Ten tips for an absence-free workplace

Absenteeism is costing South African companies more than R20 billion a year. Here are 10 ways to reduce and ultimately obviate it:

1) Capture absence and highlight to managers and supervisors. Capture absence in real-time and advise managers immediately so that they can deal with it appropriately. The old adage that you can't manage what you don't measure is absolutely true in the case of absence management.

2) Have a clear absence policy. If you don't have one already, an absence policy to balance employee and employer needs is the first step to addressing any potential problems. And the communication of this policy to all employees makes clear what is acceptable and expected of them.

3) Return to work interviews. These can be particularly effective in quickly understanding the reasons for absence. Speed of interview is important, so consider an automated prompt to highlight exactly when an employee has returned.

4) Offer flexible scheduling. Allowing employees to select and swap shifts at short notice has been proven to reduce absenteeism.

5) Consider unpaid leave or options to buy more holiday time. Planned absence is always easier for a business to manage than unscheduled absence. Offer staff the opportunity to book unpaid leave up to a maximum number of days or buy additional holidays at the start of the year.

6) Make controlling absence a business priority. There's no excuse not to be in control of absence. Business tools are available to control and monitor absence levels and trends - you can even set the parameters to alert you to all unscheduled absence the moment it happens.

7) Enforce the absence policy. Any absence policy needs to be monitored and enforced consistently and fairly throughout the organisation to curb unscheduled absence and unauthorised sick days - more than half of employed adults believe their work performance is negatively impacted when attendance policies are not fairly enforced.

8) Provide incentives for excellent attendance. In large organisations, time and attendance systems are an invaluable tool for tracking and reporting on attendance levels. Many organisations effectively use perfect attendance bonuses as an incentive to reduce absence levels.

9) Be realistic. Sometimes people really do need to take some time out that simply cannot be planned. Allow staff to take a maximum number of days each year as “duvet days” at short notice. This will likely improve morale and get better results out of your employees in the long-term.

10) Make absence management part of your long-term business plan. Managing absence is critical for organisations of all types and sizes. Organisations can benefit from a well designed, consistently monitored absence policy.

* To look at the overall picture of absence management holistically, download the white paper at http://www.bytessi.co.za/kronos_labour_management.php .