Approaches to Reduce Absenteeism - Essay Example

? Managing People Introduction Absenteeism at work place has long term and short term implication on a company in monetary terms and labour force and there reducing workforce absenteeism is beneficial to the company (Ferguson 2011). Absenteeism can also be in form of stressed up employees, irregular work allocation and low quality services. Absenteeism cannot be fully eliminated due to unavoidable circumstances such as sickness and a manager should to have equilibrium between supporting employees with legitimate reasons of absenteeism and his efforts to have full attendance (Fisher n.y). An organisation should therefore strive to reduce constant absenteeism that has direct and indirect negative impacts. Most companies are now focusing on the proactive ways of checking and reducing absenteeism by indentifying and dealing with causes of non-attendance rather than focusing on the absenteeism as a negative entity (Coughlan 2004, P.5). The moist common causes of absenteeism are related to sickness and other genuine reasons though in some cases employees may fail to show up at work place without a genuine reason due to lack of motivation, bullying, personal issues and stress. A company should therefore focus on addressing the cause of absenteeism rather than completely eliminating absenteeism. Keenly addressing workers absences will help to make a major variation to the absence intensity currently and in future. The proactive ways helps to reduce employee’s absence as well as creating conducive working conditions that helps to increase production and staff retention. This paper will critically analyse proactive approaches in reducing absenteeism. Approaches to reduce absenteeism Most companies are focusing on reducing absenteeism in their through proper proactive approaches that also helps to improve employees’ services delivery. The human resources management can adopt three broad steps in their management activities to achieve minimum absenteeism as follows (Devanna at el 1981, P. 53). First is the planning level that involves objectives setting along with guidelines formulation to form a strategic plan. This helps to establish long term goals of the organisation in relation to its missions, vision, strategies and available resources. The second step is the administration level that helps to allocate resources to implement the set rules, regulations and policies to achieve the organisational goals (Devanna at el 1981, P. 53). The require recourses may include time, employees, funds, information and other parameters stated in the strategic plan. And finally the implementation level that involves the day to day running of the organisation by the management that brings together all departments in the organisation to allow smooth learning of the organisation which is the overall goal of reducing absenteeism. To effectively reduce absenteeism the company must assess the current situation; come up with the desired situation and the plan to achieve the future situation. A company can adopt several proactive methods to anticipate reduce absenteeism in workplace as follows. Recruitment A company should lay a strongly highlighting of the significance of consistent turnout to work in the organisation from the recruitment stages. The interview should ask questions aimed at determining the applicants’ attitude towards chronic absenteeism depending on the organisational goals (Liste n.y.) and if possible the applicant can be asked to show his attendance record from the previous employer. The employer should seek to know personal traits that can increase chances of absenteeism without genuine reasons such as personal honesty, commitment to work, truthfulness and personal integrity (Salisbury 2010). According to Morgan (2012), some of the company may concentrate on a policing and implementing of principles set to ensure full attendance rather than developing a culture of consistence in attendance of employees. Developing a civilized and constructive attendance in an organisation starts with recruitment process that ensures new employees have a self motivation to come to work for the appropriate reasons (Morgan 2012). This is a cost effective way to reduce absenteeism since it’s implemented at the beginning of the employment contract and helps to develop a positive culture of the new employee. However the employee may feel discriminated if similar principles are not used on other older employees and with time the employee will fit in the status quo. Therefore this approaches to be effective it requires equal treatment of all employees. Leadership strategy Manager can influence turnout patters of the employees (Ramey 2012) and the manager needs to communicate to his employees what is regarded as absenteeism (Mayfield and Mayfield M. 2009). The company’s management team has a responsibility of creating a favourable working condition that motivates employees to arrive at work and work towards organisational goals (Ramey 2012). There is a relationship between work tensions that is mental and physical well being on the employees and absenteeism (Culbertson 2009, P. 78). The management should strive to minimise the stress and motivates its employees. The motivational strategy may include rewards or bonus for the compliance staffs in accordance to the attendance requirements which are set by the company. The manager can also tie their endorsement for promotion with performance as well as the attendance since supervisory positions requires enforcement of attendance policies which should be learned and practised in early stages of the career. The manager should also ensure well being of his employees by understanding their differences and support them to fit well in the company as well as establish several well being programmes such as wellbeing teaching at the workplace, team building activities, provide workers with medical covers as well as other professional injuries benefits, allow reasonable off-days, counselling sessions and trainings on personal and professional growth (Fisher n.y). A company that is willing ton invest in their employee shows commitment and in turn employees are committed to work and strive to great achievements. Non-committed workers may skip work to escape negative feelings they have towards the company (De Reuver and van Woerkom 2010). Less satisfied workers waste time in their work place by being late at work and after periodic breaks (Hausknecht at el 2008, P.1227) This approach is appropriate since employees feel appreciated by the company, helps to increase individual productivity as well as increasing rate of staff retention. It also helps to minimise cost of absenteeism which include direct and indirect costs as well as services delivery. However is a strategy that requires a lot of investment