Gerry Baxter of management consultancy Baxter Neumann argues that organisations are as much to blame for sky-high absence as work shy employees.
New efforts to tackle workplace absence has received much press over the last year particularly for organisations that have adopted new ways of managing the issue from staff incentives that woo workers back to the workplace with opportunities to win cars and free holidays.
British Airways, Tesco and the Royal Mail have all hit the headlines over their management of absence levels.
But despite these renewed efforts, latest figures reveal that UK absence has reached a record high.
A recent report by healthcare consultants IHC reveals that 40 million days are lost to absence each year and that UK productivity is lagging behind the US and some parts of Europe as a result.
Employers are constantly searching for affordable and effective solutions to the problem but few find successful answers.
I have spent many years working with businesses to tackle the absence problem.
It is apparent that the same mistakes are being made – the two most common I have come across are:
- Absence programmes that fail to gather enough ‘meaningful’ information about workplace truants, such as the real reason for employees’ non-attendance
- Too much emphasis being placed on targeting the truant rather than rewarding the consistent attendees within a company
Most organisations have an effective means of tracking the number of sick days taken by an employee but only rarely do they actually record the illness and the possible reasons for it.
It is vital that employers communicate more effectively with their staff to ensure that all available information is recorded. This way, deep-rooted and fundamental problems that could have a long-term detrimental impact on the business can be detected at an early stage.
Recently, the City of York Council hit the headlines with its unconventional approach to the problem of absenteeism. Employees in the council’s Adult Services Division now have their sickness notification calls re-routed to a call centre in London.
A team of nurses respond to the calls, asking questions to determine the reasons and severity of the absence.
Tracking the reasons for illness can help management to understand why people are taking time off.
Problems including a poorly designed tool or appliance, a low skilled or unsympathetic manager might be to blame. It could even be a discrimination issue.
Very few organisations record good attendance or even recognise those employees who take few or no sick days during the year.
Employers should focus their efforts on rewarding those that are already doing a good job.
Recruiting and training new staff is an extremely costly and time consuming exercise and it may be months before the new starter operates as well as the incumbent.
Businesses must also realise that retaining good employees is vital to the overall success of their organisation. It is well worth deploying energy and resources into ensuring that they remain happy, motivated and loyal therefore.
But rather than concentrating on the majority of good employees, many managers continually make the mistake of targeting unsatisfactory individuals. A knee jerk reaction to dealing with absences is completely ineffective in the long term.
The golden rule is that if absenteeism is to be reduced, organisations must promote attendance among the majority rather than concentrating on the non-attendance of the minority.
Employers need to address the reasons for high absence rates and this starts with the recruitment process. Emphasis should be placed on the workplace environment and efforts made to ensure that coming to work is seen as the cultural norm for all employees. Cultivating loyal staff who want to go to work is the key to tackling the problem.
Most organisations simply react to absenteeism when is occurs and this is an ineffective solution. If employers are to tackle the problem effectively they must be proactive and look at the root causes. It cold be poor recruitment practices, unfair pay differentials or external social problems. Long-term standards need to be set from the outset.
Managers need to be trained, performance monitored and, crucially, success must be recognised and rewarded.
2 Responses
Absenteeism
Another issue that is a bone of contention for msny managers….employees showing up for work. Having been in the HR/OD field for 25+ years, I have found there is no ideal approach to this dilemma. Both the article and Karen’s response are notable. Many employees don’t show because they are mistreated and/hate their managers…period. Others do not feel rewarded, others simply have motivations to do whatever. Therefore, the attack here is multifaceted. Since you are faced with competing motivations, address them accordingly. It’s not rocket science. Simple things like: standards of performance, calling off procedere…like “speaking directly to the boss when calling off”, a quarterly reward for not missing anytime, progressive discipling, etc. However, the articles main point has a great merit. If employees are not showing up because of the way they are managed, them address the dictators who are killing your business daily. Eval-up is a process where employees evaluate their supervisors at every level, and it is the most critical process any organization can use to keep itself on track. When done properly, it is money in the bank – short and long term. I have managed this process at every level and it is the gold standard for organizational performance.
Only the higher performing leaders utilize it…it takes guts and committment.
reward for being there?
While I agree with the headline, I’m not sure I agree with the rememdy – to focus on people whose attendance is good.
If I read your article correctly, it would appear to me that you are suggesting that people are rewarded for turning up – which presumably is what they’re paid to do as part of their salary.
While you say that people should be rewarded “for doing a good job”, the key point that comes across to me is that you should reward those with a good attendance record.There seems to be an implied view that the people who turn up also “perform” – certainly not the case in my experience.
Rewarding people who, despite being genuinely ill, stagger into work regardless of the possible infection they could be passing on to others seems barmy to me, and diverts attention from the real issue. If people aren’t turning up to work because they’re ill – that’s a problem. If they’re not turning up to work and they’re NOT ill – then that’s a problem too. Simply checking the register and giving gold stars to those who walk through the door regularly seems to be missing the point altogether.
Because absence is to do with individuals not turning up (in any sense of the word) to work, I have doubts that there are any “golden rules” to fix it in a generic way. If there is any fixing to be done, it’s at an individual manager level, rather than an organisational level, although the keeping of central records is important to monitor progress. Certainly, the efforts of the manager should be on getting to the reasons for absence and working out if and how they can be ameliorated, rather than keeping score.