What is HR absence management?
In 2022, the number of working days lost to sickness or injury rose to a record high of 185.6 million according to the Office for National Statistics. Whether your organisation is an SME with only a handful of employees or a large, global company, making sure there are policies and procedures in place for HR absence management ensures that you can minimise the impact of workplace absences.
What is HR Absence Management?
HR absence management covers the systems put in place by an organisation to request, approve, monitor and analyse employee leave. This includes planned time off like annual leave or medical appointments to unplanned absences through sickness or injury. This can be as basic as a clear tracking procedure for requesting and approving leave through to utilising a full HR absence management software system.
Having good absence management policies and procedures in place and understood by all staff can avoid unnecessary disruption to your organisation. It can also help you keep track of staff absences and identify and address any potential areas of concern. It can give the opportunity to more effectively support your staff with long-term physical and mental health issues or staff that require absences on short notice due to caring for children or relatives.
Does the size of your organisation affect absence management?
For companies with only a handful of employees it might appear that a simple system of requesting and approving absence requests is enough. But even an organisation with less than 50 employees could find it hard to keep track without effective systems in place. Fewer employees could also mean there are less staff to cover any absences, so too many employees off at the same time could place a lot of pressure on other staff members to pick up the additional work.
For large organisations that span a number of locations and time zones, having a centralised absence monitoring system can ensure that the policies and procedures are followed across the company and that HR and leadership teams can gain insight into areas of the business where absence is higher. If every team has their own way of managing absences there is no guarantee that the same procedures are being followed and you lose the opportunity to get a holistic look at employee absence across the company.
How can you manage workplace absence effectively?
Poor absence management can leave organisations short-staffed, place additional stress on other members of staff to manage the workload, impact workflow and deadlines and can come at a huge cost to businesses. On average for a business with 1,000 employees, staff absences can cost around £1.75 million per year.
Having clear policies for short and long-term absences can help to make sure everyone understands the correct procedures to follow. These policies need to be clear and address any potential concerns or queries staff may have and should also include procedures for management to follow. Our blog post “5 tips for absence management best practice” has lots of practical advice to help you embed good employee absence management practices in your organisation.
Having an HR absence management system in place can help your organisation to monitor staff absences simply. The data that effective absence management provides is incredibly useful for understanding your company culture and overall wellbeing.
For instance, an individual or team displaying higher than average levels of sickness could indict a deeper issue. Is the staff member or team in question under a lot of stress? Have they always had a high level of absence, or did it start when the leadership for that team changed? Analysing the data that absence management software can provide can help us to identify potential issues and support staff to manage and overcome them effectively.
