Unplanned absence from work is estimated to cost the United Kingdom 187 million work days per year, or 3.4% of total production time. To make matters worse, over 50% of employees injured never return to work. Absence management is a growing body of knowledge and experience applied to the control and reduction of these costs.

Is there anything I can do to manage absence without risking claims of discrimination?

Absolutely. It’s not easy, but there are several things you can do to protect your team and organisation as a whole, particularly:

*understand the scale of the problem you’re facing
*discover the causes
*take a positive and methodical approach to the solution

More information about all these is given later.

Can the effects of absence be measured?

Just as for safety audits, you can measure the number of days lost per department or individual. You can also trace the type of absence, whether injury, illness, or other. These have their uses but are fairly blunt instruments. A different type of measure is the Bradford Factor, which takes account of the fact that persistent short spells of absence are much more costly and disruptive than occasional longer absences. It measures irregularity of attendance using the formula:

Where S is the number of spells of absence over the last year and D is the number of days absent in the same period.
For example, if an employee is absent for one period of 15 days, the score is 1 x 1 x 15 = 15 points. If he or she was absent for 15 separate days, however, the same person’s score would be 15 x 15 x 15 = 3,375 points.

This is perhaps only a crude measure, but one that employers practised in the art of absence management regard as a realistic comparison of disruption.

Make It Happen

Formulate a policy
The most effective absence management policies are those based on the following principles:

*balance concern for cost with concern for people
*keep people informed
*collect quality information

Balance concern for cost with concern for people
The value of an absence management policy, if followed and analysed, is increased productivity and profit for the company. However, the policy must reflect human values of fairness and respect, and management’s duty of care for employees. Rather than focusing on policing the policy, and suggesting that people are malingerers, hypochondriacs, or cheats, successful approaches emphasise care, positive thinking, and shared responsibility. The policy should be concerned principally with managing the effects of genuine sickness absence, while acknowledging that some may be suspect or exaggerated.

Keep people informed
Effective programmes communicate to employees the aims of the policy and how it will be applied. Discussions with staff should be about presence, rather than absence, and the avenues available to help them get well. Depending on the nature of the absence, benefits and services might include counselling, welfare and occupational health services, ‘return-to-work’ interviews, and so on. Care is needed to show that statutory rights like parental leave, or rights to considerate treatment under Disability Discrimination laws, are not threatened but enhanced by the policy. More openness and consultation about absence leads to fairer use of these safeguards.

Collect quality information
It’s essential to know what you’re dealing with, both in terms of absolute levels of absence and the patterns shown by individuals and groups. Differentiate between regular days off, frequent short-term absences, and long-term absence—each may need a quite different approach. Supervisors and HR staff should develop skills for discussing absence with employees, not in an adversarial way, but as a means of spotting problems and offering help early. They should also observe patterns of absence and behaviour, and particularly changes in these things. Records should be maintained—within the provisions of Data Protection rules. When managers and others show that they’re interested and will follow up, ‘sickness’ rates almost always decline.

The goal is return to work
The shared purpose must be to get the someone back to his or her work as soon as is reasonable. This is especially the case after a prolonged absence, when it will be important to maintain the relationship with the person and help him or her to become productive again. The possibilities for modified or transitional roles to help the employee back into work should be looked at very carefully. If properly constructed, these can be very valuable jobs for all concerned. It’s worth creating an inventory of roles that can be modified to meet different physical conditions.

You’ll often need to put together a team of people—including the person who’s been absent—to handle these cases, as medical and occupational health information will have to be considered alongside working conditions and perhaps legal requirements. The supervisor plays a key role in maintaining contact with the person and identifying suitable transitional work during their recovery and return.

Other practical considerations
However you plan your absence management policy, there are certain actions that will always help you to achieve a better result in this area.

*Act early: If you notice increases or changes in the pattern of absence, investigate and take action before it becomes a major problem. In some companies a certain level of sickness absence has been overlooked for so long that people regard it as an acquired right to extra leave.

*Seek advice from the outset: Some complex issues may arise around medical, legal, and contractual situations, so try to think through these with specialists before problems arise. Being able to act with confidence and awareness and avoid ad hoc or impulsive decisions is a significant advantage. Get managers and HR people talking about the issues together—for example about opportunities for transitional roles.

*Be methodical: Make an effort to collect data consistently and carefully; to keep good records; to see that everyone receives a ‘return to work’ interview after a lengthy absence, and to communicate fully and regularly with staff about results. This way, fairness and relevance of what you’re doing never becomes an issue of contention.

A case study
The case concerns a recently privatised business in which staff numbers have been drastically reduced, just as the company refocused its attention on better customer service. The company provides services to residential customers: availability of staff is absolutely critical to the business. It cannot afford to carry previous levels of extra staff to compensate for absence: to meet business goals a 98% attendance (or a 2% absence rate) is required—an undreamed of rate in the industry.

The company decided to construct an absence management policy based on three principles:

*Culture and values in the company: The organisation has a performance-based work culture which encourages employees to appreciate the impact their performance (and their absence) has on their colleagues and the business in general. Employees are genuinely involved in an ongoing appraisal of business opportunities, customer service, and team performance. Targets for controlling absence are set and periodically reviewed.

*A holistic approach: At the same time, managers express a culture of care. They recognise explicitly that, apart from unavoidable injury and sickness, many other factors contribute to absence—such as boredom, stress, poor relationships, bad job design or supervision—and that these are ‘legitimate’ reasons for staying away. The organisation invests in rehabilitation to deal with the full spectrum of employee problems, regardless of whether the problem is caused by the working environment.

*Reporting and monitoring: The company’s HR information system provides every manager with absence information, including analysis of patterns and trends and their potential impact on results. Because of the firm link established between presence (absence) and business targets, absence management is a fundamental part of all managers’ roles. The policy is highly visible to all staff.

*Results. In recent years, the company’s unscheduled absence rate has been less than half the industry average for the relevant occupational groups. These results have a direct and significant effect on workforce availability and profitability. During the implementation period, the company has introduced statutory conditions making leave available for family responsibilities. There has been no increase in overall absence resulting from this policy.

What To Avoid

You ignore the issue
There seems to be a tendency for managers to believe that absence is too difficult or dangerous an area to become involved in, when in fact this isn’t the case. The benefits can be very significant, not only in financial terms, but also in building employees’ commitment to the business. A good absence management policy may even allow the organisation to avoid problems under discrimination or disability legislation by raising awareness of the whole area—and could give a fruitful lead in new areas of concern such as work–life balance issues.

You lack commitment to the policy
Having a policy in place is a good start, but if sufficient resources aren’t allocated at the outset to give the policy time to prove itself, even writing it is just wasted effort. Monitoring such a policy will avoid treating absence arbitrarily, and could avoid legal action brought by employees based on alleged discrimination.


Reproduced with the kind permission of www.learningmatters.com