Staff Absence – How Do I Manage It?

In the UK, staff are absent from work an average of 7.4 days per year and these absences equate to an average cost to your business of £710 per employee per year.

So if your business employs 15 staff and has an ‘average’ absence rate, you could be losing approximately £10,650 per year through staff absence. On top of that you’ve got the additional costs associated with staff absence such as reduced productivity, overtime, poor customer service, all of which could easily take the true cost of staff absence well beyond £1000 per employee per year, provided you don’t incorrectly dismiss someone along the way……………………do that and it could cost you up to an additional £63,000!!

At EmployEasily HR Services Scotland, we specialise in providing HR Services that deliver a positive return on investment for our clients and can design and implement absence and performance management policies and processes that save business time and money.

On behalf of our clients we can deploy a variety of absence interventions to immediately start reducing absence levels. Effective interventions in managing staff absence include:

• Return-to-work interviews (widely regarded as most effective way to reduce absence)
• Disciplinary procedures for unacceptable absence levels
• Use of trigger mechanisms such as the Bradford Factor to review attendance
• Involving trained line managers in absence management
• Restricting sick pay
• Involving occupational health professionals
• Effective wellbeing preventative initiatives

Every business has different needs and so certain interventions will work for some and not others but one thing that is consistent across all businesses is that where suitable procedures are implemented and appropriate actions are taken to manage staff absence, the level of staff absences reduces, often significantly, and this has a direct and positive impact on company costs.

Remember, when implementing and/or updating your HR policies and procedures, be sure to communicate things formally to all of your staff and ensure your managers are trained in how to effectively manage HR issues.

HR Management and UK Employment Contract Law is a proverbial minefield that EmployEasily HR Services are well equipped to navigate through on behalf of our Clients. For a Free, no obligation HR Services quote visit the main EmployEasily website or call us locally from Glasgow on 0141 572 8427 or at a local rate from anywhere else in the UK on 0845 642 2009.

The cost of getting things wrong far outweighs the cost of doing things right!