Question: I joined my company 6 months ago as an HR manager and I have been, ever since, monitoring, assessing and managing all HR-related tasks. One of the things that I have came to notice is the relatively high absenteeism level of employees and the lack of measures taken to address it. How can I know the reasons behind this absenteeism and how do I best reduce it? I have always worked in companies where absenteeism level was moderate and policies were already in place to address such an issue. Starting from scratch and introducing a system to a company I have recently joined is a big responsibility and I certainly don’t want to make any faux-pas.
Answer: It is true that controlling absenteeism is primordial in any company. While the roots of its causes are complex and diverse, corrective measures can be implemented efficiently. In the below, you will find an explanation to absenteeism, its causes and remedies.
Absenteeism falls under three categories:
- Legal (Public holidays)
- Authorized
- Unauthorized (Casual absence) – It is this that most organizations dread and struggle to avoid or seek to minimize. In fact, according to Bayt.com’s latest poll on “Absenteeism in the Middle East Workplace” (July 2012) 79.8% of Middle East professionals believe that absenteeism is considered to be harmful to business, of which 58.2% state it is very harmful, with decreased overall productivity being seen as the most costly side effect of employee absence (26.8%). Possible loss of business or dissatisfied customers (22.3%) and problems with employee morale (21.3%) are considered to be the next most pertinent issues.
How to Measure Absenteeism: The most common way used to measure absence is the “lost time rate” formula and the “individual frequency” formula.
Lost Time Rate= (Number of Working Days Lost /Total Number of Working Days)* 100 Individual Frequency= (Number of Absent Employees/Average Number of Employees)*100
Reasons for Absenteeism: There are many reasons behind employees’ absenteeism, some of them being:
- Age: Experience shows that older employees tend to be absent less frequently than younger ones as time stabilizes them in their jobs. However, older employees tend to be absent for sickness leaves and their period of absenteeism is usually longer than that of a younger employee.
- Gender: Women tend to be absent more frequently than men especially when they have a family to take care of. Bayt.com’s poll “Absenteeism in the Middle East Workplace” showed that 42.6% believe female employees are absent more often than their male counterparts.
- Seniority: While some would think that fresh employees are more tempted than senior ones to benefit from an “unauthorized” day off to relax and unwind, 50.2% believe that senior employees take more unplanned leaves than anyone else and a further 58.2% believe that management are treated preferentially when it comes to absenteeism.
- Personal attitude: Employees with solid work ethics value their work and rarely allow themselves to take unauthorized time off while those with poor work ethic tend to be more irresponsible. 22.7% believe ‘lack of responsibility’ is one of the main reasons for absenteeism.
- Job Stress: When a job is stressful, employees tend to take unauthorized casual days off in order to reduce their stress levels and get rid of tension.
- Daily Job Routine: People with repetitive and monotonous jobs tend to take advantage of a casual absence to engage in something more interesting for the day.
- Job Satisfaction: The more an employee is dissatisfied with his overall job functions, the more he absentees himself from work. Along with ‘lack of responsibility’, ‘low job satisfaction’ is seen to be the main reason for absenteeism (22.7% each).
Remedies for Absenteism: 51% of the region’s professionals state that recognizing and rewarding regular and punctual attendance is the best way to lower rates of absenteeism. 18.5% claim that a strict absenteeism policy will work, while 9% believe that educating employees on the costs of absenteeism will act as a deterrent. Thus, my advice to you is to:
- Ask management to introduce and apply a system to record absence
- Explain to managers the cost of absenteeism so that they can, in turn, communicate it to their relevant teams
- Draft and implement an attendance policy with sanctions on recurrent and unexcused absence
- Offer flexible time arrangements or the option to telecommute if possible especially to working mothers
- Recognize regular and punctual attendance whenever possible and reward it occasionally Good luck!
