The Workplace Absence - Report Example

Managing Employee Absence Student Name: Course Code: Institution: Date of Submission: Introduction Employee attendance and consequences of absenteeism in workplaces have long interested organizational researches and practitioners alike. Nonetheless, literature devoted exclusively to the subject has been rare. This has left most organizational managers gambling with the impacts resulting from high rates of employee absence. In light to this, organizations are developing strategies to manage employee absence within their organizations. The main aim of absence management is to improve profitability through maximum productivity and to enable the organization comply with various laws and regulations (Torrington, et al 2011). Most organizations make a lot of efforts to recognize the considerable commitment put into place by all staff in all categories of employment. However, organizations also do appreciate the fact that its employees are not immune to factors that are likely to force them out of duty. Such factors may include sickness among others. Therefore, it calls for companies to have a positive approach to sickness management. This approach must above all be supportive, ensuring that the organization’s employees are treated in a manner that is fair and appropriate, whilst at the same time considering the need for the organization to continue to function effectively. Furthermore, research indicates that all organizations are likely to experience levels of absence due various reasons such as job situation factors, personal factors and attendance factors' (Armstrong, 2006). This paper seeks to assess the importance of absence management procedure and the importance of policy framework for Governing Bodies. It also provides briefly organizations with importance of practical steps on the main objectives aimed at supporting an employee’s return to work. In order to achieve these objectives, organizations should know the importance of managing employee absence from an early stage to avoid further costs suffered by the organization and the employee as well. Types of Employee Absence Employee absence can be categorized in a number of ways such as planned absence, unplanned absence, long-term absence, and short-term absence (Raj, 2010). For the purposes of this study, the importance of managing general absenteeism of any kind is the main key item. In the case of unplanned employee absence, it can be argued out that it comprises absence attributed to the onset of employee sickness and employee time off to attend to other personal issues such as family businesses and emergency medical appointments (Raj, 2010). Additionally, unplanned employee absence is a short-term form of absence. On the other hand, planned employee absence from work comprises absence planned by the organization and the employee as signed in the employment contract or as appears in labor laws. Such absence may include annual leave, maternity leave, paternity leave, religious holidays, career breaks, and time off for training and study among others. Planned employee absence can be long term or short-term. However, any form of absence has some weight of effects and costs towards the production of an organization and therefore, the importance of managing it. Importance of Managing Employee Absence It is widely understood that most organizational management do not understand fully the negative impacts of employee absence from work. However, the existence of formal strategies applied by various organizations to manage employee absence depends mostly on the size and nature of the organizational culture. These formal policies adopted by organizations are instrumental in defining the correct procedures for managing employee absence and therefore reduce costs such as the costs felt from the initial stage of decision-making all the way to the top management. Furthermore, failure to formulate strategies that encourage employee attendance and discourage absence may also increase the rate of absenteeism and thus putting a huge burden on employees present at work (Kate, 2008). It is a commonplace factor that employees support themselves on genuine absenteeism resulting from sickness. However, repeated absences may be of negative impact as it has the likelihood of straining the morale of any team and thus higher chances of creating a negative and sometimes hostile working environment leading to poor employee relations. As an adopted convention, practices that regulate access to time off in most organizations aimed at minimizing the negative impacts of absence had built up informally over time, mostly depending on the sole decisions made by the organization’s top management (Armstrong, 2006). In practice, this implies that the informal practices aimed at reducing absences and maximizing productivity and profitability. Organizational managers understand that few employees attending work may have rough time handling influx of many customers. Employee absences may cause a reduction in time of customer service and thus affecting opportunities to cross-sell other organizational products and poor development of customer relationship (Armstrong, 2006). This will in turn result in customers and suppliers cutting down their services if the organization consistently fails to meet their expectations. However, the use of formal procedures to manage employee absence from work is useful in the sense that they help in the creation of an environment of trust and mutuality within an organization and its stakeholders, creation of compliance with various legislations on employee absence, and to ensure all staff is enlightened on their basic rights. Finally, another importance of employee absence management is its requirement to inform managers and employees within an organization on what was acceptable and what was not acceptable in formulating strategies to absence management (Armstrong, 2006). Organizations also take into concern proper management of employee absence to bring down the costs incurred through hiring and payment of employees hired to replace the absent ones, indirect cost through loss of productivity, and payments made to the absent employees who practically did not participate in production. Without employee attendance system and proper absence management strategies, organizations put themselves at a risk of failure to comply with some critical union agreements and important employee rights stipulated in the government Acts and codes of practice (Bevan, et al 2004). Such rights include maternity, paternity, and disability as prescribed in the Working Time Directive of EU. Therefore, organizations develop employee absence management policies to help the organization realize maximum profitability and to ensure compliance with existing laws and regulations. Armstrong (2011) argues out that most organizations adopt almost similar methods of handling various forms of absences with the common reasons of maintaining productivity and encouraging employee return to work. However, some organizations may apply a different form of arrangement when it feels the strategies be managing employee best suits the organization. However, despite any disparity in absence management strategies across various organizations, many organizations understand the basic