Managing Absence - Assignment Example

116080 REPORT TO MS. PENNY FINCH, THE MANAGING DIRECTOR STEAMY WINDOWS. ISSUE: EMPLOYEE ABSENTEEISM This report will focus on the employee absenteeism prevailing at present in our Company. Containing and managing uninformed and unforeseen absences had been difficult for not only for us, but also for all small and big companies. Even in public, private, voluntary sectors, managers have to deal with very frequent staff absences. It is a known fact that employee absence results in delays and mismanagement of work, and in overall inefficiency. It also results in financial loss because of paying overtime wages, or paying to the ill trained, but expensive agency workers and to all those who could come on a short notice to fill in the gap. This leads to poor and staggered service to customers, as agency employees, being untrained and raw, could never do justice to customers without bungling or making glaring mistakes. Problem of delayed service is very common and Line managers have to deal with unpleasant customer complaints, which sometimes, run for days and months, causing immense man-hour loss over trivia. If not attended sincerely and find suitable solutions, Company will lose the carefully nurtured image and goodwill in the market, not to mention facing the unpleasant and enraged reactions from the customers. Temporary staff is unsuitable for another reason that it needs more guidance and managers have to frequently accompany them to see that serious errors do not occur. This naturally results in distraction and wastage of managers' precious working time. Recruitment and staff turnover of the Company in recent years has become noticeably frequent and this is financially undesirable1. It is a matter of serious concern that unforeseen absences are creating major problems to management and managers and hence, are unpleasant to the image of the Company. The gravity of the situation is acute as absenteeism can result in service failures, recovery actions, implications etc. There are instances when Company was even drawn into unpleasant legal battles and this shows that prevention and solution both are immediately needed. Managing absence and its effect on productivity and efficiency is no small concern, and it is desirable to get practical advice to deal with long and short-term absences, ill health and absence resulting from working stress. It is essential to assess the damage to Company and inconvenience to managers who are forced to reorganise the entire group to set it rolling. Costs of frequent re-organisations cannot be ignored either. The downward trend in Company performance is creating an unhealthy atmosphere2. Reasons and excuses of sickness should be considered against the real sickness, manager bullying, children responsibility, exhaustion, depression, old relatives and their responsibility, their hospitalisation, sickness of tiny children and partner or husband etc. Handling absenteeism with professional help and on the basis of research already done is essential. Diagnosing problems, identifying weak spots, controlling systems and spotting training requirements for heads of department, line managers and team managers on how to deal with persistent absentees is important. Consulting employment law consultants and human resource professionals and frequent meetings with employee relations officers is another form of tackling this evil. In house legal advisers should be consulted for further actions against the absentees. Possibilities of future damage repair like in-house training; continuing professional development focussed on developing the employee's full potential, encouraging interactions, advising on employment law issues and practical law issues could guide strategy mapping. This will also involve line management solutions, return to work interviews, and frequent monitoring. It is better to involve employee work commitment, peer pressure, and medical opinion etc. and arrive at a decision after going through every aspect of absenteeism including from the individual's point of view. No doubt, Company has to deal with this problem firmly, but with compassion and sympathy keeping all legal and humanitarian aspects in mind. The long-term absence like sickness or maternity leave and how to manage it have to be dealt with separately according to rules and regulations. The necessity of preparing employee guidelines especially on attendance, depending on issues like reporting, applying for leave, various Company procedures, medical opinion etc. have to be tied up in the proper perspective, giving enough leeway to employees, without harming Company work much. Here, disabled employees perhaps have to be considered with extra care and concern. Circumstances leading to unpleasant termination of the employee should be avoided as far as possible. But if it becomes absolutely necessary, it should include many just and unbiased steps; firm ground should be readied, by anticipating the need for termination, best ways of doing so, preparing the proper background, making all necessary records and documentation available. Termination would also lead to legal litigation and Company has to be ready for this final grappling. Legal advisors of the Company have to give their opinion under such instances, so that the management can proceed against hopeless cases. It is noted that 40 million days are lost each year in the United Kingdom due to workplace absenteeism3. Every organisation is finding it tough to manage abrupt changes due to this trend4. Some of the circumstances leading to such dire consequences could be despatched to legal authorities, so that the Industrial tribunals keep these facts in mind while understanding the predicament of Companies, instead of focussing only on the employees compassionately5. It is justified to state that most of the organisations feel that the UK industrial laws are on the side of the employee, erring or non-erring and this results in greater loss for the organisations6. This could be the view of managements; but every Company management, according to various studies, feels the same. We, in our Company are in need of an effective grievance management cell to go through various complaints from managers and from employees7. Theories of absenteeism, like Economic theory, Psychological theory, disability theory, sociological theory and jurisprudential theory can be applied to this problem8. Dilts et all (1985) are of the opinion that companies themselves should be blamed for employee absenteeism, because usually it is the result of short-sighted company policies9. Company has to assess the costs of employee absence by direct costs, sick pay, fringe benefits, overtime for people who filled in, and indirect costs (shutdown, disturbance for customers, lower productivity, administration time wasted in coaching new employees etc., waste of time on absence control, finding new people at short notice, cost of advertisement, recruitment, selection, training, special courses, training on the job, and dealing with the dissatisfaction created by fresh employees). Human Resource Department can find the causes of persisting absence of company employees [1) Job situation,( scope, level, stress, situation, moves, shifts, environment, ) 