone which in turn leads to service issues and customer dissatisfaction.

While full-blown employee absenteeism is a problem, so is the issue of tardiness. Tardiness refers to an employee being continually late in arriving to work and/or returning from their lunch or coffee breaks. With today’s vocabulary, tardiness can be considered “incivility” or low-level harassment. That’s because tardy employees create inconvenience and inefficiency, especially when a manager has to repeat instructions at the beginning of an important meeting. As well, employees who are tardy usually breeze into a meeting unready to participate because they are frazzled and unorganized.

From a manager’s perspective, there’s no use trying to be that armchair psychologist who makes an effort to determine whether or not the chronic absenteeism is due to control and/or attention issues versus a true illness. Management must be seen to be objective and using legal processes as a means to deal with this issue. This approach is particularly important should the employee issue move along the path to formal termination.

Dealing with tardiness and absenteeism is a long and drawn out process, so the following tips will help you more effectively manage your absenteeism issues.

• Ensure a clear absence policy — review your HR policies to ensure the absence policy is not only clear but is up-to-date and includes tardiness. Implement a performance improvement framework that includes progressive coaching prior to formal discipline. Hold management meetings to review the policy and to ensure leaders have the same understanding and understand the process for dealing with difficult chronic absenteeism and/or tardiness. Ensure all employees are also aware of the absenteeism policy.

• Monitor and measure — ensure absences are entered into your technology systems so that you have statistics regarding individual behaviour as well as departmental trends. Record and monitor for trends such as unsupported Friday/Monday absences and general tardiness. Determine if excessive absenteeism is occurring within a department and/or if it is isolated to one or two individuals. Alert the department management and start dealing with the issues.

• Separate the issues — examine your statistics and determine if the issue is more organizational issues rather than personal. For instance, a change in leadership and/or processes can cause overall stress that might be impacting employees. If so, seek out organizational solutions and provide employee support.

• Enforce the policy — a policy that isn’t implemented well is far from a useful policy. Apply the policy in the earliest stages of absenteeism in a fair and equitable manner. Giving grace on applying the policy only notifies the employee that you are willing to be lenient and they may continue to take advantage of this.

• Meet with employee — try to understand the circumstances behind the illness. Inquire about the reason for the absence, ask questions to determine if the employee needs support and/or accommodation. In some cases, request a physician’s note where appropriate and/or when absenteeism becomes chronic. Confront the employee about excessive absenteeism or tardiness, communicate the importance of consistent attendance. Outline consequences of continued absence.

• Offer resources — ensure that your employee is made aware of the counselling or other support services available through your organization. Ask the employee for solutions and work with them to make a plan of action. Have the employee sign their agreement to the plan. Monitor the plan. Provide resources and/or short term accommodation if appropriate.

• Deal with the abuser — no matter how many resources you put in place to assist an employee, there is always someone who continues to be chronically absent. In this case, it is time to take further action. This could include another serious meeting regarding the individual’s motivation and desire to stay employed with the organization. Discuss the potential of voluntary resignation versus a longer term disciplinary process. Engage the formal disciplinary process if required and continue until there is a resolution to the attendance issue.

• Build up general morale — in many cases, the employees “left behind” to do the work can become over-worked and resentful of their colleagues’ absence. This can create interpersonal conflicts, loss of productivity and a reduction in morale. Keep watch on workload balance issues, distribute work fairly and ensure the employees that something is being done, even if the details need to be confidential.

Excessive employee absences of any sort are problematic for employers, but the most challenging to deal with are those employees who are chronic abusers and who make little to no effort to improve. Not only does this take up a good deal of management time, but it is a costly endeavour. Frankly, most managers don’t have much patience for this type of employee, but the situation must be dealt with in a fair, objective, consistent and transparent manner.

— source: Addressing Employee Absences: A Look at Absence Management in Canadian Organizations, The Conference Board of Canada, 2016

Barbara J. Bowes, FCPHR, CMC, CCP, M.Ed, is president of Legacy Bowes Group. She is also an author of eight books, a professional speaker, executive coach and workshop leader. She can be reached at barb@legacybowes.com and/or barbarabowes.com.