11/ 15/ 2005
by Charles R. McConnell
Absenteeism, including abuse of time-off benefits as well as unapproved, unpaid absence, costs businesses billions of dollars per year. Beyond monetary costs, which may not be obvious to individual managers, missing work inconveniences customers, managers and other employees. When an employee is absent, work often doesn’t get done, and managers scramble to find others to cover critical needs on short notice. The situation almost always disrupts work.
Absenteeism will never go away completely; people become legitimately ill and experience crises that require time off. Nevertheless, you can minimize absenteeism through conscientious attention and control.
For effective absence control, you must first raise the level of awareness. This starts by advising job applicants up front about the importance of regular attendance. Afterwards, you should reinforce attendance requirements in any orientation that follows. Spell out attendance requirements for new employees, ideally in an employee handbook or your company’s personnel policies.
Attention to absenteeism shouldn’t be limited to new employees. Review attendance requirements at employee meetings once or twice a year, or periodically circulate the attendance policy among employees. Include attendance issues in performance evaluations and highlight acceptable and unacceptable attendance patterns.
Maintain accurate attendance records for your employees. Don’t depend on payroll or some other function to provide this information. Publish monthly or quarterly summaries of absenteeism, perhaps using graphs of trends, summaries of costs or other examples that show the value or consequences of lost time. Good attendance records are important for another use: If you must fire a worker for absenteeism, accurate records will protect you when the inevitable unemployment claim is filed.
Track absenteeism for individual employees on a calendar that displays work schedules. Note any tendency toward excessive absence, including the accrual of paid time-off and the pattern of absences, days taken before or after weekends or other scheduled days off.
If you don’t already have a policy, develop absence controls and standards, such as:
- Counseling after three or more absences in a six month period.
- An oral warning after an additional absence the next month or three absences in the following months
- If you see no improvement, follow the steps of a progressive disciplinary process: a written warning, suspensionand discharge.
If an employee who has been counseled or warned demonstrates acceptable attendance for a few months before slipping back into a pattern, back up and repeat the process. However, don’t let an employee take you along this path more than twice.
- Additional means of controlling absences include:
- Calling absentees who are approaching the need for counseling.
- Requiring absentees to report directly to you upon returning to work.
- Developing absence reports for departments or groups.
- Remaining aware of chronic offenders and their status.
- Requiring employees to make up missed work when practical.
- Clearing employees through a health service following multiple days of absences.
- Requiring the use of the employee assistance program (EAP), if available, at the written warning or suspension stage.
- Establishing a policy for calling in sick (time limits within which to call, to whom to report, etc.)
- Establishing a policy defining job abandonment (for example, failure to report to work or calling in sick for three consecutive work days calls for automatic discharge for job abandonment).
The true keys to absence control are:
Your visible attention to absenteeism. If you pay attention to absenteeism and employees know you’re monitoring them, they will respond accordingly. To an extent, you get the attendance you expect. “See nothing, do nothing” behavior implies that it’s OK for employees to call when they don’t feel like working. But when employees know you care, and that you’re paying attention and keeping records, this alone will improve attendance.
Consistency in applying attendance policies. Regardless of which employees you like and how much knowledge you have of individual circumstances (who is genuinely ill and who is faking it), apply the rules in a timely, uniform fashion.
