Employee absence is an unavoidable, a managing staff and operating a business. Of course, there are many excellent reasons for an employee to be absent from work but sometimes it can go from being a minor inconvenience to a drag. Good management and consistent policies can really help to form the difference.
HAVE A PLEASANT WORKPLACE
Think about it. Is your workplace somewhere pleasant to be? Is it too cold? Or too hot? Is it comfortable and are they encouraged to require breaks from the screen? It’s a clear thing but your staff will spend tons of their working life in your workplace.
CONSIDER INCREASING HOLIDAY ENTITLEMENT
As mentioned previously staff spend tons of their time within the workplace. If they’re being allocated the minimum holiday entitlement, they’ll well take the odd sick day here and there. This can be counterproductive. Simply allocating more holidays (consider a wage scale to figure towards supported levels of service) can really help address this as days off then become planned which is much less disruptive to your business and therefore the remainder of your staff.
INCENTIVE ATTENDANCE
This is a standard technique in business and one which works well. Your people ARE your business and you want them to be happy and incentive when they are at work. Offering rewards to staff who don’t take days off or a prize to someone who takes the fewest sick days often works alright. Just make sure the incentive program is fair to all or any and has safeguards, for the well-being of your staff.
MAKE YOUR ABSENCE POLICIES CLEAR
What do your staff need to neutralize order to call in sick? Is a text acceptable? An email? Do they have to make a call? Is there a cut-off point? Always make sure you have a really clear HR policy. In most cases asking employees to phone in sick and ensuring they’re doing it by a specific time within the morning features a positive impact on reducing absences. If a member of staff has got to have a talk with a member of HR about their absence (for not following policy) as a part of the sickness absence management process, they’ll have second thoughts about taking that bogus sick day.
ALLOW FLEXIBLE WORKING
Another, relatively new, policy which is functioning in many businesses we work with is flexible working. Life is often very busy and a 9-5 working day isn’t ALWAYS the foremost productive for each individual. Allowing the worker to manage their time and choose their own hours can have huge differences to absence. Take an employee who has run out of holiday and suddenly has something on a weekday then must attend. Allowing that person to figure, for instance, four longer days Monday -Thursday but still fitting all their contracted hours is that the difference between them taking a planned and an agreed time off or each day off sick which may affect your business and therefore the remainder of your team. Putting faith in your employees to manage their time and deliver their hours really can have a really positive effect on absence and is well worth looking into as standard.