in monetary terms as well as time and can only be a long term strategy that requires involvement of other departments in the company such as finance, logistics and administration. It involves formulation of the policies, implementation and continues review. Rewards Absence from work is costly to the employees in terms of funds, loss of man power and productivity. According to Mashburn-Lee (2012), the cost of absenteeism is about a third of the total cost of payroll and its necessary to ensure that employee are present at work or resume duties after the specified break. To minimise the massive cost of absenteeism formulate a reward arrangement for the employees with smaller amount of absences (Mashburn-Lee 2012). Using rewards helps to minimises absenteeism as the employees gain for their efforts. The rewards can be in form of bonus in monetary terms or gifts, recognition in staff and management meetings, promotions to superior positions. A company will have different types of employees in regard to work attendance that is with poor attendance, moderate attendance and perfect attendance (Mona at el 1996). Most rewards policies work well for the middle group. Mostly the poor attendance group will prefer to spend time away from work rather than be rewarded while the few with perfect attendance do not need the cash rewards but prefer nonmonetary rewards. In fact most employees with perfect attendance do not spend their sick leave days and they loose they loose them when time lapses (Mona at el 1996). Reward are considered as the best method to control absenteeism since they motivates the employees directly as well as the company however caution is required in recording and evaluation since it can be easily be used in corrupt deals which can be very expensive for the company. In some cases the monetary rewards have not been effective in and nonmonetary rewards may not be quantified (Mona at el 1996). Management of absenteeism Absenteeism is a major issue in an organisation and cannot be fully eliminated since sometimes an employee may need time off with genuine reasons. The organisation needs to support workers with genuine reasons while dealing with misuse of attendance (Ramey 2012). This can be done through establishment of effective communication channel between the managers and their support staff in order to understand legitimate and illegitimate absenteeism. The manager should establish a proper procedures of communication when report the absence from work for instance reporting to a specific person and filling the form stating clearly the dates, reason of absenteeism and approximate time off to ensure proper recording and analysis in future (Ferguson 2011). If the member of staff is taking time off frequently there is need to discuss the issue which may be work related therefore improving work associations, reduce work turn off and boost employees morale. The manager should conduct following leave discussion (CIPD 2010, P. 3) despite the duration of leave and when necessary take punitive actions meant for illegitimate absence. The manager must establish leniency and allow dialogue with the employees since there is to evaluate the setback properly to understand where to apply punitive or strict methods to control absenteeism. The human resources departments can reduceSkiving duties can be eliminated by the company’s administration assurance to promote good working condition, gain trust from employees, and back to employments consultations. The company’s commitment should aim at implementing administration policies and principles that help to reduce absence at work while ensuring there is dialogue, communication and clear policies between managers and their staff. This is an effective way to lower absenteeism in short-term especially the unnecessary one with the aim of gathering data and findings to help establish a long term strategy. This method has also been effective since it necessitate accountability of the employees and proper tracking of the absenteeism. However, this approach can increase chances of absenteeism in another aspect. For instance, penalties and enforcement of punishments in single nature of non attendance may to prompt different reasons for absent from work while relaxed policies suggest a relaxed custom in relation to non-attendance. This strategy may therefore be seen as discriminative and not effective in the long run (Cascio 2006, P. 54). Conclusion Workplace absenteeism is costly for any company both directly and indirectly in public or private sector. It is caused by psychological stress, physical factors, illness, discrimination at work place, low motivation, poor management and family issues. Some of these reasons are genuine while others are not genuine. Due to the genuine reason, employers should strive to minimise absenteeism by supporting employees with legitimate reasons while discouraging recurrent illegitimate absence by putting up mitigating organisational strategies. The company should evaluate their current situation and set goals which must be achieved in a specific period of time in regards to the future desired state. The human resources management should involve all the stake holders in the company such as finance department and administration to ensure proper formulation, implementation and constant review of the policies. These strategies should address the causes of absente, motivates employees by satisfying their needs and support their employees who are going through tough times in their personal life. The strategy should address the current problem while preventing future occurrence of similar or related problems. It’s important for the managers to understand that absenteeism cannot be fully eliminated in any organisation and should always allocate resources to compensate for the genuine absenteeism. The proactive approaches address absenteeism as well as boosting organisational profitability by reducing cost, increasing productivity and proper customer services. Human resources management should be considered as the core aspect of an organisation since the employees determines the level of service delivery and achievement of the organisational goals.     References Cascio, WF 2006, 'The Economic Impact of Employee Behaviors on Organizational Performance', California Management Review, 48, 4, pp. 41-59, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 19 April 2013. CIPD 2010,’ Absence Management survey: Private sector summary. Viewed 19 April 2013. Culbertson, SS 2009, 'Absenteeism: Escaping an Aversive Workplace or Responding to Resulting Illness?', Academy Of Management Perspectives, 23, 1, pp. 77-79, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 20 April 2013. Coughlan, A 2004, ‘Employee Absenteeism: A Guide toManaging Absence’. 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