Imagine the day when all your employees show up for work. There would be no last minute calls from sick employees, no short-term holiday requests and no sick notes in the HR/payroll department. You would be able to achieve high levels of productivity, ship products to your clients on time, accurately predict labour costs, have managers fully involved in the more technical aspects of their work and praising employees for their engagement, motivation and exceptional performance.
Well dream on. Absence is on the rise and according to the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development’s latest research is up on average by a day per employee. Absence can really hurt organisations. Firstly it’s costly as absence triggers a range of costs including: full pay, sick pay, overtime pay, temporary worker pay and in many organisations the cost of absence can be twice the cost of having the person at work. Secondly absence lowers productivity because either fewer employees can’t be as productive as the standard number, temporary workers are generally not as productive especially in the early days but, with good training can certainly get up to speed quickly and using overtime to make up rarely achieves the desired productivity levels. Thirdly growing absence rates may disenchant employees at work and stress levels rise and engagement and productivity decline, additionally managers may become distracted from key matters while they are over concentrating on staffing issues to the disadvantage of the organisation.
Economic reports on UK plc these days regularly talk about the fact that while employment is growing significantly, there is little in the way of growth in productivity and rising absence may be one explanation behind this.
So what can you do to minimise absence and boost productivity? Create an absence policy that works for you and more importantly apply it consistently. To help with consistent application you should track absence in real time and depending on the type of absence take the appropriate action. Planned absences (such as pre-arranged hospitalisation or compassionate leave) can usually be addressed with little harm to productivity, but minimum notice days off before or after holidays, Mondays or Fridays, or single day absence events can reap havoc with schedules and productivity. If real time tracking of such individuals takes place, it is easier to respond immediately and remedy future damage through use of the absence policy. One of the best tips in handling absence is to be visible and to act. Reviewing absence statistics that are six months out of date will just waste time.
Dr Hugh Billot, Deputy Chairman
HR GO Group of Recruitment Companies
HR GO Recruitment offers solutions to all your staffing needs, temporary and permanent, please call 0845 130 7000
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