Well look no further… Here’s what the e-days team have found to be the most relevant (& interesting) news of the moment.

Click on the links to find out more about each story. It’ll take you to various sources around the web!

Acas launches Olympics guidance for employers

With employers being warned for months about the effects the London Olympics could have on their business, Acas has now launched advice on how to minimise disruption within your company.

Sickness absence rates fall in the UK

Absence relating to sickness remained consistent between 1993 & 2011, but has shown to have reduced since then. Based on a 5-day working week, it has dropped from a week & half to 4.5 days on average.

Missing from work – only reported a week later!

MI6 employee absent from work, but the absence was not reported until a week later! This raises questions about what absence monitoring processes are in place at MI6. The above article includes tips on how to manage absence more effectively.

Click the links to find out more information on each story from various sources around the web.

Bosses urged to fork out for jubilee weekend

Even though it is not compulsory to do so, employers are being encouraged to offer paid leave for the extra bank holiday. There is a fear that this will annoy & demotivate employees, thus outweighing the benefits of the extra day in the office.

Employers pay the price for novice new year fitness fans

Failed fitness plans that employees took on for their new year resolutions are the cause of some sickness absence in the workplace. Musculoskeletal injuries are known to be the biggest causers of long term sickness absence so this is concerning.

Uncomfortable employees cost UK businesses £52 billion per year

Employees who can’t get comfortable at their desks could be costing businesses on average £3279 per person per year. The fidgeting & rearranging to get comfortable has a direct impact on productivity & thus, this downtime costs you as a business.

Please share any other interesting stories you know about in the comment section below.

Click on the links to find out more about the stories – links take you to various sources around the web.

Sickness absence isn’t being measured, finds Aon Hewitt

A study shows that not only aren’t companies recording their absence levels accurately & are unaware of the costs associated with these absences. The issue is subsequently a lack of measurement which should be addressed by companies.

Stress in the workplace looks set to rise, finds pan-European opinion poll of 35,000

Job-related stress has been identified as a concern for employers for quite some time. This recent study reinforces that concern, with 8/10 respondents believing that the number of stress-sufferers in the workplace will increase over the next 5 years.

Employers’ changes to working patterns undermine parents, finds Working Families

A study finds that the recent employers’ changes affect working parents’ ability to juggle work & childcare. In some cases, this is forces parents out of work! There are also concerns about pregnancy and maternity discrimination at the workplace.

Keep yourself up to date with the latest news by following us on Twitter!

Update yourself with the latest goings-on in the world of HR and staff absence.

The team have, again, put together a short list of what we consider to be the top stories in this area.

Click on the links to discover more on the stories from various sources around the web.

Workplace absence costing companies 10% of turnover

Nearly two-thirds of small businesses claim that staff absence is hindering their business. Despite this, bosses admit they spend less on their staff health & fitness than office stationary!

Mobile workers grows in popularity among UK employers

Mobile working is growing & is now a mainstream flexible working pattern in many organisations. 65% of group studied say they are required to work on the move more than they were in the past. It has become more ‘business as usual’.

Work-life balance big concern for employers in relation to staff absence

21% of employers say that work-life balance is a top area of concern, when it comes to sickness absence.

Introduction looked at the importance and relevance of managing staff absence and the system used to do it. It also specified the focus of the series and gave an outline of what was to come!

Part 1 focussed on why company structure and working patterns should be considered when selecting the system. Following this, Part 2 explained the importance of considering the self-service element and admin tools that the system offers during the selection process.

This final post will consider the following in relation to selecting your system for managing staff absence:

• Cost
• On-going development

Cost

By ‘cost’, it is meant ‘value for money’.

It’s easy to short-sightedly look at the initial cost and make a judgement based on that. But what really needs to be considered is this: Will this system give you a good return on investment?

Although an ‘initial’ cost may be higher, absence focussed systems, such as e-days, are likely to be much more cost-effective than HRIS absence modules. This is particularly applicable when you want to enable the full self-service packages.

On-going Development

When you pay a continual subscription, on-going development is, to an extent, expected.

However – you should consider the regularity of these developments. After all – you want a system that is constantly reviewed and improved for your benefit, don’t you?

Take our product, e-days, for example. New features and tools are added to e-days at a much faster rate than any in-built absence module. That’s because we are driven hard by our existing client base to continually improve the system.

Round Up…

So, that’s it!

Hope these top 6 considerations help you find the perfect system for you and your company! There’s a lot more to consider when picking your absence management system than you first thought, huh?!

Please feel free to get in touch with one of our e-days team to discuss your staff absence management requirements – we have lots of experience and will be happy to give you advice!

If it’s you… You’re in the right place! The e-days team have compiled a list of what we consider to be top stories of the moment.

Click the links to find out more from other sources around the web.

HR faces engagement struggle as workloads rise

Presenteeism and stress up in ‘age of uncertainty’, finds research. Most HR professionals say that employee engagement is their single biggest challenge this year, as workforces struggle with longer hours and the effect of redundancies, research has found.

HRO 3.0: the next generation of outsourcing

According the Gartner’s latest MarketScope, the HR business process outsourcing “market is on the cusp of moving from adolescence to early maturity on the Hype Cycle”.

Offices will be half empty

More than half (60%) of employees will work from home within the next  decade. Super fast connectivity brings the working from home revolution closer.

Welcome back to the third in the series which help you consider the key elements of your staff absence system.

So far, areas covered include company structure and working patterns.

This post will look at the following:

• Importance of the self-service element
• Admin tools

Self-service element

Empowering employees and managers: self-service gives them the power and convenience to book their own absence and sicknesses.