2) job scope level, design and type, employee cohesion) and submit a report on each of the cases adding details like personal characteristics, tenure and length of services, age, personality, sex, job satisfaction and immediate, unforeseen changes in the life of the employee, like a sudden bereavement and depression from such an event that might continue for a long period, forcing the employee to fade away from working atmosphere. Sometimes the single parents find it difficult to attend important school days and children's ill health. Payment of bills, postal work, making formal complaints to various agencies take a full day for workers. Some strategic solution could be found for these problems either by employing a person or a service agency. Sickness of older parents and children come in the same category and could be reduced drastically by lending a helping hand10. Economic and market conditions, incentive and reward system for the non-absentee employees, overtime pay, personal work ethic, ability to attend, transportation and distance, family responsibilities, weather, day of the week and time of the year have to be assessed. Sometimes it is assumed that the sick pay and national health insurance benefits induce absenteeism instead of decreasing it. A careful consideration will help in arriving at various alternatives that would create the trend towards self-discipline11. Many companies have conducted their own research, in accordance with their working atmosphere. Multiplex, a traditional manufacturing company's research says: "The study of the firm illustrates the value of making absence a central focus. Changing expectations about attendance were one of the main ways in which workers were made aware of demands on them," (Edwards, p.91). Another study was from British railways, where management has changed the system to control the attendance etc. moving up the discipline, and creating a sense of individual involvement12. Another research puts stress on absence management programmes: "Employers should collect use data to identify particular patterns of absence and underlying causes, for example, the management style of a particular manager or an increase in workloads. It can also provide the board with evidence of how absence impacts on the bottom line and why it is worth investing in an effective absence management programme" http://www.cipd.co.uk/subjects/hrpract/absence/absncman.htm Termination should be adapted only in extreme cases that leave no other alternative. Loss of 6440 working days is not a common matter and the employees should be made aware of the seriousness and financial consequences of their actions. Circulars have to be distributed amongst employees to impress upon them the dire necessity of bringing down the absenteeism to 3%. Also there should be a serious attempt to understand the employee's predicament. And to make sure that there is no discrimination especially in the case of disabled persons13. Staggered hours and flexitime are other suggestions, so that people can work according to their convenience. Reduced hours of working or part time work is another alternative similar to job sharing and home working. This will also help Company to extend its opening hours to customers' convenience and will decrease money spent on overtime. Flexi shifts, shift swapping and rostering could be other options. Legislations show a lean towards the absenteeing employee, giving him a benefit of doubt. Unless the Company builds up a considerable amount of instances and records that the employee is misusing his right to take leave, it is almost impossible to retrench such an employee and even if was done with compensation, still employee has the right to approach Unions for help and appeal to the tribunals. Line managers have to be trained in dealing with absence. They have to not only face the consequences of it, but also have to be tactful with such habitual absentees. Their training should guide them how to be sympathetic and firm, while finding out the genuine reason behind it, and also finding alternatives with a kind approach. Practical approach of an UK public sector reads as follows: "Managers are given clear guidance. Each application for discretionary special leave must be dealt with on an individual basis, however. This means that managers may consider past cases but not be governed by them. A 'Can Do' attitude is encouraged in reference to work-life policies. The Toolkit also contains a feedback stencil to ensure it is kept up to date and further good practice can be included14". Business Link, after much research, advises the following steps: 1. Giving clearly written guidelines to employees about leave, absenteeism, entitlement and repercussions. 2. Stating terms of contracts on blatantly misused absenteeism. 3. Recording and monitoring absence accurately. 4. Training line managers how to handle absence. 5. Give alternatives and provide new schemes of flexible work. 6. Checking absence records of employee during recruitment, promotion, and increment. 7. Introducing counselling, healthcare and other plans to prevent it"15. "Absent management is a team effort and should not fall to just one person. Involving relevant parties in the solution wil relieve the burden and highlight that tackling absenteeism is a normal part of working at your organisation, and not a flash-in-the-pan project," as advised by another study16. Suitable action plan has to be laid down to handle absenteeism in the Company and improve attendance17. Decisions have to be taken on priority and it will not be an exaggeration to state that to a large extent, Company's image depends on this improvement. BIBLIOGRAPHY: 1. Dilts, David A., Deitsch, Coarence R. and Paul, Robert J. (1985), Getting Absent Workers Back on the Job, Quorum Books, London. 2. Edwards, Paul and Whitston, Colin (1993), Attending to Work, The management of Attendance and Shopfloor order, Blackwell, Oxford. 3. Huczynski, Andrzej A. And Fitzpatrick, Michael J. (1989), Managing Employee Absence for a Competitive Edge, Pitman, London. 4. Hargreaves, Sarah, Morton, Christina and Taylor, Gill (1998), Managing Absence, Russel House Publishing, Dorset. 5. Termination of employment relationships, European Commission, April 1997. ONLINE SOURCES: 1. http://www.westbury.co.uk/content/forums_bus_manage/employee_absence.html (accessed on 22.3.2006). 2. http://72.14.203.104/searchq=cache:cJlXDaxo5aUJ:www.falconbury.co.uk/dat/pdf/44.pdf+UK+LAWS+OF+ABSENTEEISM&hl=en&gl=uk&ct=clnk&cd=4 3. http://www.employment-solicitors.co.uk/SICKNESS%20ABSENCE-UK%20LAW.htm 4. http://www.personneltoday.com/Articles/2005/01/14/27423/Law+firm+urges+companies+to+use+taxman+to+monitor+sickness.htm 5. http://www.sussexenterprise.co.uk/viewPage.jspid=5054086 6. http://www.management-issues.com/display_page.aspsection=research&id=2898 7. http://www.personneltoday.com/Articles/2003/07/08/19687/Seven+steps+to+managing+absence+in+the+workplace.htm 8. http://www.workingfamilies.org.uk/asp/awards/cs_case_study.aspCSCode=EmpServ 9. http://www.cipd.co.uk/subjects/hrpract/absence/absncman.htm 10. http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/detailtype=RESOURCES&itemId=1073793834 Read More