Top Tips to Prevent High Absenteeism

Staff absence costs companies money. In fact in 2009, the CBI estimated that the cost of UK workplace absence was nearly £17bn.

Now, here’s the burning question. How on earth do you reduce absenteeism within your company?

Tackling absenteeism within any company can be a difficult task. Some is avoidable. Some isn’t.  You’re never going to be able to completely eliminate it – That’s a fact. But there are certainly measures you can put in place to reduce it.

One thing to note though: Every company is different. Absenteeism can be caused by a variety of elements. These elements will determine the preventative measures that you should put into place.

“Absenteeism rates depend on underlying issues. You need to find out what these are!”

To understand how to tackle absenteeism, it is important to first understand what the root causes of staff absence is.

What are the causes of staff absence?

The most common causes of absenteeism are as follows:

• Mental health issues
  • For example; anxiety, stress, depression
• Physical health issues
  • For example; cold, flu
• Working environment
  • For example; lack of communication, non-family-friendly policies

How do I reduce staff absence?

Physical health issues

Remember – many illnesses develop from the workplace. It may seem obvious, but promoting hygiene is a good start. Encourage hand-washing. Provide hand sanitizer. Little things like this can make a big difference!

Making available a company-wide health audit may be another option – also a preventative measure.

Obviously, once an employee is ill, you cannot prevent absenteeism.

Have a sensible policy. You don’t want the illness to spread. So, encourage the employee to remain away from your workplace until they have fully recovered.

Mental health issues

Address this! Why? Because stress and anxiety is an increasing problem in the workplace.

It may be caused from inside the workplace e.g. excessive workloads. Or outside the workplace e.g. non-family-friendly policies. Either way, it’s affecting your company.

“A direct consequence of a stressed employee is an absent employee!”

So, what can you do?

Provide an employee assistance programme. Counselling and mentoring your employees can prove very rewarding.

Face-to-face counselling is one option – a dedicated counsellor to look after employees with any issues. This may only be possible within large companies.

In smaller companies, telephone counselling can be equally as effective. Even if it is outsourced.

The initial cost will be worth it. In the long run, giving your employees this option will save you money.

Working environment

There are many factors within this category such as:

• Repetitive and monotonous job roles
• Lack of communication
• Non-family-friendly policies

Repetitive job roles can lead to employees becoming de-motivated.

Empowering them can combat this problem. Rotating their job roles. Giving them more responsibility. Asking for their input. These are just a few ways to make employees feel more valued and content within their role.

Lack of communication between managers and subordinates is a common problem.

Training managers to engage more with their direct employees is a good start. Building trusting and supportive relationships will give employees a ‘voice’ and help them feel more involved.

Arrange a regular meeting between managers and staff to allow them to air any issues. This may only be once a month. But it will improve communication channels – and with employees being happier, it will directly impact on absenteeism.

Inevitably, there will be times when your employees stay at home due to family problems.

“Work and home life often conflict. After all, we’re all only human!”

If possible, introduce some family-friendly policies.

Schemes like flexi-time can help with work-life balance. Employees are able to better fit work around their home life and vise versa.

For those that want to go one step further, workplace crèche is a possibility.

So, what do I do now?

Well, consider a few things before you implement any of the above.

First, analyse the working environment of your employees. This will give you a better understanding of how they feel.

Second, use this research to identify any underlying issues that may be a cause of staff absence.

And finally, use this guide to begin planning your strategy to combat absenteeism.

I hope u found this article useful – feel free to leave any comments!