reason behind managing employee absence as reducing the costs that an organization can incur throughout the period of absence from work. The Role of Employee in Absence Notification According to Mathis & John (2012), the role of employee in absence notification is one of the most important aspects that help organizations manage absence effectively. On the first day of absence, the employee has the responsibility of notifying the manager or any other designated person. Notification of absence to the manager will allow the manager to make possible arrangements to ensure that productivity does not suffer much from the employee absence. Absence notification will also be a formal communication that will later help the employee avoid any absence punishments agreed upon signing employment contracts. In such a way, both the organization and the employee will avoid the negative impacts of absence (Mathis & John 2012, p. 112). Recording Absence To manage employee absence in a more effective way, organizations need to develop a system of recording absence to keep accurate and reliable records. Line managers have the responsibility of ensuring that cases of employee absence remain recorded and then reported to the senior management in the Human Resource department. It is also the responsibility of the of the management to ensure that the necessary forms such as Notification of Absence and Return to Duty form are in good condition, completed, and submitted to Employment Services on employee return to work (Taylor et al., 2010). Therefore, line managers must communicate regularly with the Employment Service in concern to employee absence. Keeping records is important since if employee absences are not recorded accurately within the organization, not only does it make the calculation of mandatory statistical analysis by the Human Resources Department inaccurate, but it also means that employee absence trends or patterns are difficult to identify, which subsequently jeopardies the entire process of future employee absence management program. In addition, it also brings in difficulty of assessing job-based sicknesses that result in employee seeking leave. Therefore, according to Taylor, et al., (2010), recording employee absence is a vital role of the Human Resource department with the basic reasons of assessing the trends and patterns of employee absences and monitoring job-based illness within an organization. Return to Work Arrangements Martin, (2008) puts more emphasis on return to work arrangements as one of the most important aspect of employee absence management. The essential feature of return to work discussion is that it is informal in its nature and seeks to support employee welfare right from the onset to the last point. Organizations should not consider the cause of absence nor its nature and duration but rather take the necessity and appropriateness of a return to work interview as always a priority for its performance (Martin, 2008). The line manager for the returning employee should conduct this return to work interview and discussion in the earliest opportunity possible but not later than 14 days after return. The aim of the discussion should be to understand the cause of the absence and employee’s willingness to continue with work. Most importantly, the return to work meeting should always focus on taking an interest in the employee’s welfare and the manager should make brief and confidential notes at the meeting, signed by both parties. These notes should remain filed in the employees personnel file as they will be a good source of evidence and a reminder should an issue over attendance of the employee arises again in the future (Bratton & Gold, 2012). However, the manager should be keen to ensure that points recorded and filed are issues or points agreed upon in the meeting by the two parties. Points not agreed upon should not appear in the recorded notes or in the employee’s personal file. Having considered this need, employers find it a crucial aspect of absence management to keep records of employee absence and return to work interview discussions. Conclusion Employee absence in most organizations is a daily occurrence and thus not even one organization is immune to the phenomenon. In most cases, the phenomenon is important as plays a major role in developing a normal and healthy working environment as employees will get time to attend to some family and private issues. However, this statement does not mean that all forms of absences are inevitable and therefore organizations should passively accept them as part of their daily operations. This is evident with employee absence from work bringing in huge impact on the organization. Such negative impacts of employee absence include affecting staff morale, reducing customer satisfaction, minimizing the organization’s quality output, and reducing organization’s general productivity (Taylor, et al., 2010). Whether the absence of the employee is acceptable or planned, incidental, or extended, it carries some serious costs. Salary cost, on costs, costs of temporary replacement staff, total net loss in productivity, and impact on co-workers when summed up together gives the total costs of workplace absence. Finally, organizations are also concerned in addressing the major causes of workplace absence that have proved to be are a range of complex and interrelated factors that alter an employee’s ability to discharge assigned duties as required of them. The creation of an organizational culture whereby employees feel more motivated, committed, and engaged in the organization’s production reduces the rates of employee absence (Bratton & Gold, 2012). It is also worth concluding that having considered the negative impacts of employee absence, organizations and employers find it paramount to have good strategies for employee absence management that include employee responsibility to notify absence, keeping records employee absence, and formulating a return to work arrangement. This is because such strategies will provide room for assessing employee absence for future reference since an organization may need to revise absence management arrangements in the future for effective planning. Reference List Armstrong, M 2006, A Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice, Kogan, London. Armstrong, M 2011, Armstrong’s Handbook of Human Resource Practice, 11th ed. Kogan, London. Page, chapter 30. Bratton, J & Gold, J 2012, Human Resource Management: Theory and Practice, 5th ed. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke. Bevan, S et al 2004, How Employers Manage Absence: Employment Relations Research Series ERRS25, Department of Trade and Industry. Martin, J 2008, Human Resource Management. SAGE, London. Kate R, 2008, Off the Sick List! How to Turn Employee Absence into Attendance, MX Publishing, Sydney. Raj, K 2010, Human Resource Management: Strategic Analysis Text and Cases.I. K. International Pvt Ltd, New Delhi. Mathis, L & John J 2012, Human Resource Management: Essential Perspectives, Cengage Learning, Boulevard. Taylor, P et al 2010, Too sick to go to work– reformulating the agenda on sickness absence, Industrial Relations Journal, vol. 41, no. 4, pp.270-280. Torrington, D et al 2011, Human Resource Management, 8th ed. FT Prentice Hall, Harlow. Read More