Reducing absenteeism

Peter Done, Managing director, Peninsula Business Services

Absence from work constitutes a significant cost for most employers, financially and regarding productivity. It can place an additional and unacceptable workload on employees. The cost and consequent damage can be reduced by implementing effective policies and procedures to deal with absence from work. Obviously, it is impossible to eliminate absence completely as it will always occur.

Absenteeism evolves around two sorts of absence - genuine and non-genuine sickness absence. When workers are absent for example because of pre-booked holidays the employer can be prepared to organise cover. However, the main problem occurs with sickness absence that cannot be foreseen and always occurs at short notice.

All employees have a contractual obligation to attend work consistently. Absence for whatever reason must be monitored and controlled by the employer. Absenteeism will not be controlled on its own, the employer must take action. Adopt a method of recording absence with an inbuilt trigger to ensure that any unacceptable level of absence is recognised quickly and the cause is identified.

When absence occurs for non-genuine reasons, it actually constitutes a conduct offence, which has to be dealt with through the conduct procedures. It can be commonplace for other members off staff, rather than management, to know the truth about an employee's absence. In order to control sickness absence it is important to set out what you expect of your existing employees and also to new recruits during the induction process - do not wait for the problem to happen.

- Employees should be told exactly what standards of evidence are required should sickness occur and also what penalties will be imposed, both financial and disciplinary, if they fail to meet these standards. These standards should be set out in writing and form part of the contract of employment.

- Self-certification will cover the first seven days of absence and, thereafter, a signed medical certificate from the GP should be required.

- Implement an absence reporting procedure, where an employee should be required to notify you in person as soon as reasonably practicable on the first day of absence, and be able to give you details regarding his situation. If they are too ill to call then that is acceptable.

The issue of sickness is very sensitive, and people must be treated sympathetically and appropriately to their individual circumstances. It is however, important to have a standard procedure that everyone knows and follows, because the employer does have a right to get the job done.

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