Saving admin time: this is the key and indispensable function that the self-service element of any system offers. Who wants to re-enter data that’s been passed from person to person?

Eliminating errors: as good as we are as humans in handling data, we ain’t perfect. Sometimes, we might slip up and re-enter something wrongly. It’s only natural. But this can have significant effects in the future. Is it worth the risk?

It’s key to note that often, HRIS absence modules suffer from a lack of self-service portals for employees and managers. Thus – little admin time is saved regarding data entry or handling of staff queries.

A more focussed system is likely to understand the benefits associated with the self-service element; thus offers it as a key feature. So, that’s definitely something worth looking out for!

Admin tools

Often difficult to compare without demo’ing each system.

Speaking from knowledge of our own online system, e-days, the admin tools aim to minimise the time spent completing “adds, moves and changes” to staff absence.

It’ll do this through a number of means:

• Bulk Update – this allows an administrator to update a number of users/groups at once to save time
• Bulk Booking – this allows an administrator to book absences on behalf of a number of staff at once e.g. booking holidays for select departments over the Christmas period
• Search and Filter tools which are available in many places – this allows administrators to identify certain users/types of users easily

Next time…

We’re nearing the end of the series, but there are a few more important factors to consider when selecting your system for managing staff absence:

• Cost
• On-going development

It’s time to hear, what we consider to be, the latest and greatest HR and staff absence news.

As always, click on the links to find out more from various sources around the web…

Strike action absenteeism hits levels last seen in Thatcher years

Two national days of co-ordinated public sector strike action in the UK last year have contributed to the highest level of working days lost to industrial action since 1990. Working days lost to industrial action rose to 1.4 million, involving more than 1.5 million workers who took part in industrial action last year.

‘Sickies’ to become much harder to take, thanks to latest technologies

More than a third of staff think that ‘pulling a sickie’ will get more difficult as technology improves a boss’s ability to keep an eye on their employees. Are we destined for an Orwellian world?

Flexible working during the Olympics: a legal opinion

Top tips and an overview of the legal considerations for flexible working plans during the Olympics, from Laura Evans, employment lawyer at Fox Williams LLP.

Last time, it was highlighted how important the system you use to manage absence information is.

This post will focus on two elements that should be considered when selecting your system:

• Company structure
• Working patterns

Company structure

Probably more applicable to larger and more complex organisations. Nonetheless, an important consideration to all companies.

You don’t want an inflexible system that doesn’t perform to your needs, do you?

It’s easy to naively think that a staff absence system is a staff absence system; it doesn’t really matter which you have.

But really you want a system that will seamlessly integrate with your real-world organisational structure. Thus, functionality is key; the greater the functionality, the greater the flexibility which ensures this integration.

Our customers frequently identify that their HRIS absence modules are not flexible enough to cope with their complex organisational structures. Compromises have to be made and so inefficiencies of staff absence management processes come to light.

More focussed systems encompass the functionality to manage this, as they are skilled at reflecting real-life structures. Take e-days for example; the system has:

1. Permission-based access – thus there are different levels of access for different user types
2. Many independent ‘view’ options for Staff Records, Reports and Calendar
3. Groups tool – allows you to configure customised groups so that bulk actions can be applied to a select group of users

Working patterns

Quite often companies won’t have standardised hours throughout their various departments. Or perhaps, consider part-time members of staff and non-standard working hours; for example, longer night shifts.

The point of adopting an absence management system is to make HR’s life easier and introduce more efficient processes. But, in a similar vein to company structure, if the system you use isn’t flexible enough to cater for various working patterns, then problems arise. Problems include longer time spent on admin and inaccurate recordings of data which can lead to bigger issues in the future.

Again, our system can be used to demonstrate how these problems can be avoided. e-days can accurately reflect non-standard and/or part-time working patterns, whether recorded in hours or days:

1. Ensures holiday entitlements are calculated correctly when bookings are made (without manual intervention)
2. Ensures employee working patterns and related absences are displayed correctly in the shared calendars

Next time we’ll look at why the following are important considerations when selecting your staff absence management system:

• Self-service element
• Admin tools

Thus – the system you use to record and manage your staff absence is of paramount importance. Give it thorough consideration.

A variety of absence management systems are available to companies; paper-based, spreadsheet, desktop-based systems, online systems and wider HR systems. However – this series will focus on the latter: online and wider HR systems.

Many wider HR systems exist which have a built-in absence management module. Such systems cover other HR aspects like clocking in systems and payroll.

For some, the function provided by these systems may be sufficient. But for many, it won’t be. To demonstrate this, at e-days we have a track record of corporate customers approaching us because they’ve discovered limitations with their HR systems.

You may think: With a wider offering, a larger HR system is a better option. But is it really?

To larger HR systems, staff absence is one module out of many. The effectiveness of managing your company’s staff absence may be compromised by it simply being a module.

Staff absence management systems – take our software solution e-days for example – consider staff absence as their primary focus. They are much more flexible when it comes to managing absence. Say, for example, you have complex working patterns in your organisation – these absence-focussed systems are likely to be much more capable in managing absence in line with these patterns, whereas a larger HR system may not have the functionality to adequately cope.

That breaks me nicely into this series which considers why managing staff absence separately from wider HR may be of benefit to your organisation.

Some interesting arguments and evaluation points in the following topic areas will be visited in this series:

• Company structure
• Working patterns
• Self-service
• Admin tools
• Cost
• On-going development

Until next time…