Best Practices for Absence Management in Your Business

Practising effective absence is vital for your business’s success. It promotes better productivity and efficiency within your workplace, both of which are crucial aspects for growth.

Absence management also improves employee satisfaction as it creates a more collaborative environment that encourages individual team members to contribute their innovative ideas. It makes everybody feel like a valued member of the team and promotes inclusivity for all.

As a business owner or manager, it’s your responsibility to address absences within your workplace to ensure they don’t affect your company’s culture and success. Below, we have covered some helpful absence management practices to implement in your business.

Create Clear Absence Policies

You must implement clear and concise absence policies, clearly communicating these with your employees. Provide written documentation about your absence protocols, print them to hang on the walls of your office, and remind your employees verbally of your policies regularly.

Make sure to communicate the policies and processes for reporting sickness and returning to work following a period of absence, as well as your paid sick time policies, so your employees are aware of what they should and shouldn’t do regarding taking time off work.

Keep Accurate Records of Absences

It’s important to create written documentation each time an employee is absent from the workplace, regardless of how much time they have off work. You must document when an employee goes home early due to feeling unwell, rings you before their shift to say they’re not coming in, or doesn’t show up for work at all.

By keeping accurate documentation, you can ensure your records stay up-to-date and can easily track your employees’ attendance in the workplace, potentially via employee tracking software. You can identify those who consistently show up to work and rarely have days off and those who might need disciplinary action regarding their frequency or length of absences.

Be Open and Understanding

As an employer, it’s important to treat your employees as humans. Understand that everybody has down days and can catch a cold at any point in time.

Provided your employees don’t take an excessive amount of time away from work without good reason, you must accept that absences will occur in your workplace. Show empathy to employees who are dealing with poor health and provide as much support as you can during any challenging times.

Showing that you genuinely care about your employee’s health will improve their engagement in the workplace and contribute to improved employee satisfaction.

Implement Employee Assistance Programmes

Employee Assistance Programmes, often shortened to EAPs, provide counselling and support for employees who are struggling with aspects of their health. They may include counselling, therapy, and educational resources to help employees learn coping strategies and build resilience.

EAPs can assist your employees with the management of personal issues that could contribute to their absence from the workplace. In turn, you can aim to reduce the total length and frequency of employee sickness to improve attendance and productivity.